Calendar of Events for Nano Writers!
May. 6th, 2009 05:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyseishou posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
nano_writersSome quick facts: NaNoWriMo begins on November 1, 2009. So that means that we have almost six months to cast about the murky depths of our collective imaginations, call out the questionable characters we find there, and create for our darlings a whole new world of trouble.
Or at least talk about it.
Six months. That’s the better part of 24 weeks or more precisely, 178 days. How best shall we spend those months, weeks and days?
So without further ado… for your perusal and review…
MAY
Those dreary vows
that ev'ryone makes,
Ev'ryone breaks.
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes!
The lusty month of May!
Lerner and Lowe
Blue Writers: spotlight on Getting Started
Week: 5/11 – 16
Discussions and challenges about setting goals and finding the time and place to write 50,000 words
Week: 5/18 – 23
Wherein we shall speak of the world of ideas – where to find them, how to cultivate them and how to feed 'em.
Week: 5/25 – 30
“You say you know what kind of genre you like to play around with,” she said, all eyes and legs and smoky barbecue voice, the kind that spills out slow, honey and spice.
Make that spice with a bite.
“Have you ever tried doing it with a genre a little out of your comfort zone?” And there it was.
Purple Authors: Conflict and Scenes
Week: 5/11 – 16
Conflict - What is conflict and why we need it. Inner versus external conflict. How conflict builds suspense. The conflict test (does your story idea pass the test?)
Week: 5/25 – 30
Scenes - Structure. Sequence. Transitions. Goals. We’ll talk about it all.
JUNE
He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded.
William Shakespeare
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on Characters and Characterization.
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about Description and Dialogue.
JULY
Many public-school children seem to know only two dates - 1492 and 4th of July;
and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.
Mark Twain
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on PLOT (it’s not a dirty word).
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the First Page (beginnings - how to hook and keep hold of your readers) and the Last Page (what happens after the climatic scene through to “the end”).
AUGUST
Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.
Diane Ackerman
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on Settings and World Building
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the Middle (and how to keep it from sagging) and The Big Climax (what, how, and why).
SEPTEMBER
My favorite poem is the one that starts 'Thirty days hath September'
because it actually tells you something.
Groucho Marx
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on how to build and keep up the Momentum in your writing and what to do about Writer’s Block.
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the Point of View and Theme.
OCTOBER
In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.
Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden, 1905
For all Blue Writers and Purple Authors, this is where we put it all together. We will gather together our index cards and check in with our characters one last time before the race begins on November 1.
And for the lazy writers among us, there will be a four-week crash course covering most of what we’ve discussed and hashed out and built up over past five months because no Nano Writer gets left behind!
And now for how the weekly schedule will run…
Generally, on a Monday, the topic will be announced and a relevant question for discussion will be posted. This will be followed on Tuesday (or later, depending on interest generated by discussion) by a suggested writing activity which will close by the weekend so that we may enjoy “Free For All” Friday and tally word counts for our Wordy Wall club members (more on that later).
Then, as they say, rinse and repeat.
So, what do you think?
Weekly schedules have only been set up for May but more detailed dates will be posted before the month in question unfolds. That way we can see how things move along and adjust accordingly.
But what about the contests?
Sometime during the month (the exact date will be a surprise), a just-for-fun contest will be announced: Messiest Writing Desk, Playlists for Wordsmiths, Inner Critic Mascots, Judge-a-Book-by-its-Cover…
And now it’s your turn Nano Writer! Have we missed a writing topic that is near and dear to your heart? Does the schedule look overly ambitious or too simplistic to be useful? What do you really think? Let us know in the comments below so that we can make this community work for all our Nano Writers! Let’s cross that 50K finish line together! Fight-o!
Or at least talk about it.
Six months. That’s the better part of 24 weeks or more precisely, 178 days. How best shall we spend those months, weeks and days?
So without further ado… for your perusal and review…
Those dreary vows
that ev'ryone makes,
Ev'ryone breaks.
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes!
The lusty month of May!
Lerner and Lowe
Blue Writers: spotlight on Getting Started
Week: 5/11 – 16
Discussions and challenges about setting goals and finding the time and place to write 50,000 words
Week: 5/18 – 23
Wherein we shall speak of the world of ideas – where to find them, how to cultivate them and how to feed 'em.
Week: 5/25 – 30
“You say you know what kind of genre you like to play around with,” she said, all eyes and legs and smoky barbecue voice, the kind that spills out slow, honey and spice.
Make that spice with a bite.
“Have you ever tried doing it with a genre a little out of your comfort zone?” And there it was.
Purple Authors: Conflict and Scenes
Week: 5/11 – 16
Conflict - What is conflict and why we need it. Inner versus external conflict. How conflict builds suspense. The conflict test (does your story idea pass the test?)
Week: 5/25 – 30
Scenes - Structure. Sequence. Transitions. Goals. We’ll talk about it all.
He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded.
William Shakespeare
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on Characters and Characterization.
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about Description and Dialogue.
Many public-school children seem to know only two dates - 1492 and 4th of July;
and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.
Mark Twain
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on PLOT (it’s not a dirty word).
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the First Page (beginnings - how to hook and keep hold of your readers) and the Last Page (what happens after the climatic scene through to “the end”).
Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.
Diane Ackerman
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on Settings and World Building
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the Middle (and how to keep it from sagging) and The Big Climax (what, how, and why).
My favorite poem is the one that starts 'Thirty days hath September'
because it actually tells you something.
Groucho Marx
Blue Writers: month long spotlight on how to build and keep up the Momentum in your writing and what to do about Writer’s Block.
Purple Authors: weekly discussions about the Point of View and Theme.
In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.
Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden, 1905
For all Blue Writers and Purple Authors, this is where we put it all together. We will gather together our index cards and check in with our characters one last time before the race begins on November 1.
And for the lazy writers among us, there will be a four-week crash course covering most of what we’ve discussed and hashed out and built up over past five months because no Nano Writer gets left behind!
And now for how the weekly schedule will run…
Generally, on a Monday, the topic will be announced and a relevant question for discussion will be posted. This will be followed on Tuesday (or later, depending on interest generated by discussion) by a suggested writing activity which will close by the weekend so that we may enjoy “Free For All” Friday and tally word counts for our Wordy Wall club members (more on that later).
Then, as they say, rinse and repeat.
So, what do you think?
Weekly schedules have only been set up for May but more detailed dates will be posted before the month in question unfolds. That way we can see how things move along and adjust accordingly.
But what about the contests?
Sometime during the month (the exact date will be a surprise), a just-for-fun contest will be announced: Messiest Writing Desk, Playlists for Wordsmiths, Inner Critic Mascots, Judge-a-Book-by-its-Cover…
And now it’s your turn Nano Writer! Have we missed a writing topic that is near and dear to your heart? Does the schedule look overly ambitious or too simplistic to be useful? What do you really think? Let us know in the comments below so that we can make this community work for all our Nano Writers! Let’s cross that 50K finish line together! Fight-o!
