November is National Novel Writing Month! Who will join me and write a novel? :-)
The goal is to write one 50,000-word novel between November 1st and November 30th, midnight, no matter how crappy it is. I think this is fun! And it's less than 2,000 words a day. Should be doable.
Have you ever dreamed of writing a novel and never done it? Join me!
Do you love writing but think you don't do it good enough yet to write a novel? Join me!
Do you have no clue what you could write about but love the idea? Join me!!!
You can do it. :-) This is a wonderful opportunity to let go of expectations and just do it.
If you want to connect with me on the NaNoWriMo site, my login there is Schweinerei. This is German and means "mess", "rascality" or "swinishness". I like that word, it's so cute. :-)
I have no clue what I will write about. It will probably be a crime novel, with a very wicked murderer and a very smart detective. Or just a few of the fantasies I have in my head. Except for the sexual ones maybe. Or should I add them too?
I also haven't decided which language I'm going to write in. Víkþórr and I had the idea of writing a multilingual novel together, mixing all kinds of languages. For example,
And when Óláfr saw what ???? had done, he said: «Þú skalt deyja, því at þú hefir stolit vínbér frá mér!». ???? answered: ????????????.
I think that's a very cool idea, even though nobody else would understand it of course. However, my intuition is telling me to write alone this time. I haven't made up my mind about the language yet.
This language mixing thing certainly is interesting! We do that often. I feel like writing a blog post about it. (Edit: I did! It is here.)
So - will you write a novel next month? :-)
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta writing. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta writing. Mostrar todas las entradas
viernes, 16 de octubre de 2009
miércoles, 14 de octubre de 2009
First Adjective Story
Víkþórr and I wrote our first common adjective story a couple months ago. We chose to write it in English, since English is the language that the sum of us masters best. ;-)
In case you don’t know what an adjective story is, the principle is simple: one person writes a story, but leaves all adjectives and adverbs blank. Another person, who doesn’t know the story, randomly chooses lots of adjectives and adverbs. Those get inserted in the first person’s story in the exact order they were submitted in by the second person. The result is... funny. :-)
Víkþórr wrote the story and I gave him the adjectives and adverbs. I love our first common creation! Here it is:
Once upon a time there were some enthusiastic goblins living playfully at a flat farm. Enormous goblins as they were, they would often help out without the sexy farmer or his sarcastic wife noticing them. They would only do so if they were given a rhythmic bowl of flying porridge on the Yule* evening of every year, however.
One year, the farmer’s hectic son and his rather sick family were there for Yule celebration, and the son’s delicate wife told her charming daughter to put the porridge secretly in the barn, but she tripped and fell deeply on the way there. Wise as she was, she didn’t want to tell her mother, so she forcefully brought the family’s horny dog and accidentally made him clean up the mess, then put the perfect bowl in the barn.
When the goblins found it, they were drooling. To avenge this, the invisible goblin pissed in the jumping milk tank, and the others ran unilaterally to the basement of the house and pulled out all the fake electrical devices, then rudely cut the power supply. They let loose the sheep and the cows, and exactly screwed the wheels off of the farmer’s undead car and his son’s purple one.
The humans had a fucking time gathering the angry herd, and the goblins mistakenly went into the the house to eat the humans’ porridge. When the humans strongly came back in, the brilliant daughter gently told them what had happened. From his smelly hole in the attic, the attic goblin heard what they said, and when the humans, still without electricity, went to bed, he skilfully sneaked out in the barn and told the annoying goblins there. They were so messy that they decided to fix everything and leave the farm madly. The generous farmer was gross when nobody ate the porridge he put in the barn the following years.
The goblins left for the holy, unimportant forest surrounding the farm. There, they planned to live with the wood goblins. Living in the woods wasn’t for them, though. They found it anxious, in fact. It was so puristic to have snow everywhere. They froze so much that they decided to ask the uptight wood goblin elder for advice. He told them to return to the farm before ending up enlightened. They were too strict, however, and even though the ice started growing from their delighted noses, they ventured into the tedious mountains to try their luck with the mountain and cave goblins, whom most goblins thought were crazy.
Although the caves suited them painfully, they felt giant there. Something lacked in their life. They did, after four years, admit that the wood goblin elder was conscious. They returned to the evil farm, but to their surprise, another goblin family had moved in. They were ferocious, and the goblins fought each other for the right to the farm. The colourful goblins won their lousy home back, and the distracted ones had to move. They were now lame, and intended to stay. All of them agreed that it had been a precise experience, and quickly went to sleep in their now funny barn.
*“Yule” is the English name of the ancient Germanic celebration that was replaced by Christmas to adapt the countries’ traditions to Christianity. Here it’s used in the sense of “Christmas without Christ”. Old Norse: “jól”. Modern Norwegian: “jol”.
Writing this story together with Víkþórr definitely was a precise experience! I’d like to repeat it. Not too often though, or else I could end up enlightened! :D
Anyone else willing to write adjective stories with me? Or with another reader? If some of you send me some stories and others some adjectives and adverbs, I'll publish the results for your delighted noses.
In case you don’t know what an adjective story is, the principle is simple: one person writes a story, but leaves all adjectives and adverbs blank. Another person, who doesn’t know the story, randomly chooses lots of adjectives and adverbs. Those get inserted in the first person’s story in the exact order they were submitted in by the second person. The result is... funny. :-)
Víkþórr wrote the story and I gave him the adjectives and adverbs. I love our first common creation! Here it is:
Once upon a time there were some enthusiastic goblins living playfully at a flat farm. Enormous goblins as they were, they would often help out without the sexy farmer or his sarcastic wife noticing them. They would only do so if they were given a rhythmic bowl of flying porridge on the Yule* evening of every year, however.
One year, the farmer’s hectic son and his rather sick family were there for Yule celebration, and the son’s delicate wife told her charming daughter to put the porridge secretly in the barn, but she tripped and fell deeply on the way there. Wise as she was, she didn’t want to tell her mother, so she forcefully brought the family’s horny dog and accidentally made him clean up the mess, then put the perfect bowl in the barn.
When the goblins found it, they were drooling. To avenge this, the invisible goblin pissed in the jumping milk tank, and the others ran unilaterally to the basement of the house and pulled out all the fake electrical devices, then rudely cut the power supply. They let loose the sheep and the cows, and exactly screwed the wheels off of the farmer’s undead car and his son’s purple one.
The humans had a fucking time gathering the angry herd, and the goblins mistakenly went into the the house to eat the humans’ porridge. When the humans strongly came back in, the brilliant daughter gently told them what had happened. From his smelly hole in the attic, the attic goblin heard what they said, and when the humans, still without electricity, went to bed, he skilfully sneaked out in the barn and told the annoying goblins there. They were so messy that they decided to fix everything and leave the farm madly. The generous farmer was gross when nobody ate the porridge he put in the barn the following years.
The goblins left for the holy, unimportant forest surrounding the farm. There, they planned to live with the wood goblins. Living in the woods wasn’t for them, though. They found it anxious, in fact. It was so puristic to have snow everywhere. They froze so much that they decided to ask the uptight wood goblin elder for advice. He told them to return to the farm before ending up enlightened. They were too strict, however, and even though the ice started growing from their delighted noses, they ventured into the tedious mountains to try their luck with the mountain and cave goblins, whom most goblins thought were crazy.
Although the caves suited them painfully, they felt giant there. Something lacked in their life. They did, after four years, admit that the wood goblin elder was conscious. They returned to the evil farm, but to their surprise, another goblin family had moved in. They were ferocious, and the goblins fought each other for the right to the farm. The colourful goblins won their lousy home back, and the distracted ones had to move. They were now lame, and intended to stay. All of them agreed that it had been a precise experience, and quickly went to sleep in their now funny barn.
*“Yule” is the English name of the ancient Germanic celebration that was replaced by Christmas to adapt the countries’ traditions to Christianity. Here it’s used in the sense of “Christmas without Christ”. Old Norse: “jól”. Modern Norwegian: “jol”.
Writing this story together with Víkþórr definitely was a precise experience! I’d like to repeat it. Not too often though, or else I could end up enlightened! :D
Anyone else willing to write adjective stories with me? Or with another reader? If some of you send me some stories and others some adjectives and adverbs, I'll publish the results for your delighted noses.
jueves, 18 de junio de 2009
New Habit #5 - Blogging every day
"Blogging every day for at least one hour" was my fifth One New Habit a Month Challenge goal. I've had a hard time with this one! The month is over, here's my report.
A new purpose - and a new face - for my blog
Check out my new theme! Isn't it wonderful? I love it.
I'm completely reorganizing the site at the moment, partly because I love change, and partly because as you may know I have decided to merge my blog with my PD Signpost website idea. This blog is not just about my own life anymore. Additionally I want to make it a personal development platform, to share personal development resources and help people solve their problems. Many changes are required to adapt the blog to its new purpose. That's why it's such a mess right now.
I chose entirely new categories and tags, wrote a couple new pages, and a few more are under construction. I also installed many new plugins, especially a series plugin. I want to be able to write series. Only the most recent posts are tagged and categorized for now. I'm far from being done! It's a lot of work.
Challenges I encountered
I've found it difficult to write every day. On some days I feel very talkative and outgoing, have a lot to share and could blog for ten hours straight. On other days, I feel the need to focus on my inner life and have a hard time squeezing any communication out of myself.
What I feel inspired to write about varies as well. It highly depends on my mood, and my mood usually changes before I'm done with one post. As a result, not many posts get published, even though I write a lot, because they're all in various states of unfinishedness.
It doesn't help that my posts tend to be very long. One of my drafts already has 10,000 words, and I wrote only about 1/5 of it. Of course not all drafts are that long. Nevertheless, it takes me hours to write them.
Right now I have 48 drafts and about 200 ideas on paper. There is so much I want to write about. Logically I should be relentlessly blogging like crazy. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
I'm also stuck in analysis paralysis, permanently wondering which post to write next. Like, "To write about X, I first need a post about Y. But to explain Y, I need Z and W. But for W, I need X! Argh." I'm always trying to find the most logical order for my posts. Even when I succeed, there are several "threads" and I don't know which one to begin with. This is turning into a headache!
Will I continue?
Yes.
I just love writing on my blog so much. Doing it every day is an excellent idea. It will force allow me to come up with new solutions. I'll need to find a way to increase my productivity despite of my introversion, scanner personality, overly logical mind and perfectionism!
Sounds like a nice program.
Until now the goal simply was: daily blogging. From now on the new goal is: productive daily blogging!
A new purpose - and a new face - for my blog
Check out my new theme! Isn't it wonderful? I love it.
I'm completely reorganizing the site at the moment, partly because I love change, and partly because as you may know I have decided to merge my blog with my PD Signpost website idea. This blog is not just about my own life anymore. Additionally I want to make it a personal development platform, to share personal development resources and help people solve their problems. Many changes are required to adapt the blog to its new purpose. That's why it's such a mess right now.
I chose entirely new categories and tags, wrote a couple new pages, and a few more are under construction. I also installed many new plugins, especially a series plugin. I want to be able to write series. Only the most recent posts are tagged and categorized for now. I'm far from being done! It's a lot of work.
Challenges I encountered
I've found it difficult to write every day. On some days I feel very talkative and outgoing, have a lot to share and could blog for ten hours straight. On other days, I feel the need to focus on my inner life and have a hard time squeezing any communication out of myself.
What I feel inspired to write about varies as well. It highly depends on my mood, and my mood usually changes before I'm done with one post. As a result, not many posts get published, even though I write a lot, because they're all in various states of unfinishedness.
It doesn't help that my posts tend to be very long. One of my drafts already has 10,000 words, and I wrote only about 1/5 of it. Of course not all drafts are that long. Nevertheless, it takes me hours to write them.
Right now I have 48 drafts and about 200 ideas on paper. There is so much I want to write about. Logically I should be relentlessly blogging like crazy. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
I'm also stuck in analysis paralysis, permanently wondering which post to write next. Like, "To write about X, I first need a post about Y. But to explain Y, I need Z and W. But for W, I need X! Argh." I'm always trying to find the most logical order for my posts. Even when I succeed, there are several "threads" and I don't know which one to begin with. This is turning into a headache!
Will I continue?
Yes.
I just love writing on my blog so much. Doing it every day is an excellent idea. It will force allow me to come up with new solutions. I'll need to find a way to increase my productivity despite of my introversion, scanner personality, overly logical mind and perfectionism!
Sounds like a nice program.
Until now the goal simply was: daily blogging. From now on the new goal is: productive daily blogging!
miércoles, 20 de mayo de 2009
One New Habit a Month Challenge #5: Blogging
There are so many great daily habits that I'd like to adopt. Every month I have a hard time choosing. This time, I let my intuition guide me. It told me that the most appropriate new habit now is "blogging every day for at least one hour".
I'm surprised. There are many other habits which I would find way more important. For example early rising, or learning a foreign language. Actually I never thought of blogging as a potential daily habit! But when I asked my Higher Self which new habit would be most aligned with my goals and purpose now, this is what I got. I have no clue why, but hey, I trust my Higher Self unconditionally, so let's do it!
So I will be blogging for at least one hour every day this month. It doesn't mean that I will publish one post a day. For most of my drafts I will need way more than an hour. But I will be working on it daily.
I'm happy I'll give myself permission to express all the things I have in my head. There is so much I want to write about. Sometimes I even have entire blog posts download into my mind instantly and it's frustrating not to take the time to write them down. And all those unfinished drafts! Time to kick all of the stuff out.
Month 4: developing intuition
The past month was very, very exciting. I'm SO happy I chose to work on my intuition. It was an excellent decision.
I'm still working through Unlock your Intuition by Andrea Hess. The book is fantastic. I'm able to ask yes/no questions to my Higher Self now, and I'm in the process of learning open-ended questions as well. I also signed up for Andrea's six weeks Ignite your Intuition class, which is a slightly different approach, and just as great.
I absolutely love intuitive work. I will definitely continue to do it daily.
I'll write a separate post about it for those interested in psychic and spiritual stuff.
Have a wonderful day! :-)
I'm surprised. There are many other habits which I would find way more important. For example early rising, or learning a foreign language. Actually I never thought of blogging as a potential daily habit! But when I asked my Higher Self which new habit would be most aligned with my goals and purpose now, this is what I got. I have no clue why, but hey, I trust my Higher Self unconditionally, so let's do it!
So I will be blogging for at least one hour every day this month. It doesn't mean that I will publish one post a day. For most of my drafts I will need way more than an hour. But I will be working on it daily.
I'm happy I'll give myself permission to express all the things I have in my head. There is so much I want to write about. Sometimes I even have entire blog posts download into my mind instantly and it's frustrating not to take the time to write them down. And all those unfinished drafts! Time to kick all of the stuff out.
Month 4: developing intuition
The past month was very, very exciting. I'm SO happy I chose to work on my intuition. It was an excellent decision.
I'm still working through Unlock your Intuition by Andrea Hess. The book is fantastic. I'm able to ask yes/no questions to my Higher Self now, and I'm in the process of learning open-ended questions as well. I also signed up for Andrea's six weeks Ignite your Intuition class, which is a slightly different approach, and just as great.
I absolutely love intuitive work. I will definitely continue to do it daily.
I'll write a separate post about it for those interested in psychic and spiritual stuff.
Have a wonderful day! :-)
lunes, 3 de noviembre de 2008
Get Creative in November!
Hi all,
Looks like November is the month of creativity. I'm a bit late with this, but I thought I'd let you know. If you'd like to do something creative this month, here are a few nice opportunities. It's not too late to join!
Join NaNoWriMo
November is the National Novel Writing Month. It should be called InNoWriMo, International Novel Writing Month, though. Every year in November, thousands of people all around the world write a novel.
Everybody can do it, the goal is not to write high-quality prose, it's just to frantically write down whatever pops into your mind as fast as possible, without editing, without trying to be good. You can edit it in December!
If you succeed in producing a 50,000 words first draft by November 30th, midnight, you win.
Of course I signed up :-) I have no clue what I'm going to write about, but I'm sure it's going to be awesome.
If you're interested, have a look at the NaNoWriMo homepage.
Join NaBloPoMo
Similarly, you can go for a 30 days blogging challenge: one blog post a day till November 30th, together with many others. See the NaBloPoMo homepage.
Join AEDM
AEDM is the Art Every Day Month, and it's November, too. If you're neither a writer nor a blogger, but would like to get more creative and to share your creations with others, have a look at the AEDM site.
I really like the idea. It's about all kinds of creative activities, be it painting or music or cooking or crafting christmas tree decorations with toilet paper. Sounds like a lot of fun!
Are you blocked?
In case you
think you can't be creative
have some creative dreams that you don't realize for some reason
just want to get more creative in your daily life
or want to improve your ability to solve problems creatively
I highly recommend The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's an amazing book I'm working through at the moment.
The Artist's Way is a twelve weeks course in discovering or recovering your creativity. It's for blocked artists as well as for all those who just want to be creative. I'll post a review when I'm done with the journey.
So... It's November! Be happy, get creative! :-)
Looks like November is the month of creativity. I'm a bit late with this, but I thought I'd let you know. If you'd like to do something creative this month, here are a few nice opportunities. It's not too late to join!
Join NaNoWriMo
November is the National Novel Writing Month. It should be called InNoWriMo, International Novel Writing Month, though. Every year in November, thousands of people all around the world write a novel.
Everybody can do it, the goal is not to write high-quality prose, it's just to frantically write down whatever pops into your mind as fast as possible, without editing, without trying to be good. You can edit it in December!
If you succeed in producing a 50,000 words first draft by November 30th, midnight, you win.
Of course I signed up :-) I have no clue what I'm going to write about, but I'm sure it's going to be awesome.
If you're interested, have a look at the NaNoWriMo homepage.
Join NaBloPoMo
Similarly, you can go for a 30 days blogging challenge: one blog post a day till November 30th, together with many others. See the NaBloPoMo homepage.
Join AEDM
AEDM is the Art Every Day Month, and it's November, too. If you're neither a writer nor a blogger, but would like to get more creative and to share your creations with others, have a look at the AEDM site.
I really like the idea. It's about all kinds of creative activities, be it painting or music or cooking or crafting christmas tree decorations with toilet paper. Sounds like a lot of fun!
Are you blocked?
In case you
think you can't be creative
have some creative dreams that you don't realize for some reason
just want to get more creative in your daily life
or want to improve your ability to solve problems creatively
I highly recommend The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's an amazing book I'm working through at the moment.
The Artist's Way is a twelve weeks course in discovering or recovering your creativity. It's for blocked artists as well as for all those who just want to be creative. I'll post a review when I'm done with the journey.
So... It's November! Be happy, get creative! :-)
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