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NaNoWriMo 2009

Mario — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:15:58 +0000

NaNoWriMo 2008 – The End

Mario — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:06:32 +0000

The last words are written and counted. The result is uploaded to the official site and we are rewarded with a certificate that says we are one of the thousands of writers who won. Just like last year, this feels good and freeing. The madness has come to an end and many of you writers are considering now if they go ahead and give their story a final touch in the weeks ahead. For me it’s the first time since I wrote 2 and a half book that I don’t going to do this. I come back on this later.

At first I have to talk about a promise I made in my post about the days 20 and 21. I said that I will come back on the reason why I didn’t stop, even though I disliked my story. I keep my promise and here it comes, simple and clear: motivating other people.

I just like to motivate people and help them to get the best out of themself. It’s like watching a seed becoming a plant. And let’s face it: how can I possible say to somebody, whilst joining the same challenge: ‘You can do it! But if you don’t mind I’ll give up myself.’
Could I take myself serious afterwards? No, of course not. So I did it within two weeks and I had never done it without Write or Die. This tool is added to my favorites forever. Please do not misunderstand me. I’ll never have the arrogance to say that there are any NaNoWriMo participants who were in need of my motivation. But just in case, I like to stay commited to this one thing I believe in.

Image via Wikipedia

My novel ‘Dropped’ of this NaNoWriMo is dropped indeed. Why is that? Because of the lack of drama. In the first place the idea was great: a Dutch girl is invited by a friend, who lives in New York and she just know from the Internet. When she arrives she learns that the whole person was just a fake and now she needs to survive in the big foreign City.

Great idea, he? I had figured it out with my friend Ilaria when we where on our way with the Metro from Brooklyn to Manhattan. She had invited me and I came and now we were thinking ‘what if?’. So I had a plot and no problem.

But what made it that difficult? My much to positive memories. In years I was never that impressed like I was when I’ve been in New York in the beginning of this November. I witnessed the big event of an election. I saw things I just knew from the movies. I learned that I can walk into the Metro without a .45 Magnum as recommended by Charles Bronson movies. I learned and saw all this friendly and amazing people.
Here was my problem during writing that story. I wasn’t able to do any harm to the main character who was in New York. The reason are all the things I just mentioned. I just couldn’t mix (even fictional) negative thoughts with alle the positivity I saw during my stay. With this in mind, the spellbinding story was completely destroyed and will be deleted forever.

Rest in peace my NaNo-novel of 2008. Oh yes, by the way, here is the promised dance video:

Until we meet!

Mario

Day 24 of NaNoWriMo 2008 – Waking The Dog

Mario — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:40:48 +0000

I felt that there were two reasons that made my videos on the NaNoWriMo Viddler Group from last year different compared to the videos I uploaded this year so far. This year they miss a little bit of this, as I want to call it, adorable-factor. Last year animals where involved in my video’s all over the place. So for example I took my rabbit Bob hostage and threatened to eat him if I wouldn’t make the 50k in November. Of course no animal was harmed during November 2007 and neither any animal will be harmed this year. I don’t even eat the flesh of rabbits, because I would feel guilty eating a pet. On the other hand there is a chance that they are eaten by me if I’m not aware of it. If they are shredderd through a dish or something. You could call it accidental pet eating or something like that. But again: I don’t eat pet’s. I couldn’t imagine to say to my girlfriend after the dinner: ‘Oh dear, didn’t taste Bob delicious?’

It all began with my cat Upke interrupting my introduction video a couple of days before the start of NaNoWriMo 2007. This was followed by the sisters Gerbill (I’ve got 4 of them) who were digging in their tank in the background whilst shooting one of my wordcount videos. Guess who had more attention, my wordcount or the sisters. Right, my word… the sisters Gerbill. Understandable!

This year I have mixed feelings with NaNoWriMo because I dislike the most important thing of the whole event: my novel. It’s not spellbindig. Every problem is solved far before the story really begins. With other words: my novel is effing (<- no bad slang for someone from a foreign country, isn’t it?) boring. Therefore I take my novel this year much less serious like the one I wrote last year. This gives me kind of a bad feeling, because I feel it isn’t really fair to the people who are as serious with their novels as I was last year. Maybe I’m just a little weird to think so, and the reactions I got on my video of Day 24 so far proof that I am wrong. I am weird but don’t have to feel guilty.

I hope everyone will stay motivated for the last days. Here is my wordcount and animal video of day 24:

See you soon!

Mario

Day 22 and 23 of NaNoWriMo 2008

Mario — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:03:01 +0000

Once in a while you need distractions to become inspired as a writer. That’s why most writers will, at least the writers I know and that I heard of, looking for inspiration whilst visiting events where a selected group of individuals gathered together in a not to big room and take a booze. As my friend Rene always states: ‘A man has to drink, otherwise he will die!’

It was this friend of mine that gave a little party on day 22, because he is leaving the Netherlands for three weeks to go with his wife to a place called Suriname (I don’t know if it’s called like this in other countries, but I know that it is in the North of South America). Rene has his own kind of humor. In most cases he is very funny and that is probably the main reason that I am going once a week to his place to help drinking the beer. I’m doing this now almost every wednesday for thirteen years and it’s still a nice break of the week. In one room of his home he has build a complete bar where we meet. Of course it’s not just Rene and me. It’s a whole club. The club is called VTBAM and this stands for (try to translate) Society To Support Alcohol Abuse (or something like that). This is not to offend people (actually it was) and there are no alcoholists involved. We are just a couple of people breaking the week and laughing a lot.

I always got inspired by people who are going out. You can study every signal they send without noticing it themself and so on. However, in fact this evening I just needed some fun and wanted a boost of endorphine in my brain. That’s what I needed and what I got.
Because I knew that I wouldn’t make a wordcount video at the end of the day that ended eventually at four o’clock in the morning, I made the video at 15.00 and my wordcount was 29222. This wasn’t that bad.

A little surprising to me, when I watched back the following wordcount video, was that I not just improved my typing speed (as described in the video) but als ended the day with 36005 woords. That means that I wrote quite a lot, even thoug I had a party one day before. You could say that every writer who is going to take a boost is right. It’s inspiring from time to time.

Day 20 and 21 of NaNoWriMo

Mario — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:19:59 +0000

There are moments where I think that ‘procrastinating’ is my middle name. Since the middle of October I did not what I had to do. No it wasn’t writing. It was to keep the bookkeeping of my business up to date. I can tell you, this is not very interesting. Kind of boring, but I got used to it. Why didn’t I do it then? Because there are so much things that more interesting and if they are not I make them more interesting. Maybe you know this situations where you have to do something and you suddenly find vacuum cleaning your living room or brushing your hair much more important.

Even though my novel is going in a direction that I am not happy with, I didn’t procrastinate my writing. There is a very good reason for this. A reason that I will explain in a later post. And no, this is not a catchy line I write to get you back here, even though this would be no bad idea, I am really going to explain the reason.

It’s very important to stay motivated during the whole writing process. I alway need a lot of motivation. Partly I get this motivation from motivating other people (I know that sounds a little crazy) and for another big part I got motivated when I feel and notice that people thinking of me. That’s why it made me on day 21 very happy when I received a package from my dear friend Ilaria.

NaNoWriMo Day 19

Mario — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:14:11 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I am amazed by the total of words I write the last days. You remember the post two days ago? Yes, the one where I said that I stopped calculating because it’s kind of distracting and demotivating me. What dit I in this post without being aware of it? Right, I calculated. But this was not for me. It was for the fellow NaNo’s who are maybe procastinating writing out of the same reason: demotivation through calculating. If you continu to calculate that the goal is not reachable, it will be unreachable. Stop doing this. Just do it like I described two day’s ago and you will be amazed too. Even if you don’t have a clue what to write about. It will just pour out of your fingertips. Believe it or not. It doesn’t matter to me.

I think that after I have written I may calculate again. And again it is for demonstration purpose only and it’s no rocket sience but just to show you, that you have plenty of time left, even though you maybe laying behind with more than ten- of fifteenthousand words.

That sounds weird, but it isn’t. When I started today my wordcounter stood on 19306 words. Today, just like yesterday, I had some distractions, like cleaning the rabbit’s cage and surfing the internet to look for virtually nothing. Just like you did. If it wasn’t you, look at somebody behind you. Yes, he was it. But don’t point your finger, as he looks a little bit stranger than you do. However, as a result I started writing pretty late, but I used the NaNo-cult-weapon ‘Write of Die’ that keeps me focused (sorry that I have to repeat myself this often). At the end of the day my wordcount is increased to 23174. That means that I wrote 3868 words today. I am sure that I would not have wrote this amount without the tool. I just have set the goal on 400 words in ten minutes and did this a couple of times. As you see on the number of words, it would be 10 times. You see? In the time of a movie, I wrote at least double as much as I would have wrote without this focusing tool.

I wish you all a good night and promise that I now will shut up about the tool and keep it short and just about the wordcount.

See you next time!

Mario

NaNoWriMo Day 18

Mario — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:36:56 +0000

Today was a pretty tough day to write. No, not the writing was tough, but finding time to fit it in. As I said earlier this last days, I had a appointment with my coach that I couldn’t postpone because it was already postponed. But even though all the distractions today I achieved a new wordcount that I hadn’t consider possible.

I decided to make or a 50k-dance video (if I achieve this goal) or a 50k-downfall video (if I don’t). Though, there will be a video that my vidmo-fellows deserve and I make the promise today that it will come. Be warned.

Now I have to watch a movie for my upcoming wednesday-movie-review-posts, that will start soon. Just like other series I am planning for this growing blog.

See you tommorrow guys and galls

Mario

Day 17 of NaNoWriMo

Mario — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:46:48 +0000

I think besides the ‘Write or Die’ tool one of the best things I’ve done zo far is not to calculate. Because when I calculate how much words I have to write every single day until I meet the 50k goal on November the 30th, I kind of paralize. It’s demotivating. Instead of this I just write as much as I can. Lucky for me in this case is the fact that here is not that much to do. You see, in New York you have more distractions. Distractions in a nice way, don’t misunderstand me. There is always something more important or more interessting to do. That is what I’ve seen.

In one way or the other the tool that all NaNo’s are talking about has made a computergame out of my NaNo-novel. Why? Easy to explain: I always choose to write 400 words in just ten minutes and sometimes I get it and more often I don’t, but it’s a funny challange to do it this way. This is much more spellbinding than playing Pacman online and it has much more result. Most of the time I come above the 350 or near the 350 in ten minutes and I just try it over and over again. If you do this ten times a day, you have spent 100 minutes, what is 1 hour and 40 minutes (the length of a movie), writing your novel. This is not that much time but in the end you have managed to write at least 3500 words. This makes in 10 day’s 35000 words. In other words: it is doable for everyone. Savvy? I am not a magican who can do this. Look at Gamwyn, SantJoi and JustJason who are already reached the 50k mark in the first two weeks of NaNoWriMo 2008.

Alas, tommorrow it will take a little longer before I am able to start writing, because I have an appointment that I already postponed one time and I can’t stay postponing it.

I hope all the participants are staying motivated. Let’s see what the next days bring.

See you soon!

Mario

P.S.: I seriously consider to use the tool for writing my posts.

NaNo Day 16 – Talking to me?

Mario — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:09:16 +0000

Finally day 16 of NaNoWriMo is over and I can’t wait to make my next video public. Just like yesterday it is uploading to Viddler while I am sitting here and write these post. For my followers I hope they don’t read my blog before they saw the video, because my wordcount is shown in the sidebar. I also hope that Ilaria aka swimturtle is not angry that I am further than she is. What I absolutly not want is to demotivare her, as I always think that the thinks I can everybody else can do. Ilaria you will reacht the 50k goal of November. Believe me, believe in yourself. Most of all: have fun during our wordwar that is to follow on TurtleInk.

At first my wordcount goal for today was at least reaching the 8000 words. After reaching it with thanks to ‘Write or Die’, I set a new goal for today. That was breaking the 10.000 words borders. After gaining momentum in my story I reached the wordcount mentioned in the video.

I hope all my NaNo-fellows and dear blogvisitors have a lot of fun. It’s now very late in the Netherlans, so time to sleep and dream about the plot that is growing rapidly.

Until next time!

Mario

Day 15 of NaNoWriMo

Mario — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:31:12 +0000

Today I made a very short update video regarding my wordcount. The reason is that I used my sparetime today to write on my novel, like I should have done earlier this month.

I learned that for me the best use of the ‘Write or Die’- tool is when I choose to write 300 words in 10 minutes. That keeps me focused. This way I can still browse the Internet and do other stuff that has, or has not to be done. But in this 10 minutes of writing I am unbelievable focused. Nothing can distract me from doing so. When my girlfriend kissed me good night, she looked in terror on the screen that was turning to red. Before the babies began to cry or whatever had might come (you never know with this tool), she let go of me and nearly begged me to type something. No, I lied, she did not beg me, but I thought this would fit in the dramatical circumstances that I am in, regarding to NaNoWriMo.

I hope all my NaNo-fellows had a good writing day and that they will enjoy their sleep. Tommorrow the insanity continues and we all have to write a lot.

See you soon,

Mario

Mario Live! » NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo 2009

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