Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo, Poetry, See The Sky Again, Shadows

So…

November 5, 2009 R. Parrish Leave a comment

So, for the second year in a row I have stopped trying to write See the Sky Again as a NaNo novel. This time for different reasons.

Last year when I started writing See the Sky Again there were still a lot of blank spots in my mind. I knew the setting, one of the characters and the ending. That was pretty much it. When I stopped writing it as a NaNo novel it was because I thought I should fan away a bit more of the fog and solidify some plot points in my brain before I worked on the project in earnest. Then I got distracted with other projects and See the Sky Again got put on the back burner for a while.

Well, when I dusted it off to work on again I had a good idea of where it was going and how it was going to get there. Or, if not good, at least I had an idea, which was more than last year. Unfortunately, as I was writing on it for NaNo I just wasn’t feeling it. I love the story, and I’m excited to tell it, but I don’t think it’s destined to be written in this way. Which is too bad because I’d like to get the first draft done sometime soon LOL

However, like I said above, I’ve pushed it to the side again for a while (shorter term than last time I hope LOL). Now I’m working on the re-write of Shadows as my NaNoWriMo project.

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>.>

What?

I couldn’t help it. Shadows won’t leave me alone. It’s always on the edges of my brain, demanding my attention. After the critiques I got from Jim C. Hines and Deena Fisher I had some really great ideas on how to improve it – trying to make it wait its turn until after I got the first draft of See the Sky Again done was, apparently, a very bad idea. I couldn’t focus on StSA because I really wanted to be re-writing Shadows.

Now that’s what I’m working on for NaNo (Note to any rules lawyers out there: I know that’s technically against the rules and um…I don’t care) and it’s going well. I’m enthusiastic about writing again and I really feel like the story is being filled out more this time. (One of my goals was to add more description and fill out the middle which I felt was lacking.) Yay! I’m hoping to complete the ‘new first draft’ via NaNoWriMo and then, just to be novel, NOT workshop it to death.

My nano word count is 6,652 so far, and I haven’t written yet today. Soon, I hope.

I’m also still working on the Poem-A-Day challenge and still loving it. Wheee! I’ve got 4 zombie poems (that I Love) and 2 more mainstream ones. I haven’t even looked at today’s prompt yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be sure and share at least one of the zombie pieces in my newsletter this month.

So far, November is being good to me. I hope you can say the same thing 🙂

NaNoWriMo, Poetry

NaNo and Poems

November 2, 2009 R. Parrish 3 Comments

It’s technically day two of NaNoWriMo, but I haven’t written anything for my project yet today, so I feel like I’m still on day one. I’m still lacking enthusiasm about NaNo, which is kind of odd because I like the novel I’m writing so you’d think that enthusiasm would bleed over. So far, not so much. Yeah. Weird. I told you.

In addition to doing NaNoWriMo this year, however, I’m also doing the PAD Chapbook Challenge. Times two, actually. My friend Beth Cato told me about it and I said I’d do it if she did. She accepted my challenge, so on top of the 50,000 words we need to write this month, we’ll also be writing 30 poems.

Actually, I’ll be writing up to 60 of them because I’ve decided to do the Chapbook Challenge times two. The first collection of poems will be mainstream and the second will be horror — zombies, to be specific. If a prompt doesn’t lend itself well to one of those genres I may only write one poem that day, but I’d really like to see two a day. We’ll see, I gues.

I hope to share some results in my newsletter, if there turns out to be anything worth reading just yet LOL There isn’t going to be much time for revision until December.

I’m pretty happy with the PAD challenge so far, in case you hadn’t guessed, and my word count for NaNo is still on track, so I’m counting day one as a victory.

NaNoWriMo

It’s NaNoWriMo Time Again sigh

October 26, 2009 R. Parrish Leave a comment

It’s almost November that around here that means NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo is a huge part of my life. Historically it’s important. Winning my first NaNo honestly changed my life. It showed me that I could write a novel, it infused me with confidence about my writing (which is odd because that novel was freaking terrible) and it was the beginning of NaNoLJers. It lead, directly or otherwise, to my leaving my former job and really making writing more than a hobby.

I’ve done NaNo every year since 2003, I’ve won every year since 2005. There is no challenge in it for me anymore.

I could just try for more words, but despite the whole quantity over quality thing, simply writing more for the sake of writing more doesn’t make sense to me. As it is I keep writing until the story is over, I don’t just stop at 50,000 but intentionally padding it wouldn’t really make NaNo more challenging, it would just make it take more time.

A couple years ago Danica did NaNo. That helped me stay engaged. I got one of her friends involved as well and saw it as my sub-mission to help herd the two of them toward the finish line. It worked. I wrote my 50k and helped Dani and her friend reach their goals through write-ins, pretzels and encouragement.

The next year (last year) we created teams on NaNoLJers and I used that as my motivating factor — I wanted to win NaNo and lead my team to winning the NaNoLJers cup. It worked. I was engaged with the process, I finished my novel and helped my team win the cup. Yay!

This year… this year I don’t have any external motivation and I’m not feeling it. I’m detached. Danica is doing NaNo again, and we have teams on NaNoLJers. It’s my intention to help motivate both my child and my team toward victory, and of course I’ll write my 50,000 words (at least), but I’m very lethargic about it. I wish I were impatient for the month to start, or excited, or hell, even nervous, but really… mostly I’m bored.

And that sucks.

Especially since I talked the teacher I volunteer with into doing NaNoWriMo in her classroom this year.

Hopefully I’ll find some motivation somewhere, some driving force that will infuse me with some enthusiasm. The grade twos, maybe. If I don’t I’ll still do NaNo, I’ll still write 50,000 words (or more) on See The Sky Again, and I’ll still win, but it would sure be nice to enjoy it while I’m doing it.

How about you? Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Are you excited about it? What are your goals?

NaNoWriMo

NaNoLJers Sponsors

September 15, 2009 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I moderate a livejournal community called NaNoLJers. NaNoLJers began as a NaNoWriMo community but has grown to be active year round with writing prompts, exercises and challenges and our own month-long writing challenge Writo de Mayo in May. The community has gotten big. Right now we have 1432 members, with 948 of those members actually watching the community. That number tends to balloon in October and November, then settle back down to around what it is now shortly after.

That’s a lot of people. Many of them don’t post, but hopefully they draw inspiration from the group, just the same.

When NaNoLJers started there were only a handful of us and we were able to get to know one another and cheer each other on toward the finish line for NaNoWriMo. As we’ve grown that has become more and more difficult as names begin to blur into one another when you haven’t the time to get to know the personalities behind them. So last year I created teams on the community. The teams were optional, but the idea behind them was that with the community broken up into smaller chunks people would actually have a chance to get to know one another and that sense of being a part of a community, rather than a face in the crowd, would be preserved. In addition, the teams were competing against one another, and that sense of friendly competition seemed to help spur people on as well.

The teams last year were a rather impromptu thing and so I didn’t have much time to organise team-based events or prizes. We pulled some off, but it wasn’t nearly as organised as I’d like. We are going to have teams again this year (I’m also hoping to do something special for people who aren’t in the teams) and I’d like for it to be better organised than last year.

One thing I’m looking for is sponsors.

Last year we had a few fantastic sponsors who donated everything from books, to additional user pics or paid time on LJ. I’m looking for more people like that 🙂

If you would like to donate something to be used as prizes in some of the mini-competitions or part of the over-all prize package that the winning team will receive, please email me at rhonda@jofigure.com . Some of the competitions and prizes we had last year are listed here –> Partial List of Challenges and prizes There were also word wars and that sort of thing going on throughout the month.

What do you get if you sponsor the event? Well…gratitude. That would be the biggest thing, really. I will also link to you (or your chosen website) from the NaNoLJers page as well as the mirrored blog at http://www.poiseandpen.com . I will be sharing a list of sponsors here as well (http://rhondaparrish.com/archive plus my LJ) and I promise to rave about you on the NaNoLJers community as much as I can. Truly.

I wish I could offer more, but the group will appreciate it (I promise).

If you are willing to donate anything email me, please. You can specify a challenge you want the prize to be used for, or let me put it where it’s most needed. It’s up to you.

If you can’t sponsor NaNoLJers events, for whatever reason, I still love you 🙂

Deadmonton, NaNoWriMo

Deadmonton Excerpt

November 7, 2008 R. Parrish 3 Comments

So, I’m NaNoing, as usual, except that this year I had zero enthusiasm for it and writing my story was like pulling teeth. I was working on ‘See the Sky Again’ which is an Aphanasian novel. Writing the Aphanasian piece I felt like I was pulling teeth. It really, really hurt. The problem, I think, was that the setting (an underground city) wasn’t fully formed in my mind yet. It’s still not. Once it is I’ll go back to it, but in the meantime I’ve switched and I’m now working on my WIP zombie novel, Deadmonton.

The words are coming much easier now and I’m really very fond of this novel. I can’t wait to get it done so I can share it with people (my brain won’t let me send out WIPs for critique).

And here is a short excerpt — warning, this is a pretty violent and profane passage, it is, after all, a zombie novel 🙂

Continue reading Deadmonton Excerpt →

Aphanasian Stories, NaNoWriMo

Rough Copy = Done

November 16, 2007 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I finished my NaNoWriMo novel yesterday, and simultaneously finished the rough copy of Blood and Stone. I’m very excited and sorely tempted to start revising it right away — I know, “they” say you should let it sit for a little while, but I don’t know if “they” are as impatient as I am.

My current plan is to go through and integrate the notes for changes I’ve got stuck on post-its all around my computer before I lose them, then I’ll put it away until it’s my turn to submit to my writing group again (two weeks from now). That’s when I’ll start revising.

In the meantime I’m starting a new erotic novel. It will be a nice break from Aphanasia, and as much as I love Aphanasia, I really need that break.

Flash, NaNoWriMo, Sale

Accepted @ Shine

November 13, 2007 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I’ve been lucky enough to have two pieces accepted for the January issue of Shine 🙂 My flash piece, “Not So Smart” will be published as will a short and, sadly, true poem called “Coffee”. I will, of course, post a link when they go live, but in the meantime I just wanted to brag a little 🙂

In an unrelated note (I swear it’s unrelated) Shine is having a flash fiction contest. I can’t enter because since I am such a regular submitter Pamela has asked me to be a judge. I’m incredibly flattered and I can’t wait to read all the entries — but if you write flash fiction you should enter. There’s no entry fee and there are some pretty good prizes, so head on over and check it out.

In NaNoWriMo news my word count is just over 43,000 words and my daughter, who is ten and set herself a word goal of 10,000 is at just over 4,000 🙂 Yay!

I tried to enable commenting on this post but in less than two hours I’d already been swamped with spam. Sorry ðŸ™

NaNoWriMo, Published

The Doll Published At Burst

November 9, 2007 R. Parrish Leave a comment

The Doll, is now live at Burst. I’m very happy with this story, when you start reading it, it may sound somewhat familiar, a bit like “A Merry Christmas” or “This Year’s Toy” but keep reading — you’ll be surprised, pleasantly I hope LOL

In other news, I’m still working hard on my NaNoWriMo novel. So far I’m at 30,000 words, putting me at about double the word count I would need to be on track to finish in a month — yay! Best of all, I’ve read back over some of what I’ve written and it’s no worse than any other first draft, so hopefully getting it all edited and ready to shop around won’t be too painful an expirience. I’m very excited about it, in case it doesn’t show. This year for NaNo I bent a couple rules and decided to a) work on a novel-in-stories and b) work on a piece I’d already started (though I’m only counting words I’ve written since November 1st). The end result is that I’m nearly done my Haven novel-in-stories which I’ve tentatively titled “Blood and Stone”.

My NaNoWriMo profile, including a short excerpt from “Blood and Stone” can be found here –> Midnyte. Please take a look and send me a NaNoMail to tell me what you think. I wish I could leave this post open to comments so you could tell me here but alas, the spammers make that impossible.

Flash, NaNoWriMo, Published

Wrong Turn Published

November 1, 2007 R. Parrish Leave a comment

My flash piece, Wrong Turn, is now live at Sorcerous Signals. I still like the story, shame about the second sentence though LOL Why is it I never notice these things until after they are published? Eh, my bad. Now you’re going to go read it just to see what’s wrong with the second sentence aren’t you? I’d like to tsk tsk you but I’d do to the same, so I can’t 🙂 While you’re there read all the stories up for offer and be sure and vote for your favorite 🙂

In other news I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year — though instead of aiming for 50,000 words I’m aiming for a completed novel-in-stories. My Haven novel-in-stories, as a matter of fact. Currently I’m at just over 2,000 words, which isn’t a bad start. I’m hoping to get about 5k today though, so keep your fingers crossed for me 🙂

If anyone is interested my NaNo Profile is here and I’m always happy to have more buddies 🙂

NaNoWriMo

Another One Bites the Dust

November 27, 2006 R. Parrish Leave a comment

I forgot to post on the day it happened, but I finished my NaNoWriMo novel — yay! On the 24th I breeched the 50k mark, that’s a full three days faster than last year. The novel is…well, terrible — but it’s done and in 30 days. I’ll be adding it to the ‘never to be seen again’ pile where it belongs 🙂 Already I’ve got ideas for next year’s novel though, so hopefully the quality will improve for 2007. It would also be nice if I managed to finish editing my 2005 novel before 2007, but I’m not holding my breath 🙂

My NaNoWriMo Progress

Rhonda Parrish

Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

So…

NaNo and Poems

It’s NaNoWriMo Time Again sigh

NaNoLJers Sponsors

Deadmonton Excerpt

Rough Copy = Done

Accepted @ Shine

The Doll Published At Burst

Wrong Turn Published

Another One Bites the Dust

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.