NaNo Preparation

Alright, so it's basically been a month since I posted anything here. My apologies. I'd say real life got in the way, but doesn't it always?

Actually, in this case I've been busy preparing for the big event of the year: National Novel Writing Month. For most participants, preparing for NaNoWriMo is a simple matter of coming up with an idea, maybe doing a couple of character sketches and some basic outlining. At the far end, some participants may plan out meals ahead of time, schedule themselves to attend a few events, and chit-chat with people on the forums in preparation for the event.

But me, I can't stop at just that. I'm the Municipal Liaison for the Sudbury region, which means that I'm the one that schedules and books locations for events. I try to organize launch parties, mid-month parties, and the TGIO party. I book write-ins, come up with interesting competitions, raise money for the Office of Letters and Light, and get whatever small prizes and discounts I can manage for my participants. I create booklets with schedules, maps, hints and tricks; I obtain stickers, goody bags, and more. I put up posters, contact newspapers, get on the phone to arts and writing groups, and otherwise drum up interest in the month-long event. So instead of running myself ragged in November writing a novel, I run myself ragged in October and November between planning the events and writing the novel.

This year I have a huge list of thanks to put out. A handful of last year's participants have been really helpful. Steph, Sylvie, and Andy: you three are awesome! Thanks for the help getting things postered and getting events scheduled and booked. I'd also like to send my thanks to a newbie: PiscesMuse, you've been a big help. I look forward to meeting you at the kick-off. From the response that I've seen so far, people have been noticing the posters, which is fantastic.

What we've got planned so far: Kick-off party (Oct 23, Doghouse), Sudbury Writers' Guild Speech (Oct 29, YMCA), New Sudbury Library Write-ins (2, 9, 16, 23, 30), William's Write-in (7), Chapters Write-in (10), Mid-Month Madness (13, Laughing Buddha), Fromagerie Write-in (18, 28), Laurentien University Write-In (21), TGIO (Dec 5, my place). The Underground Writers will also be doing weekly write-ins on Thursdays, and we'll have our own kick-off lunch on Nov 1st. So, if we include the UW stuff, we're looking at 4 parties, 1 speech, 14 write-ins. There are requests for yet more write-ins, but I think I'm going to have to cap it there...

So far, I've managed to finangle 10% discounts during the month of November off most things at The Source in the Southridge Mall for participants, nine 2-GB thumb drives, a $25 A&W gift card, and a signed copy of Spinward Fringe: Origins courtesy of the book's author, Randolph Lalonde. I've also a score of stickers, "hipster PDAs", name tags, and word count calendars. I'm hoping to snag a couple of $10 Tim Hortons gift cards between now and the TGIO party to add to the prize pile.

On top of all this, I've also managed to finish and edit (repeatedly) "Tactical Medics" which I sent out to the Underground Writers for critiquing. I've also pounded out another 1587 words for a short story I'm tentatively calling "Blood & Puppies" even though my fiance hates the title. I have a handful of poems completed and have received a second rejection letter for my pile. Still managing to squeeze everything in there between work, pumpkin carving, and paper mache skulls... But that's another story for another day. ;)

Helpful Critiques

The Underground Writers has had their first critiquing session. This was something that we all felt was missing from the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society, so we made sure to put concrete deadlines for something to be submitted to the group for critiquing. I believe I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I had rushes to finish a draft of "Bloodspurt" for this particular session. Well, the word has come back from the group. They were entertained, always a good sign, but they could tell that it was definitely a rough draft. It was obvious where I started rushing to the ending, and numerous small comments came up about different parts and people's preferences.

Overall, I was pretty impressed actually. I knew there were a lot of problems with the piece, but I would have missed about half of what they mentioned. The pieces I critiqued were all pretty well polished in comparison with my draft, so I feel really bad about hogging so many useful comments. Everyone received their fair share though. A piece here, a transition there, some dialog, some character... There was a little for everyone to work on, and from what I'm hearing, most can hardly wait to do it again.

I almost have my piece ready for the next deadline. "Tactical Medics" took a slightly different route from the one I had originally anticipated, but I am very impressed with what I've managed to crank out this time. It feels a lot more polished, and pending a quick read-through by a regular reader, I'm pretty confident this piece will be a little better for the group to scrape through. I have the third draft sitting in front of me, and it's been chewed down to 4,027 words from 4,183. I had to add a couple of paragraphs to make the ending a little more foreshadowed, and to give the characters a little more character. I may need to look at their dialog a little more to differentiate between the two primary characters, but I'm not overly concerned. Gonna look at that when I move from third to fourth draft.

Rejections are In

So, the big news. Finally got a response out of Poetry Magazine. It was a nice little rejection letter. So there are now four poems that need to move out to the next possible location. Not quite sure where to send them next, but I think "Arrogance" would kinda work in Aasimov's Science Fiction, "Tinted Mirror" would work well in Necrology, and the other two, "Invisible Eris" and "Two Days", may not quite work anywhere.

Some may take rejection as defeat. I take it as a necessary evil. If things weren't rejected, we'd never be able to get non-serious writers to pursue something else. You gotta have a tough skin to write. That's not a secret. I know that I've had some poetry published in the past, and I know that it's been a while since I wrote poetry with much commitment. I expect to have a lot of places reject my work before anything is accepted. A few successes here and there couldn't hurt any though.

Since I was rejected, I've finished the first draft of a new short story, "Tactical Medics", and am about six drafts through a fresh poem, "Ignorance." The short story, is a bit of a fun slap in the face. I'm pretty excited about the first draft, but I won't be getting too far ahead of myself. I want to give it a couple good thick edits before turning it over to the Underground Writers on October 1st. That'll give me feedback for October 15th, and I can clean it up and maybe submit it somewhere (On Spec ?) for November 1st. I'm saving "Ignorance" for my next set of 4 poems to ship out to Poetry Magazine, which I also hope to be able to do on November 1st.

Speaking of work in progress. The Underground Writers currently has "Bloodspurt" in their hands, and I'm sure they'll be ripping it up good. I've already read through a few of the pieces that I need to have done for Thursday. One of them is absolutely fantastic, the others are pretty good starts of which I hope to read more. When I get "Bloodspurt" back, I'll know how much time I should really be editing that piece. I'm sure its a lot. With a bit of luck, I should be able to send it out for the beginning of October, but that may be optimistic given the piece itself.

Dug up a couple of fantasy pieces I started a couple years ago, and I think with some work, I can finish them and get them sent out somewhere. I'm betting on Tales of the Talisman for one of them, but figure it won't be going out until the new year. With National Novel Writing Month sitting on the horizon, I won't be putting words down on anything but Hedged in November. Still have some time this month I suppose.

Anyhow, enough writing in the form of procrastination. I need to turn my writing to one of my WIPs. Good luck everyone!