This afternoon, I went to the grocery store intent on getting regular food and saw tea on discount. So now I probably have enough to last me for the next six months unless I decide to blow it all in November during my writing sessions. But at least I have my pick of flavors!
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Anyways, I suppose I should say something about the local kick-off party that was on Saturday. It was very, very small. Actually, I had expected for no one to show up because it was Homecoming at the local university. (Although privately, I would say, who the hell cares about football? You can tell I have bitter memories from high school marching band.) And for the upcoming midnight write-in, I also am not keeping my hopes up for anyone to show up. It seems as if almost everyone in my region is super busy on Saturdays and won't be able to make that.
Well, I suppose I could look on the bright side. The meetings will be small and productive.
I'm not sure how to get people in this town to be interested in Nano. Earlier this month, I plastered the town with flyers. One of the local bookstores said they would put a notice about Nano in their newsletter. Two years before, the university newspaper interviewed another Nano participant--but that made absolutely no dent. Yet, I'm not desperate enough to try Facebook or Myspace (I have a thing against frivolous social networking sites). I know there are people in town who've signed up for Nano but have not affiliated with the region or posted in the forums. I am strongly tempted to Nanomail them reminders about the meet-ups even if it means making them angry that I'm somehow "spamming" them.
As you can tell, I'm very cynical, unsure of myself, and pretty introverted. Sometimes I've wondered if my posts on the forums have actually scared people away. Or it's quite possible that since I've done Nano so many times, it's somewhat intimidating to newbies. (Although to be honest, I think I'm the least intimidating person around. I might be wordy and opinionated online, but I'm actually more of a listener in real life.)
But in the end, one has to be philosophical about all this stuff. As often stated: trying to get writers together is like herding cats. Close to impossible.
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I noticed a participant spamming the forums asking about whether or not to include sex scenes in his/her novel. This led me to thinking about posts in general asking about whether or not to include certain things in a novel. I understand that many new writers have these sorts of questions because they're afraid of doing something wrong.
In truth? Write anything you want. You can't go wrong. Nanowrimo is about getting it all out there. No editing. No worrying about scene A versus scene B, let alone actually spelling any words correctly. Just get the words out. Worry about everything else later.
Then, maybe because I'm a Cranky Old Wrimo, all of this seems obvious to me. Even when I was a newbie way back when. A lot of these questions on the forums, to me, seem easily answerable if one has read a lot of fiction. (I could go on a rant here about people who don't read books wanting to write books, but I won't.) By reading tons of books from different genres, I've internalized a lot of the novel writing conventions even before trying my hand at writing a novel.
Of course, people are free to call this a lot of blather and BS from someone who doesn't even have any apparent ambition for publishing a Nanowrimo novel. (And I must ask, can't anyone just write for the sake of writing? Must the end goal always be publishing?) But I really feel strongly that people can learn better by reading example than by going to some writing workshop and having some pro lecture at you.
Then again, who's going to care about this? Maybe I just have a complex or something. I do not often post advice on the forums simply because no one will care--unless you're a published author. And even then, they'd still not listen to you. It's inevitable that people will keep on posting these things which basically ask the same thing over and over again.
