Thread: NanoWriMo 2009
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Old 10-25-2009, 02:19 AM   #27
montsnmags
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmon65 View Post
Ok, I have a real question.

I have ideas that have been fermenting for years. Slightly more than general ideas, for a few stories, but I'm an IT guy. No formal training in writing. I write, read and fix code in short concise lines for machines to decipher. Not longer form for the relaxation of the others.

I love a good story, Steven Erikson has me completely consumed at the moment, but know the grammar issues would be monumental in anything done by someone (me) with no training.

I figure something that recreates the time-crunch/deadlines I work with might be the way for me to finally put at least one of these ideas down somewhere. Would this even be worth the try for someone with absolutely no formal training, or would this just be an exorcise in frustration and humiliation? Honestly.
Umm...dmon65, are you...are you...me?

I have signed up for NaNoWriMo this year...I don't know if I'll complete it. I know the sense of wanting to write, and not doing it because I want everything to be perfect, is stopping me from even starting. I also know that NaNoWriMo's approach of "Just write. You don't have to publish. You don't have to show anyone. It doesn't matter if it's complete crap. JUST WRITE! Get something on "paper"!" means that I can just do it, with the only pressure being the number of words every day.

I know I am going to write crap. There's even a chance I'll bury the result so deep, technically and mentally, that you won't be able to find it with a sophisticated turd-detector or a turn-it-up-to-11-MRI. I'm okay with that. I've lost nothing by trying, and gained a lot by it - broken through that first, real writer's block that stops you even starting.

I'm a 39yo, ex-IT, never-written-anything-before absurdist with delusions that he wants to be a writer when he grows up. I'll admire you for starting, if you admire me for it. That'll surely poke any self-humiliation in the eye with a sharp pen (well, okay, sharpened-edge-of-keyboard). Let's not write the next great novel. Let's try write our own firsts, and be happy that we'd tried (and maybe even completed!).

Cheers,
Marc
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