You may have noticed a distinct lack of angst over National Novel Writing Month on this here Web site. That’s because I kept it private this year; Heaven knows the Internet doesn’t need any extra angst. But after all my angsting, I decided – I’m writing this year, I’m just doing it a little differently.
As you probably know, ResearchBuzz isn’t my RealJob. I do this in my leisure time. And my RealJob doesn’t afford me tons of leisure time, so I have to do ResearchBuzz as efficiently as possible. (A goony speed-reading ability and years of honing my Internet monitoring skills have helped a lot.)
The point is that when I had time to write during NaNoWriMo last year, I spent most of them slamming my head against the wall because I didn’t know where to go with the plot or anything. I basically sat there and sweated and nothing actually happened on the screen and I made myself miserable.
So bollocks to that. This year I’m doing NaNFWriMo; I’m writing all those ResearchBuzz articles I never seem to find time to write during the rest of the year. And if I can carve out time this month to write them, then hey, maybe I can write more during the rest of the year.
So I’m committing to 21 articles for November. (That’s one for every weekday; I’m spending the weekends doing creative writing prompts and letting them all suck on toast if that’s how it turns out. If any of them are good I’ll put ’em on Fanfiction.net.)
I already have ideas for a bunch of articles I want to do, and backup ideas that will get me through the whole month. But if you have anything you want to see me write about, I’m all ears. Leave a note in the comments. Note I’m planning to keep these articles between 700-1200 words, so I can’t do anything hugely complex (though I might be able to break something down into steps.)
If I succeed, then hey: I’ve started a habit of regular writing, not just summarizing, and I can see where it takes me.
If I fail, then hey: I’ve written at least some articles that maybe someone out there will find useful.
If you’re planning to do NaNoWriMo, I wish you the best of luck. I’m rooting for you!
Love,
Tara
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You can totally do that. When I did Nanowrimo years ago, I plowed ahead without a plot. I didn’t produce a viable novel, but I recommend it anyway. You may end up with a train wreck, but at least you’ll have built a train.
Great idea and I wish you well. I’m also “modifying” NaNoWriMo for my own purposes. Onward!
I’m not sure it’s article-length material, but I’d love to see you comment on the state of Google News, particularly the Archive. I know about using http://news.google.com and switching the search to Archive, but that goes back only 4-5 years. And I know about the really old stuff here: http://news.google.com/newspapers. But it seems like there is still some content in between that is missing and used to be on the old news archive. Any insight is appreciated. Also, other sources for old digitized newspapers, even if they’re not free, such as newspaperachives.com and newspapers.com, etc.