Hello, writers. As of our last meeting two weeks ago, several kossacks were racking up excellent word counts for NaNoWriMo.
Note that wordcounts were last recorded November 15, 2012:
terrypinder 21,571
CayceP
Wiseferret 9653
CFAmick (goal of 1k a day for 30 days)
Mnemosyne
jabney
JanetT in MD
USHomeopath 50,000+
Cassandra Waites almost 27,500
I assume those word counts are much higher now. And there’s still one day left to hit 50k. Why are you reading this? BIC! HOK! TAM!
(=Butt in chair, hands on keyboard, typing away madly. Actually I’m glad you’re reading this. You’re going to finish your wordcount anyway, right?)
Anyway, that’s a terrific aggregate wordcount up there and I assume it’s much higher now. Tomorrow you’ll be finished, or, well, nearly finished, with your draft and it will be time to move on to the next step—revising.
Right now a collective cringe is going through the publishing world when it hears the words NaNoWriMo. Not because it’s not eagerly looking forward to seeing your NaNoWriMo effort—after all, some brilliant books have been drafted during NaNoWriMo. The cringe is because on Monday, December 3rd, agents’ and editors’ inboxes are going to be pinging away madly with freshly minted NaNoWriMo manuscripts.
Not yours, of course, because you know better. You no doubt intend to set your new manuscript aside for a few weeks, then return to it with fresh eyes. You’ll revise it till you’re comfortable with it, then get a critique partner to look it over, revise it again, let it sit, and then reread.
Which is just as well, because between Hurricane Sandy, Thanksgiving, and the industry’s annual Christmas-to-New-Year’s shutdown, now’s not a great time to be submitting anything. A lot of agents and editors take vacation days around now, too.
So, there’s no rush.
Anybody who’s doing NaNoWriMo (or has recently finished a manuscript) want to tell us about their revision plan?
In Tonight’s Challenge news: A couple days ago I was walking past the firewood on my porch with my dog when an animal stuck its head out from among the stacked logs and squawked at me. I interpreted the comment as something along the lines of “Keep away from my woodpile, lady.” It did this five or six times, retreating after each squawk. All I saw was the head, roughly apricot-sized, grayish-beige, with black markings. It appeared to me that this beast was a ferret.
The odd thing was, I would never have seen the critter if it hadn’t addressed me. The dog (who is a nice dog but not very bright) never noticed it at all.
Then the dog took off chasing one of my neighbor’s chickens and I took off chasing the dog and that was all I saw of yon mustelid. However, when I asked my friendly neighborhood forest ranger, he averred it was probably a weasel.
I’m still inclined to think it was a ferret. But anyway, we all love a good unidentified mustelid story. Therefore…
Tonight’s challenge
Rewrite the scene above from the point of view of the woodpile-defender. Since I am kind of a boring antagonist, have the offending human/humanoid/biped be someone from your current work in progress. Or, of course, a Callow Youth.
Oh, and of course try to limit yourself to 100 words, and try to engage let’s say at least two senses.
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