NaNoWriMo

....

Its a story, if you get pissy about how much you've "Fallen behind" on a dumb contest then you don't need to be writing your story.

EDIT: Page claimed in the name of relaxing!
Well, they are no longer writing for fun, but for the hopes of one day writing for profit. They have passed the gateway. It is no longer about fun. It is about testing themselves, proving they have what it takes to turn their passions into their careers. Like all things, this is both good and bad...We shall have to wait and see how it turns out.
You know when you've got that one thing stuck on your mind and you just can't let it go? When something's happened that just irked you so badly that you can't forget it, no matter how small and inconsequential it was? Yeah. So I'm gonna get this off my chest so I can forget about it and get back to writing.

Common. Your comment absolutely infuriated me. Because you really don't understand why I'm doing this. It's to be expected, really, but the fact that you could see that I'm taking this seriously should have at least given you a hint of things. Like that you shouldn't make light of something someone takes so very seriously. I'm going to go on for a while, I'm in the writing spirit, but unfortunately it's all going to be about teenage angst and personal problems, so do feel free to skip over it. Yes, I'm quite in the writing spirit indeed. Let me tell you the story about a boy named Grant, so you might better understand.

Grant is 20 years old and is working as a security guard. The majority of the people he works with are more than twice his age, he just recently got a partner who was within the same 5 years of himself. He spends almost every single one of his days goofing around with his friends, either at home or at the local hobby shop or wherever else. And that's what his life is.

Now, would anyone like to take a guess as to what's wrong here? Ah, but this is a forum post and I really can't wait for a response. I suppose I'm still in writing mode and trying to build up tension. Regardless, I can pretty easily point at what's wrong with the picture. Grant is making no progress. And that scares the hell out of him. When he was in middle and high school, Grant hated it, because he was a paranoid kid who thought everyone was out to get him. But at least he was making progress, clean and clear progress. 10th grade. 11th grade. 12th grade. Simple, easy progress, with the hopes and dreams of a young child. "I'll become a marine biologist, or a journalist! Maybe I could even be a stay at home author! Or... or..."

Graduation came and went. The local newspaper took a photo of him, you could practically see the hope in his eyes, the resolve. But then, nothing happened. Because Grant was not only a paranoid student, but an unprepared one. Not once did it ever occur to him, "Oh, perhaps I should be making applications to colleges!" Never did it occur. So his simple fantasy that he would leave high school and enter college was disrupted by reality.

He got a job as a security guard none-the-less, because that had been his plan. Become a security guard in some desk job, do his college homework while he worked, easy, easy. Of course, there wasn't homework to be done there. Grant was just sitting, waiting, working at this dead-end job with people twice my age. He'd put in 8 hours, and then he'd go home, play videogames, hang out with his friends, and then he'd repeat the process all over again.

Grant has done this for a year and a half now. When fall came around, he desperately tried to get into college, so he filed out applications to 5 or so colleges, arts colleges because for some reason Grant thought that he could learn to do art. All of them responded, very positively, and he was extremely excited about the whole process until he discovered that the price for my education was too much for his family to afford.

And then fall came. He'd forgotten to take his SAT's, again. Not that he'd managed to study for them. There was always something else in the way, and Grant would procrastinate and procrastinate and nothing would get done at all. He was still at a standstill, working at a job he was quickly growing to hate, with 'friends' that yelled at him for no reason, or were angry and rude constantly.

The closest thing he'd gotten to a girlfriend was his relationship with his emotionally disturbed goth friend. Grant knew that she wasn't right, there was something wrong with her pschology, that her philosophies were ugly and wrong, that she needed help that he couldn't give. But he didn't care. Oh, he's so very ashamed of it now, of his pitiful courting, of his selfishness, but at the time he pressed forward, he was an undersexed teen with raging hormones and there she was, the only female outside of his family to ever give him the time of day. She was smart and funny and bright, when she wasn't dragged down by her plethora of problems. She liked what he liked, she did what he did, Grant wanted it to work despite the inherent flaws in the plan. And it didn't. He asked her out, and she never answered. Not a yes, not a no. Oh, he knew she had sufficient feelings for him, but she was too caught up on her past, in so many ways, to even think of moving forward. So he was left hanging. The backup plan.

One day at work, a fellow student from his old high school came to the facility Grant worked at. The guy asked if Grant was in college, and he answered 'No.'

"That's too bad," the boy answered. "You should try and get into one, man. You're too smart to be stuck in a place like this."

Grant thought about this days later, weeks later. This fellow, who he'd always held with contempt, as one of his tormentors, an ignoramous pulling through school only because he had to, had offered kind words, helpful words. But that's not what got his attention. "That buffoon is in college! He's in college! Working his way to a better future, a brighter future, while I'm stuck in this mud hole! Trapped!"

At work, there was only so much entertainment one could get. Writing was good, if he had the attention span to do so, if he had the creativity to continue, if he wasn't so tired he felt like he was going to drop. Reading was good as well. But sometimes he finished a book and he'd have no other to read. So he'd read the newspaper. And he'd see familiar faces. Familiar faces from his high school. In particular, he saw Chris. A student he'd always considered his rival. Wherever Chris succeeded, he would always get 'Honorable Mention'. Chris first place. Grant honorable mention. It was how things went. Science fair. Poetry contest. So on and so on, even on the day for high marks, where Grant had gotten a 4.0 average for the one year he'd stopped pissing around and started actually doing work, Chris had gotten it every year. Chris was in the top school of the state. It was only natural then that Grant would be in some lesser college. But he wasn't.

The boy who'd spoken to him at work came by again some months later. "You're still here?" he asked, absolutely amazed at the prospect. "Man, you've got to get out of here, go to college, make something of yourself."

"Yeah," Grant answered, morosely. "Yeah," he said, a little more determined.

The boy smiled. "Good to hear it." He laughed. "I better not see you around this place again, okay?"

Grant laughed in return. "Okay."

It's been many months since then. He can't even imagine his shame if the boy returns and sees that he's still in the same job, doing the same work, earning the same low pay, with the same friends, in the same situation again.

So, can an outsider see where the problem lies now? What's wrong with Grant's life? Oh, surely one could say that there is much wrong with this not so simple picture, but I believe I can see the most horrifying blockade the young man has to pass.

No hope! No belief that there's something bright and beautiful around the corner, that the next day is going to be better than the day before and that the day after that will be better! He feels trapped in a tiny box of reality that has shattered his hopes and dreams, cast them against the wall to shatter into a billion tiny pieces! He's afraid he's going to be trapped in that hellhole of a job for his entire life, be stuck with the same friends his whole life, be trapped in a tiny town with no hope or future. And he's absolutely terrified of it!



But Fall came around. Grant visited this strange, tiny website of little consequence, and he met many interesting and strange people. One day, one of these people mentioned to Grant that there was something interesting happening in November, where a good many people tried their hardest to type and type and type and get a book done. Grant liked that idea. He'd always wanted to write a book.



So, Common. Do you see why I take this so seriously now? It's because this is my hope. This is my belief that I can make my situation better, that I can make my life change, that I can work towards a better tomorrow. Don't you dare make light of my hope.


Edit: This took 1,577 words to write. That's almost a day's worth of WriMo-ing, heh. Well, I now feel sufficiently better about things. Oh, it was so hard not to just flame-on, but I think that put this way gets the image across much better. I was going to thank Common for putting me into a pissy mood as I was about to begin writing on a segment that was very angsty, but I don't feel angry anymore. Well, I do. And I feel sad and whatever other emotions this has stirred up.

I don't like to bitch about my life, but this just needed to come out. I haven't whined about my personal life in a while, I feel I deserve to vent every now and again, heh.
Hmmm...I can't believe I actually read all of that. I know what you mean, Tom. We should kill Common.
Wow, You seriously mis-read me or something. Yes, you work hard to write, you work really hard. But, you know what? I don't care what your long-ass flame says about hope. Yes hope is a good thing, but I have only one thing to say: It's something to be creative about. You don't need to get all upset about how your not going to have the most words just because you didnt write much one day. Unless being frustrated helps you write (I personally hope it doesn't), then you need to just write. Your don't have to take something competitively just because it's a "contest". People who try to force the creativity to "Not fall behind" basically are doing a bad thing for themselves.

You want a story? Here's a story for you, because Im probably missing something from you people.

I'm writing a novel too (not for the contest, though). I don't even have the first words typed out. Now your probably asking "Why does he have NOTHING typed out?", and thats perfectly understandable of people. I'm evolving the idea in my head, like I have with other things. I'm doing that because every time I just made something on a whim of an idea it usually has a 20% quality rate of what I would do if I just did it for what I wanted to write about later. So I probably don't understand your strange ways of writing a massive novel from a single idea without turning it over in a mental cement-mixer for a few years. So if i'm out of style, excuse me then, I'm different.

The above is my way of explaining how I think the creative process should go for people to really have their fullest of themselves in their work(s).


But then again thats me, and everyone knows im a loser-fail-AIDS-asshole-noob-crappy-dumb-poor-nerd-fat kid who likes to sit at the computer all day and get fat watching anime on youtube-crybaby-2 year old with an anger management problem-that guy no one should pay attention to-is the first person anyone at my school would kill if they became king of the universe. But then again, if I don't say anything, no one will know what I feel about the world and it's overpopulation of assholes (AKA, the human race).

I just realized something, the human race. It takes humanity and makes it a contest. Thats probably why everyone likes to be the best, because they think its some sort of contest in the back of their minds.
You've misinterpreted Tom, I think, in the point he was trying to get across. Tom isn't writing his story because of a naturally competitive nature, any more than I'm doing drawings or any of us are making posts to that end. For one, it's an amazing creative outlet that at the same time can be made a challenge to oneself. I find that implementing these kind of challenges on yourself can make activities more interesting, and that's evidently what this contest aims to achieve. More important than that, though, is that Tom has made it quite apparent that this outlet is extremely important to him. He's undertaken a serious challenge here and though it's simply an unjudged creative pursuit, he's taking it seriously because right now, a creative outlet is something he apparently really needs.

That said, we all have different ways of writing, enjoying writing, and getting around to writing. Your not understanding this style and our not understanding your style aren't any grounds for argument.

Also, this is my own opinion. Sorry if it seems like I'm putting words in Tom's mouth here or something, that's not what I'm trying to do.
1) It isn't a "contest". It's a challenge. It's a challenge to try and crank out an entire rough draft of a book in a month, so that it'll be there at the beginning of December to put away if you want and come back to and edit the life out of until it becomes something that isn't horrendous sludge. It's a challenge to see if you've got the balls to write that much in a month. I tried last year. I didn't even come close. Did I give up? Nah, I'm doing it again this year. I'll do it again every year from now on until they nail my coffin shut.

2) Tom, all you have to do now is change the names in that little rant and bang, you've got another 1500+ words to add into your novel as some kind of backstory or something, I don't know.

3) You're far too good at this writing thing to be whinging about it here. Go put those skills to use on the book already, goshdarnit.

(I've written about 350 words today.)
Ahah, yeah, kinda went angsty for a second there. But I'm getting a lot of progress done right now, I'm pretty excited. Thanks EN, Zan, Heat. I appreciate it.

And Common, good luck on that novel of yours. I'll give you the respect of reading a post before commenting. Personally, I would've liked to have seen an apology, but hey, whatever.

Onward and upward!
So, here's thyat apology now...

SORRY ;~;[b][/b]

I make it a personal rule to apologise AFTER I get my point across.
Why were there so many long posts in a row there? It seems a tad odd that everyone, even Common, would decide to post several paragraphs in response to Tom's angst filled pseudo-rant. I wonder why Common, Heat and En decided to respond in such a way. It really does seem strange to me, but perhaps that is just my own beliefs shaping my opinion of the matter. Still, I understand what each of you are saying. You all have your own opinions, your own thoughts, and those mar you interpretation of what is really going on here. It is a natural thing, obviously, but it still leads to vast misunderstandings. Of course, no one really cares about these misunderstandings, so I am not really sure why I am commenting on it to begin with. Oh well.

Tom....Likes to write. Tom feels that he is stuck in a dead end job and desperately want to succeed in life. However, Tom, like myself, lacks the will to drive himself to achieve bigger and better things for himself. I think many people go through this stage where they feel complacent while yearning for more. It is almost as though they reach a summit of a mountain while before them stands a much moutain with less handholds. They know they should continue on, but they also know it would be incredibly difficult. They have come so far and want to rest, though they know that all they really want in life is just beyond the next mountain. They have to push themselves, but they are scared of failing and possibly losing everything they have previously achieved. Also, they probably have diarrhea, but that is a different problem altogether.

Anyway....I like pants.
Your posts are too long to be interesting to me. All I got was that Common apologises for somthing, and Zanallen likes pants.

Quote (Zanallen)

Why were there so many long posts in a row there? It seems a tad odd that everyone, even Common, would decide to post several paragraphs in response to Tom's angst filled pseudo-rant.

I made a long post because Tom did. We were following a mini-trend...of long posts.
I'm writing a book about a werewolf who hunts down evil creatures that prey on the innocent...
A good werewolf? Hmm, well, try to give it your own thing, but it doesn't sound too cliched at least. There's an issue I've been having with my work. Damn, I said it was a combination of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but damn it, there have been scenes where I've said, "Oh, now this just seems like an angsty Harry Potter fanfic."

In other news, think I've officially started Chapter 2, though that really means nothing at all, especially since there's so much revisionary work I'd like to do. I'll admit, I'm dreadfully, dreadfully behind and my attempts to remedy the situation are getting bogged down by my friends inability to see why this is so very important to me. That and my damnable attention span. I really only get a decent amount of writing done when I'm working alone on the job, which I only do once a week these days.

Although I went through one such experience last Thursday and got quite a bit done. I've written something that I thought was particularly powerful and I'm very proud of, although it could use a little more dramatic build up before the scene.

Hmm, what's more, what's more... Oh, word counts, yes. Oh, this will be embarassing.

4567 words in Chapter 1
3867 words in Chapter 2
Grand Total, 8424 Words.

Day 10, Suggested Word Counts, 17,000.

As I was afraid, I'm at less than half what I should be at. Now that's dissapointing. I'm making progress, surely, but at this juncture, hitting 50,000 in the span of a month does not seem very likely.

I really should be posting all this sort of thing in the NaNo site, I know, but, ugh, I don't know. The first few days there, the lag from traffic was so bad I couldn't access the site at all, and the fact that not a single soul responded to my noobie thread, well, I'm carrying that around like some kind of childish grudge.

But I suppose that's it on my end. Oh, one more note of interest. Since I really started cracking down on my writing, I've been having these incredibly vivid dreams. This is rather surprising, as I haven't had a vivid dream in quite some time, or at least had a dream that I could remember. But since the beggining of November, I've been having these dreams. Well, not really dreams, that's not the right word, nightmares is more like it. I've woken up shouting and attacking imaginary assailants or just bursting out of a sound sleep, drenched in sweat. It's really quite interesting. Take yesterday for example, I was having this dreadful nightmare and had just come to the bone crunching conclusion when I awoke with a start. It was 2 PM, the normal time I should get up. But rather than doing that, I went right back to sleep. I had this nagging feeling that there was more to the 'story', that there was something else, I had to know where my dreams were taking me. And so I slept for another 6 hours, dumping myself right back into that nightmare world of destruction and madness. Needless to say, I've gotten some rather wonderful ideas from all of it, although that's kind of an odd thing to say, I suppose. Willingly subjecting oneself to their own nightmares for the sake of finding new ideas? Well, if it works, it works.

tl;dr - Tom rambles. 8424 words.

EDIT: Christ Zan, I think you were right about that whole, "Getting off to my own writing" thing, it's like I'm physically incapable of writing a short post and just getting to the f-king point, y'know?

EDITx2: Clicky for awesome/wtf webcomic. Kinda makes you go, "Woah."
Heh, Tom's a literary pervert.

That being said...Anyone know any good werewolf movies I can use for research? I've got Underworld 1 & 2, American Werewolf in London/Paris, Dog Soldiers, In the Company of Wolves and...Sadly...Dark Wolf.
The widget in my signature tells all.

Well, it's begun; I've started to have to cut little subquests out of my book. Otherwise, it's going to be running too slow to read and I'll never get through the plot. Rather than having Jess and Tya go and make the test delivery to a guy in Warre's End, they're going to go to Warre's End to jump to 79K Elgel in order to make the delivery there, show how crazy the Thousand Worlds can be, and...

...yeah. Whatever, then.

I haven't cut anything major out of the plot yet -- I'm still showcasing Warre's End by putting the gate in that district, but they're just passing through -- but unless this plot starts moving faster, I'm going to be at the end of November and halfway through the plot events, probably stuck in the prison with Dask punching through some wall...

...yeah, I'm doing it again.

The book's starting to drive me a little crazy. I've been telling everyone who will listen about the plot and the characters and whatnot. I'm already starting to look back and think to myself that this little bit needs to be changed, or that part needs to be tweaked for clarity, or stuff like that.

...either way, I'm still well ahead of the word count. I cheated to get there, but I'm still ahead.

I know that I'm going to make the 50k no problem this month; the only question will be whether I've actually finished the plot at the end of November.
Yeah... 2 out of 26 plot points and over half way done...?

Cutting seems justified... o.o;