Wednesday 29 November 2006

Pic of the day: Made it in time! Joy to the world, and books and stuff!

Victory is mine!

I did it! I did it! Woooo! I "won" the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing 50 000 words of novel in November.

In all fairness, I did not complete the novel. Actually I am halfway through the last chapter, but I am in no hurry to complete it. After all, I know how it ends. I haven't uploaded all the chapters either, because frankly the story derailed completely halfway through. I then wrote about the main characters playing Sims 2 and City of Heroes and discussing books (mostly my incomplete works) and even take part in a meeting of disciples of Andrew Cohen. Pretty scattered in other words. Perhaps I will rewrite it at some future time as a novella or something. I don't know. Right now I am just glad it is over, and the good guys won on a technicality.

It seems to me that the romance forum has a somewhat higher percentage of winners than other forums on the site, but I may be biased. Then again romance is one of the most prolific genres, and the requirements for writing it are not particularly strict. It also spans many subgenres, from the heavily erotic to the childishly innocent, and even stories involving magic or religion or vampires.

Also, it seems that a higher percentage of romance writers plan to actually sell their books. I certainly don't. But it does give me a sense of accomplishment. It makes me feel that I am better than I actually am, because for once I have managed to stick with something, even just technically, for a month. That is something otherwise reserved for the very core of my life, such as religion, white love and my journal. And my job, I guess, though I hope to God that I will be able to quit my job before my journal.

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As for the NaNoWriMo, I have said before that I am curious to take part in such an outpouring of creativity. If there is some kind of morphogenetic field, it should be easier for each year. And indeed, it is easier for me. Then again, what is not easier with practice? The big question is whether it is easier for a newcomer to write a novel (or 50 000 words) in 2006 than in 2000. I don't know. Even the percentage of winners is not a good measure, because as the word spreads, more casual writers are pulled in. As such you would expect the percentage of winners to fall over time as the project was diluted. On the other hand, the Flynn effect alone means that new more intelligent people grow up all the time, though this is a bit short a time frame for it to operate on. And new technology makes it easier to write. The speech recognition software that I used part of the time, for instance. Newer and slightly better keyboards, text processing programs with instant spellcheck and word completion... although the hardcore writers tend to scorn such things.

Anyway, I just don't know. Perhaps if this lasts some more years, I will see more clearly. Then again, I wonder if I will try again next year, now that I have won. Perhaps I will rest on my laurels, if I am still around. Right now, resting - laurels or no - seems like a wonderful idea.