Thursday, October 29, 2009

Circle Those Wagons

  • Pre-NaNo anxiety is setting in: what if this year's draft is as bad as last year's, what if I never finish editing last year's, what if I suddenly die of H1N1 and last year's draft is read aloud before family and friends at my funeral, etc.. I'm still trying to rope in more newbie suckers participants, because I'm highly competitive about word count, and me and the typewriters want to crush them.
  • Deep breathing... deeeeep breathing... I am the typewriter buddha... ooommmmmm...
  • Could not resist a Sperry-Rand Remington Premiere for $5 today, though it's anything but "Premiere." No tabs, no ribbon color select, no touch control, no auto ribbon reverse (pop the cover, flip the switch, replace the cover -- there's your reverse, wimps.) Still love it, though hating the caked on brown scuzziness on the surface. Tomacco stains, perhaps? Foul. Only Goo Gone and a lot of buffing is handling it.
  • I consider it kismet for passing up the similarly anti-featured 1950's Underwood Leader that seemed to hang around forever at the same price. Tip: the Remington typing experience is not like chewing on tinfoil while someone hits your hands with a meat tenderizer. This may be the NaNo-distraction-typer for my two year old to help her keep her hands off of The Beast while Daddy's working.
  • So far I've heard synposes of Olivander and Speegle's novels, and I want to be a reader for both (once they've pass a first-draft sanity check.) Want to start a typosphere reading circle of sorts? Anxiety aside, I might actually be able to share this year's novel, and would gladly read and critique others. Gotta pass the time 'til next November, after all.
  • The Typewriter Brigade topic is completely insane. Two hundred seventy-two posts at this point (yes, mostly mine, har har har.) Duffy, what foul Hell-spawn have you unleashed? I love it.
  • Hurry
  • Up
  • November

7 comments:

Mike Speegle said...

Oh, I'm in. But yes, first-draft sanity-check, that is an important one.

Julia Eff said...

I'm freaking out, looking at my schedule for the first week of November. Egad. If I get behind, there might be no catching back up...

Good luck.

Elizabeth H. said...

I have plenty of characters and lots of scenes and scenarios to write about over the month, but I have *no* idea where I'm going to start writing. Usually I have a first line waiting and ready to go. This year, every time I try to think of one, my mouth goes dry and my brain locks up.

I have higher expectations for myself than ever before, and I think I have stage fright in my own mind. And not much time to get over it.

Anyone have any mental Xanax or something?

Mike Speegle said...

LFP: I, also, suffer from intense literary paranoia. I recommend strutting around with a thin veneer of ersatz confidence. Funny thing about it is, is that over time the veneer will soak in and you will start feeling actual confidence.

mpclemens said...

@LFP: can't work out a beginning? Sounds to me like your novel is starting in medias res. Dramatic, hooks the reader, and lets you delay all that backstory until later.

deek said...

I'm in as a beta reader and if I every get out of a first draft, I'll certainly be willing to share.

Duffy Moon said...

I ain't wrought nothing. Look to strikethru/tiny-dog. It was her idea, a few years back. She's the Deist Deity of the Typewriter Brigade - set the thing into motion and then disappeared (for a while).

Would I like to take credit? Darn tootin. But I don't need bad Karma right now.