# Hey, writers! No publishing, no accolades, just writing. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 23, 2002, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558 "2002-10-23T18:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nymysys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f6c823/32.png) [@Nymysys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nymysys)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/1 "2002-10-23T18:15:23Z")
[http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php?s=2](http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php?s=2) I’m a huge fan of this idea. How liberating would it be to turn out 50,000 words of pure crap? Tell your internal editor to stuff it and let the words flow! 50,000 words in 30 days. It doesn’t have to be good, you don’t have to try to shop it around, just write! I think I have to do this. I think I’ll be very mad at myself if I don’t. Anyone else interested? ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/2 "2002-10-23T23:02:18Z")
Hrm… looks interesting actually. Heh… though technically I already do stuff like that every month with all my RPing though it’s a number of different c’s etc etc… I wonder if they want some semblance of continuity or you could just jump all over the place? ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/3 "2002-10-23T23:27:12Z")
I’m all over that. 1,667 words a day? No problem, I’ll just divert the flow from Livejournal, the SDMB, and a half-dozen other places into a text file on my computer. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/4 "2002-10-23T23:29:54Z")
Heh… I suppose I could try it… I have a few story ideas that I have a vague idea about but not where they go or anything… I’ll think on it the rest of this week before I sign up though ---
**Author:** ![Treviathan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/838e76/32.png) [@Treviathan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treviathan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/5 "2002-10-24T02:01:01Z")
This sounds like fun…my thesis proposal is due Hallowe’en, and since I won’t be hearing back from the committee for a couple of weeks (and thus probably won’t be starting the actual writing) I’ll actually have some free time to try something like this. Besides, it’ll be nice to write something that doesn’t consist of words like “metalepsis,” “panegyric,” and “intertextuality.” ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/6 "2002-10-24T03:03:13Z")
I have no real way to justify this piece, except to say that I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. > [@](#): > > It was a midnight you would sooner punch than look at when trouble walked in on panegyric hips. Her sultry lips didn’t do anything for the piece in my pocket, but they made my gun get ready for action. I could tell the shortest route to trouble would be to follow those baby blues in whatever lines they happened to trace. > > “I saw your ad in the phone book and I wondered if you could help me find something.” Her lips performed the shimmy polka on her silky skin, but I was distracted by something a bit lower. Either she’d swallowed an apple the wrong way… well, you didn’t need to be a legal metalepsis to tell this one violated some major truth-in-advertising laws. > > “Shoot.” I’d rather have him/her lay one on me than Vinnie ‘The Door’ Gazpacho from the local Italian-Russian repo warehouse. Vinnie is what he is, but most of that is dumptruck. > > “I appear to have lost a part of my identity.” This person was dizzy, and I don’t have a tilt-a-puke near my office. I don’t know any headshrinkers aside from Vinnie’s pals, but I had the sinking sensation one of us would be needing one very soon. > > “Tough case. It’s $1,000 a day, plus expenses.” I had some bills to pay off, and I could be stuck with this one longer than Tammany Hall. > > “Agreed. You can contact me here.” The person gave me a slip of paper and slinked out of my office like a greased Monroe. My little PI didn’t know whether to give a standing ovation or wait for the ten-fifteen. > > It was gonna be a long investigation, beginning with the note: it had more links than a WASP fantasy island, none of them up to par. Transsexuals are one thing, but nothing makes me want to switch to providing tech support to angry Taliban crackers more than intertextuals. ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/7 "2002-10-24T07:17:55Z")
If you can, more power to you. It seems like it’s worth trying, but there’s also a WHOLE lot of crud out there which written in a similar way. I was studying up on recent children’s books, reading a very popular “chapter book” author, Catherine Applegate. After her second book, I thought “Foo! I Could write something like that in three weeks!” Then I read in an interview it took her _two_ weeks. It’s taken many months for me to get 50,000 words to where I want someone to read them. Writing that much in 30 days would, for me, end up being junk. Significantly, though, it would take longer to rewrite to make presentable than it took to write in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Nymysys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f6c823/32.png) [@Nymysys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nymysys)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/8 "2002-10-24T14:26:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by partly\_warmer \* > **Buncha stuff** Perhaps you didn’t even look at the link. The point is not to write a best selling novel, full of everything great literature should be. The point is to write. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/9 "2002-10-24T15:41:59Z")
Maybe I could cheat and use my thesis. It’s dull, incoherent and pointless. Perfect! BTW, How **you** doin’? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nymysys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f6c823/32.png) [@Nymysys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nymysys)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/10 "2002-10-24T16:42:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Andy \* > \*\*BTW, How **you** doin’? \*\* I’m mad at you for never answering my emails. When are you visiting? I haven’t seen my good Doctor in ages and ages. 🙂 I still wish I knew how much you paid for that thesis. Gods know there’s no way you wrote it yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/11 "2002-10-24T17:23:43Z")
I just signed up. I haven’t pulled an all-night writing binge since college. ---
**Author:** ![Jonno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f19dbf/32.png) [@Jonno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonno)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/12 "2002-10-24T18:10:31Z")
God help me. I just signed up for this thing. **Nymmy** , thanks for making sure I have no free time next month. I owe you one. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/13 "2002-10-24T18:12:11Z")
I am almost there on my current novel that I am writing. I wouldn’t have guessed that 50k words was 175 pages though. It doesn’t look that way on the 8.5X11 pages. It is pretty encouraging to see that it basically doubles the page output with what you right. Good luck to everyone who signed up! ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/14 "2002-10-24T18:20:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nymysys \* > \*\*Perhaps you didn’t even look at the link. The point is not to write a best selling novel, full of everything great literature should be. The point is to write. \*\* I did, but thanks for keeping me honest. The issue is that the “sit down every morning and write for 5 hours” is that it assumes that all writing is worthwhile writing. Chances are many of your favorite books were not written this way. (I know most of my favorite books weren’t.) It’s a matter of learning bad habits. I’ve tried “writing as many words as I can” in one day. It hasn’t produced anything I’ve looked at twice. ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/15 "2002-10-24T18:23:46Z")
Of course, it’s especially a problem with writing posts as quickly as possible. 🙂 Notice my second paragraph . . . it should read: "The issue with the ‘sit down every morning and write for 5 hours’ approach is . . . ---
**Author:** ![Nymysys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f6c823/32.png) [@Nymysys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nymysys)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/16 "2002-10-24T18:59:13Z")
**Daowajan** and anyone else that might be on Live Journal, there is a community (nanowrimo2002) up and running. Just FYI. **partly\_warmer** , to a certain extent I see your point. Truly I do. But on the other hand, I think it’s a great exercise. Not only to touch base again with when writing could be fun, but to clear out a lot of the little bits and pieces running around that don’t fit anywhere else. In other words, I want to finally vomit up a lot of crap that I get stuck on, trying to fit it in other places. If nothing else, wish us well. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/17 "2002-10-24T19:20:37Z")
Definitely Nymysys. Pick out yer best paras and post 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/18 "2002-10-24T20:16:16Z")
I’ve been dealing with terrible writer’s block for the better part of a year. Bad timing, since I’m unemployed and theoretically should have lots of time to work on my first novel. I think this contest might be just the thing to break the block. I’m going for it. Thanks! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bren\_Cameron\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@Bren\_Cameron\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bren_Cameron_1)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/19 "2002-10-24T20:30:30Z")
I’ve been signed up for this since October 1st. **partly\_warmer** , I don’t think the idea is to get in the habit of pumping out as many words as quickly as one can, but to set a deadline to just get you going and keep you going. For a lot of people, just getting over the fear of starting is hard, and this makes it a little more fun and easy, with so many other people doing it too, and making a game of it. Worrying about whether anything you write is going to be good enough is a surefire way to keep yourself from writing anything at all, I think. Actually, someone started a thread about NaNo over in Cafe Society, but it dropped off the page and was lost and forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![Kitsune1527](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Kitsune1527](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kitsune1527)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558/20 "2002-10-24T21:19:24Z")
Sounds worthwhile for a timewaster. Now, to figure out where I’ll _find the time . . ._ Oh dear, my life will disappear for good now -\_-;; [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-writers-no-publishing-no-accolades-just-writing/133558.md?page=2)