NaNoWriMo...what?

 11/12/2011 - corrected typo: "For those of who taking" Ugh. At least it was funny.

For those of you taking the NaNoWriMo challenge, best of luck! Karen Ware (see link a few paragraphs down) writes that:

...nearly 60 novels begun during NaNoWriMo have been published, including Water for Elephants, a New York Times #1 Bestseller by Sara Gruen. It also became a film in 2011 starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon!

So who knows what may happen.

Could there possibily be anything new to say about writer's block?

OK, it's been said before, but I like the way WriterKMP divides the problem into three problems. See what you think.

Writer's Wednesday: Writer's Block (and how to deal with it)
by WriterKMP at YouTube

Grandma's Superhero Therapy

Original article by Eugene at My Modern Met blog
My writing prompts/exercises are at the bottom.

I discovered this from a link on Twitter. Here's the Twitter message:

from @ThatBarbPerson

Stories need vibrant characters. This morning's character #prompt: Granny is a superhero... mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs… #writing #amwriting

Check out our super hero's face:

Photographer: Sacha Goldberger

French photographer Sacha Goldberger wanted to cheer up his 91-year-old grandmother who was feeling lonely and depressed. His solution was to "shoot a series of  outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, ad locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn't stop smiling."

He had unexpected success from this series of photos. So he decided to create a MySpace page for his grandmother, Frederika.

Cracked me up

Here's a new kind of writing prompt: - one-minute versions of the classics, or more precisely, a one-minute lampooning of the classics.

Jane Eyre

By Charlotte Bronte
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard

---

(People are MEAN to Jane Eyre.)

Edward Rochester: I have a dark secret. Will you stay with me no matter what?

Jane Eyre: Yes.

Edward Rochester: My secret is that I have a lunatic wife.

Jane Eyre: Bye.

(Jane Eyre leaves. Somebody dies. Jane Eyre returns.)

THE END

Ira Glass on the creative process

I discovered this at Careann's Musings blog. Careann is Carol J. Garvin, a writer of fiction and nonfiction.

The video is from Getoutthebox1 at YouTube. Wikipedia says that Ira Glass is a radio personality.  

The presentation itself drives me crazy.  It gives me motion sickness. (I wish the makers of Prezi and/or similar tools would catch on to this problem.) But the content is right on:

• His point is that we start writing because we have enough talent/insight to know what is good. Problem: Because we have enough talent/insight to know what is good, we aren't easily satisfied with our work - which is probably good in the long run because it makes us perfecting it.

• Like any endeavor, writing takes practice. Don't quit.

Writing prompts: photo #1

from http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=509&fullsize=1

Take a break; listen to a story

I have enjoyed listening to free audio books. These works are in the public domain. 

The Machine Stops (version 3)

by E. M. Forster (1879-1970)

“The Machine Stops” is a science fiction story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster’s The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard ‘cell’, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. (Summary by Wikipedia)

mp3@64kps (For other speeds or audio types, visit the site.)

Part 1 The Air-Ship – 00:30:53
Part 2 The Mending Apparatus – 00:26:01
Part 3 The Homeless – 00:23:44 

What is incredible about this story is that was published in 1909. It describes a world run by a machine (a computer). People communicate with people in other parts of the world by talking out loud and seeing the other person's image in a blue glowing tablet. Like so many science fiction works, the story predicts modern gadgets with surprising accuracy.

Writing prompts and exercises #2

Maybe one of these three ideas will get you thinking

from Twitter:

tweeted by @dfarb (David Farbey)

RT @SarahKSilverman When ur relatives drive you crazy just close your eyes & pretend it's dialogue in a woody allen movie (via @joshpines)

I just happened upon this. I don't know the people, but I loved the idea and got a great scene going in my mind. (They weren't even my relatives.)

from Writer's Digest:

You had planned to attend a friend’s birthday party and plugged her address into your GPS system, but the system guided you to somewhere else. Oddly enough, there was a man waiting for you at this mysterious place. “Sorry I had to rig your GPS, but this is urgent,” said the person.

What's fun about Writer's Digest writing prompts is that viewers can post their responses. Write down the scene as it comes to mind (500 words or less), then look on the website to see what other people wrote.

When I saw this prompt, I didn't feel inspired to write anything.  It didn't seem credible. I was very pleased, however, when I looked at what other people wrote. Even if a few of the details didn't make much sense, reading these little stories woke up the muse.  I imagine this would have been even better if I had tried my hand at writing first.

from CreativeWritingPrompts.com

This is not my favorite site for writing prompts. Seems very cheesy. But there were a couple of good prompts.  Here's one:

"Write down 50 things you would never do."

Making lists is effective because you don't have think too hard to get started. I came up with 10 things without much work. That was enough to pull me out of my slump.

Staying Creative

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.