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Lauren ([info]ladylauren) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2010-11-15 13:06:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood:busy
Entry tags:nanowrimo

AnNaNoWaRe (Annual NaNo Wank Report)
It's been a relatively quiet month. Alan Holman has made his triumphant and frequently suppressed return as the user TrutherWriter, whose novel synopsis includes such gems as:

Tim is real, but Israel is a CIA/MOSSAD creation. Black helecoptors, paranoid dreams ... 9/11 was an inside job -- you know it, you feel it, you pump your fist, you're a champion of the truth! Vaccines cause autism whether Tim's teacher thinks different. Why the hell do the girls that chase Tim so violently get a couch in their bathrooms while non-violent Tim gets a not-chocolate surprise that takes some time to wash out the stink!

His regular posts don't make much more sense either, but sadly I cannot link to any of them as they've all been suppressed for being abusive towards others or using profanity.

But I know what you really want, OTFers; news on the infamous marienbadmylove. What's this? you ask. Surely he was banned last year for plagiarism? Well, apparently being banned twice didn't stop Alan Holman, and being banned a mere once hasn't stopped Mark Leach, whose surname is (almost) quite apropos. Thus far his one and only post is in the Extreme Accomplishments Shoutout thread, as follows:

Success! I just crossed the 500,000-word mark with “A Canadian Marienbad,” my Nano entry and literary tribute to the people of Canada. I created the manuscript over a couple of hours by using a do-it-yourself novel kit I read about in the letters section of the infamous Laura Miller story on Salon.com. Starting with the basic 50,000-word template, I repeatedly pressed the copy and paste button in order to push the manuscript past one million words. Then I used my computer’s find and replace editing functions to customize the text with Canadian concepts and themes, turning it into my own story. By the end of the month I expect to expand my manuscript to five million words. Shouldn’t be too hard. After all, it’s just a matter of repeatedly pressing CTRL-V, then adding in my own ideas. But I will need to be careful not to strain my index finger!

Well, at least we assume it's the same author. He's posting under the name bccomox, also on LiveJournal, and so far this is his only post. Time will tell if there is more wank yet to be mined from this source.

The prize for NaNoWanker of the Year, however, undoubtedly goes to Laura Miller, whose article on Salon.com, Better yet, DON'T write that novel drew the ire of a multitude of NaNo participants, who didn't appreciate being told their work was a waste of time, nor the implication that because they were writers, not readers, they were doing the publishing world a disservice. Word of advice to Ms. Miller: writers fairly often also happen to be readers. They also happen to be capable of reading your ill-informed article and taking umbrage.

It just makes this wanka wonder where Miller thinks professional writers come from. Here's a hint: they do not spring fully formed from the forehead of some fantastic literary deity. They start out small and end up big. And for some of them, that start is NaNoWriMo.



(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]tehrin
2010-11-15 03:10 am UTC (link)
Jack Torrance, is that you?

Miller has convinced me to seriously do NaNo next year. She doesn't understand that there a lot of people who do research and prep work prior to starting NaNo and it's a good way for people to start writing a work or start writing all together. It's not for making something perfectly polished, but for making a first draft. At least that's always how I've viewed it.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]ladylauren
2010-11-15 03:45 am UTC (link)
Precisely, m'dear. I'd love to know exactly which publishers these are who're getting mountains of shite in their slush pile every December. Has she actually talked to them, or is it just this one friend of hers telling her this?

I know a lot of my region spend ages planning; hell, we have people start planning in December for the next year! And they know better than to go OMG THIS IS AWESUM and send it off to a publisher unpolished, although this could be because I've worked in publishing and tell 'em not to.

I have always told people, it's not about having a perfect product at the end, it's about having words on the page that you can then edit, rather than forever saying you'll do it one day and always having a blank page.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]queencallipygos
2010-11-15 05:26 am UTC (link)
I'd love to know exactly which publishers these are who're getting mountains of shite in their slush pile every December. Has she actually talked to them, or is it just this one friend of hers telling her this?

I'd wager that EVERY publisher gets shite in their slush pile every December. Speaking as someone who gets literary submissions from the public, there are a lot of people out there trying to write things even without NaNoWriMo spurring them on -- and some of these people are irretrievably bad.

However, every publisher also gets shite year-round -- it's just the nature of the work. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a spike in the months after November, either. However, killing NaNoWriMo will not stem the flood of shite.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ladylauren
2010-11-15 06:44 am UTC (link)
I've dredged through slush piles. The shite is definitely not limited to the months immediately post-NaNo.

It's kinda fun when you're doing it once in a while, but I can imagine it'd be a pain in the ass full-time.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]queencallipygos
2010-11-15 12:12 pm UTC (link)
Fortunately I only do that once a year in earnest; I run a playwriting contest and so it's only around contest time that the bulk of it comes.

But since my name is on a number of lists, that means I also get the occasional play from someone who doesn't read further on in the list to the part where I only do this once a year -- and so once in a while someone will email me something truly bizarre. Like a "children's sci-fi fairy tale" about a magic flower on the moon, in which each and every line was first spoken in English and then repeated in Chinese.

...It helps to have a taste for MST3k.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cmdr_zoom
2010-11-15 04:57 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I was going to say "and the other 11 months, too."

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]bobafeis
2010-11-15 08:40 am UTC (link)
The publishing house I worked at got tons of shite all the time, but there was a noticeable increase in the first few weeks of December, and there were a lot of things that were noticeably NaNos (two years ago, I had five different manuscripts that stopped in mid-sentence, right when the author hit 50k).

Not that Miller isn't wanky as hell. I have no clue what point she's making, except that she celebrates people who read outside their favorite genres while being proud to limit herself only to authors she already knows she likes.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ladylauren
2010-11-15 08:48 am UTC (link)
...okay that's ridiculous. You'd think people would know that novels are meant to finish at the end, not just at the arbitrary word count.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]miss_padfoot
2010-11-15 09:00 am UTC (link)
two years ago, I had five different manuscripts that stopped in mid-sentence, right when the author hit 50k

Hee! That's really special.

Isn't 50K a bit short for a novel anyway? I though 80K-120K was more normal.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sparkthatbled
2010-11-15 10:45 am UTC (link)
Isn't 50K a bit short for a novel anyway? I though 80K-120K was more normal.

No kiddin'. I'm 30,000 words in and I'm barely at the end of my first act! That's like over half the target word count right there!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]barankhy
2010-11-15 11:22 am UTC (link)
I'm at 40k right now and I'm eschewing traditional act structure because I suck at pacing and structuring I'm specialer than anyone else, and I'm just finishing the conquest of Hell (next are Heaven and then the Apocalypse, so I've got quite some way to go).

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]singe, 2010-11-15 12:24 pm UTC

[info]kosaginolegion
2010-11-15 01:50 pm UTC (link)
50K used to be about average. These days, it's pretty much just the YA books that are that short. And now that Harry Potter broke the 100,000 count, Gods know what's coming down the pipe.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]seca
2010-11-15 04:53 pm UTC (link)
The 50K for middle-grade and YA is part of why I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year, because that's the kind of book I'm trying to write so the word goal fits just right.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cmdr_zoom
2010-11-15 04:59 pm UTC (link)
I blame doorstopper fantasy trilogies series.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]kosaginolegion, 2010-11-15 05:15 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]librarianmouse, 2010-11-16 03:23 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]lilitu93, 2010-11-15 05:23 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]kosaginolegion, 2010-11-15 05:27 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]lilitu93, 2010-11-15 05:36 pm UTC

[info]ruffwriter
2010-11-15 03:02 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, 50K is standard for middle-grade novels, maybe, but otherwise that's more of a novella. The story I'm working on now will probably end up being 85-90K or so.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]m_butterfly
2010-11-15 08:54 pm UTC (link)
See, I would actually find that useful--the couple of times I did novel-length slush, I wound up reading the first chapter and the last chapter* and deciding from there if it was worth reading properly, and if it obviously ends mid-sentence you can just chuck it over your shoulder and swiftly move on. And I am very much in favor of anything that lets you swiftly separate the chaff. (I adore pink paper or purple ink for similar reasons. So swift and easy to slap a form reject on!)


* Or the first and last couple thousand words, for the chapterly-challenged.</i>

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]bobafeis
2010-11-16 01:34 am UTC (link)
I did the first and last three chapters, but since we only requested fulls based on the first three chapters, both of those were a bit of a disappointment (and WTF moment, since one of them ended near the bottom of the page, and I thought the author had shipped things out of order).

My favorite was the author who sent us cookies. Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Two people in the office, including myself, were highly allergic to peanuts. Thankfully the smell told us to reject before we even opened the box.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]wrenlet, 2010-11-16 01:52 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]librarianmouse, 2010-11-16 03:04 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cleolinda, 2010-11-17 02:37 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]catmoran, 2010-11-19 05:09 pm UTC

[info]ghostmaster
2010-11-15 09:50 pm UTC (link)
I'd love to know exactly which publishers these are who're getting mountains of shite in their slush pile every December.

More common than you think, sadly. I used to read a lot of agents blogs (fewer since I realized I was using it as a procrastination method) and they've all talked about getting NaNo novels in December. One of them, either Janet Reid or Editorial Anonymous I believe, once mentioned a guy who sent in his entire typo-riddled, grammar-murdering, incomprehensible manuscript. Apparently, he couldn't even be bothered to finish his sentence and just dumped it in the mail at exactly 50,000 words.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kaesa
2010-11-15 11:26 pm UTC (link)
I do not understand this mindset. A lot of people explain writers' inability to see the flaws in their work as the writer thinking of hir work as hir baby, and therefore flawless and lovable.

Which is an okay analogy, for some things -- I do love the stories I am telling and often miss the cliches, overdone themes, plot holes, etc. -- but I would NEVER submit it anywhere without editing the hell out of it*. That would be like sending my baby out to play in the snow wearing summer clothes and no shoes. Just... why?

*Note: I have only really written a lot fannishly, and have therefore never actually submitted anything to professional markets. Or had any actual children. So perhaps I am missing something obvious.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]librarianmouse
2010-11-16 03:34 am UTC (link)
And now I'm formulating an analogy between writers who refuse to be edited and those parents who demand to know what that hideous other child did to make their precious, perfect angel bite/hit/kick/throw spaghetti at them.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]kaesa, 2010-11-16 04:05 am UTC

[info]kosaginolegion
2010-11-15 01:52 pm UTC (link)
If NaNoWriMo has taught me anything, it's that my best work requires me to spend at least two to three weeks researching and prepping in the head. Otherwise I ramble, rather like the grapevine in my back yard.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]luxshine
2010-11-15 05:43 pm UTC (link)
Oh. OH.

I just realized the whole Overlook problem would've never happened if Jack Torrance had been doing Nanowrimo during the second month.

Overlook: "Now, go and kill your family."
Jack: "Can't. I'm behind my wordcount for today."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ladylauren
2010-11-15 08:09 pm UTC (link)
OW OW OW STRAWBERRY THICKSHAKE YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO COME OUT OF MY NOSE

You are my new god.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kirarose
2010-11-15 08:18 pm UTC (link)
I adore this comment LOL!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]tehrin
2010-11-16 03:47 am UTC (link)
Especially since he had a typewriter. No copypasta with those.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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