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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.



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[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)


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