(no subject)

[deckardcanine]

The good news: "Downscale" is back! Thank you, Nefaria. I had misunderstood your advice earlier, thinking you wanted me to access only the drawing from Windows Explorer. I didn't know I could access an FTP in that application, until it appeared as a menu suggestion. The Web-FTP site is still giving me trouble, but maybe I'll never need it again. You can expect regular "Downscale" updates again...

The arguably bad news: ...because I'm quitting this NaNoWriMo. I'm not hopelessly behind on quota; it's just not enough fun for me anymore. If I want to do something optional that isn't fun, I'll exercise or educate myself.

Yeah, it probably means the story I've spent so long on will never be published. That's okay. I seriously doubt it would've been anything better than a moderately fun waste of time and money for readers. What is has to offer has been done better in other novels.

I'm past the point where I felt like I needed to be a novelist for my life to have meaning. Writing is one of my greatest gifts, but novels don't have to be my medium. I'm better at poetry and, to a lesser extent, short stories and plays. Anything longer than a novella strains my attention span for writing. Maybe next year I'll write a series of vignettes for NaNoWriMo; at least the website won't care.

Also, I seem to do better at humor than at any other element. My novel didn't have enough of it. In truth, I haven't read many comical novels yet, so I don't have a great internalized sense of how to make one, especially since Douglas Adams and Dave Barry aren't my style. This must be remedied with the next book I pick up.

Then there's the rub of "Write what you know." It sounds to me like an expectation of expertise in a given subject rather than general knowledge. The only fields in which I have geek cred are non-literary entertainment media: movies, comic strips, and video games. Hard to write about those in story form. That's why I opted for soft sci-fi and fantasy.

Oh well. I'm feeling better now that the weight is off my shoulders. Sorry if any of you were disappointed.

Comments

[thatcatgirl.livejournal.com]

Yay, Downscale! Actually, right now I have a few weeks, at least, to catch up on, but hey, nice to know there won't be a long wait after that.

I'm not sure anyone should be disappointed in you dropping NaNo, unless you've been posting them somewhere (have you?) or they were your writing buddies. It's a crazy challenge (not to say it's bad or even impossible, just a bit crazy) :) It's the kind of thing you only want to do if you're going to enjoy it, if not, there are less stressful ways to write.

Hmmm, writing what you know... I think I've internalized it as an aspect of "use what you've got", other forms of which have been more applicable to me. Anyway, I'm not sure you need to be an expert, but a decent familiarity is really useful.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Glad you approve. And no, no one else was reading my work. I sent my first novel to my parents upon request, but they never brought it up again, so I guess they either didn't make time or had nothing good to say about it.