... But It's Only Just Begun

Nanowrimo may be over, but our local writing community has only just begun.

My first year I met a bunch of interesting local writers and stayed in touch with some. Last year there didn't really seem to be many nebies. Then there was nanowrimo '05! We have gone from a couple of small separated groups to an actual writing community - yay!

Now we just need to keep it going. We have our website, our blog, our online group and our weekly writeins. Do we want more? I know the list looks like a lot, but most of it is online stuff and rarely takes more than five minutes a day.

Do we want to put together a monthly critique/editing group. Lori, Janelle and I had one going, weekly, for over a year after nanowrimo '03. Life just kind of got in the way and the group fell apart. I know the three of us got a lot from the group, but once a week is a hard thing to so. That's why I'm thinking once a month might be doable. I miss having others look at my work objectively and give me some perspective on it.

It's just a thought, but something I'd like ya'll to considder. Let me know what you think.

Ken

Its all over!

What an adventure!

What awesome people us Maine writers are...

And so many winners ...

We had 1,829,641 words as a state!!! .. Which is #34 of all regions in Nano!!! ... Great job ...

Me and my wife also got 50,000 words as did Kendra, WriAnimator .....

We beat Sweden and Philadelphia .. and missed beating Oklahoma by only 12,000 words ...

Here at the Maheux/Davis-Quinn house, we were both winners ...

I ended up with 56,695 words and Lanna had 50,100 ....

Lanna wanted to make sure she had as much drama as possible ... She had under 25,000 words at 2 pm Saturday ... Since then she has been on a tear with 7,000 on Saturday and 4,000 or more every other day ....

She had only 1,000 words left around 10:30 and then her computer refused to work... I unfortunately was at the Great Lost Bear and had to run back and give her a computer ....

She got to 50,000 on her book from Microsoft Word wordcounter by writing the very,very,very,very,very,very,very,very,very,very end ....

I am so proud of her .. .She was officially a winner at 11:53 pm ... just 7 minutes before the deadline .. Lanna Maheux-Quinn rocks ..

So there are 50 Winners in Maine!!!! WOWWWWW!!!!! ... 50 of us passed 50,000 words out of 207 in the state . .Give yourself all a hand!!

Well I will see you all tomorrow at the Village Cafe in Portland ..... Village Cafe is on Newbury St. in Portland. If you need more in depth directions, feel free to email me. ... The thank god its over party starts at 5:30...

It was also great to meet some more of you at the Great Lost Bear! .... That is one of the great beer bars in the country #4 in America according to beeradvocate.com

And Maine is #1 in the country in cool writers.

edmund davis-quinn
Novelist

Two things...

First of all I just set up our Yahoo group. I sent out some invites for people who's email addys I had. Whoever I missed please shoot me an email so I can send you one.

Secondly, there is a TGIO party on Friday. Village Cafe in Portland at 5:30. I need people to tell me if they will be able to attend so I can let them know how many of us they have to put up with. Please email me at nano_maine@yahoo.com

Ken

3 more winners at the Meetup!

3 more Maine winners today

At our meet up at Panera Bread in Westbrook, 3 more people crossed the 50,000 mark and are Nano Winners....
I couldn't be happier!! Also turned the cable back on which is nice.

My wife has also kicked serious butt with 7,000 words yesterday and another 5,000 today...

I am so proud of her
.My book is currently just under 54,000 words but still has a ways to go. Its going to be hard to let the Fitzgeralds go. I am really enjoying interacting with them through my fiction.

And of course, the strange case of Timothy Thomas Higgins, from an amazingly awful week, to a terrifically great one.
Cheers!

Congratulations Kendra, Jenny and Liz! You are all winners!!! And can get little icons and stuff from the site :))

edmund davis-quinn

The Bear

The Mighty Edmund Quinn has suggested meeting at the Great Lost Bear once or thrice. I love the Bear, so I'm down with that. Any other takers?

The Bear: WiFi, Beer, Cheese. What more do you need?

Royalty showed up in my book

Somehow when I was typing today at Sam's Club of all places, royalty showed up.

It turns out that my character's current love interest as an ex-husband who is Sir Edmund Fitzgerald, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Evidently the press still follow Mathilda around and are curious what she is up to.

It looks like Timothy and Mathilda are going to be on the cover of the Sun and The Mirror tomorrow in my book
I also have almost 2,000 words today to bring the total official wordcount to 32,855I will update things as they progress.
I am having quite a history for Mathilda as well.
I guess she is going to be a BIG part of the story
.Excerpts will come later.

ed davis-quinn

p.s. if you want to read some excepts look up: rurugby on nano

or http://nofilterbook.blogspot.com

word count: 34,722
mood: very good
Level of surprise: Very high .. . This day in my book is shocking me.!!!!

Cheers y'all

Let me try this again...

I tried to post blog entries both here and on my own blog and something strange happened. The titles came through, but the bodies did not.

So, here I am trying again.

I do not know why it happened, but it happened to both blogs.

Anyway, what the nano blog post was about was the last writein. It went very well - I was quite impressed.

There were 8 people who showed up over the course of the day. A lot of words were written by everyone there. A lot of us are still behind on word count (except Edmund - grrrr), but the write in seemed to help. Besides, we had a lot of fun socializing and eating yummy food.

I was very impressed with how it went. This was my first writein and I was wondering how it would go. I had heard about writeins with too much socialization and not enough writing. We had a perfect mix of the two. Though there was a certain amount gloating from the one person who is way too far ahead of the word count and everyone else.

I had been annoyed by him and his word count, but I have made a decision. Rather than wanting to growl at him I have decided to try to catch up with him. I think we should try to reach his numbers rather than getting annoyed at his gloating.

Now, that I am past that I want to encourage as many people as possible to go to writeins - especially the Sunday Panera writein. For some reason that just went fantastically (sp).

So, see ya'll there and lets get our word counts up!!!

Ken

So NaNoWriMo Begins...

...and so does the writer's block.

*sigh*

First person or third?

I've decided to write about my experience of having gone from Computer Diva to fired to leaving everything I knew in New Orleans and moving to Maine to work and experiencing my first Fall and my first Winter and my first snow-in and on and on.

But should I start before "the firing" so the world can see what a snotty Computer Diva I was, at "the firing" where in disbelieving numbness I fell from my self-built pedestal, or after deciding to go to Maine?

Should I not write about this subject? In a way I'm hoping this will be cathartic, but am I too close to it?

And I've already lost almost 10 hours of writing time to sleep and writer's block...I wonder if I'd stayed up last night and started at midnight when I was braindead, would I have just gotten started without the agonizing and angst?

WanderingFox here!

I thought this blustery day was a good one for some writing and blogging.

Last year was my first, and it was a disaster. First, I chose to do a humorous story, and that takes a lot of effort. Then my mother got sick, and then my car fell apart, so by the middle of November I just tossed the whole thing aside in frustration. But hopefully, this year will be different.

I actually started with a setting, as well. The October 2005 issue of Discover magazine had an concept illustration developed by Penelope Boston and commissioned by NASA to show how a large Martian lava cave could be converted into a "safe, roomy and inexpensive base." The concept of living in a cave beneath the surface of another planet, where anything that goes wrong is potentially fatal, sounded like a great setting.

The plot then goes from sci-fi to a psychological thriller, of sorts. A small group of engineers and techs are there to set the place up and get it running before the scientists arrive. But when strange things start to happen: strange noises, strange shadows, and just a feeling of being watched, the engineers must figure out if there is really something out there, or if it is their own minds playing tricks on them...Or if there is a third option that no one has yet considered. Whatever it is, they had better figure it out before someone gets killed.

I'm excited about it. I've got my characters, and a basic outline of the escalating tension. I really can't wait to start!

'Tis the season to prepare to NaNo...

...and I'm ready! I did my first NaNo last year, and it was a blast! I only had a month to figure out what NaNo was and to think about what I wanted to write. This time, I have a much better handle on it. For me, at least for this year, it's helped to give a great deal of thought to my characters, setting, plotline, etc.

Mintyfresh, I just started with the idea for a setting - a big, historic home back in my hometown. It looks like it would make a great bed and breakfast. I started using "what if?" What if the owner of the house didn't know how to run a B&B? What if he needs advice from a guest at the inn, a young woman who just happens to be looking for a job? What if he needs her help - and, indeed, even her love - but just can't express it? See what I mean? You kind of let your "what ifs" ramble along. (Make sure to keep a pencil and paper handy.) Oh, and how did you get your links to be behind the word "here"? Thanks.

If anyone would like to see it, here's my blog regarding my genre http://sweetromancewriting.blogspot.com.

NaNo, NaNo, everyone!

Like a NaNo Virgin

Plot? Characters? IDEAS? Huh???

So I have a few ideas whispering faintly to me, a scene or setting or two, a vague theme, but otherwise nothing. Not that I'm too worried about it: when approaching short stories or CD/live reviews, I often find myself starting out with a blank screen and churning out 2,000 words on deadline (and that deadline is the whole point of this thing, yes? Yes!). I don't question that I can do that nightly for 30 nights.

But there's got to be a better way to flush out ideas so that I'm a bit more ready, right?

I'm working through No Plot, No Problem! and it's helping, but no epiphanies yet. How are my fellow Mainahs going into this thing? Any methodologies that work better for you than others?

Thanks. Nano profile is here, reglar blog is here, pics are here. Nice to meet ya.

N. Mallory Grasping For A Plot...Again

O.K. I'm in.

I think.

I tried Nano last year and didn't get very far. I seem to suffer perpetually from writer's block. I'm sure there's some psychological explanation like I'm afraid of imperfection and afraid of people mocking my art and I'm lazy. ;)

Really, I just felt overwhelmed, like I do know, and a little desperate for an idea for a plot that goes more than one sentence. Heh.

So, I've got a couple of tentative ideas.

I could write a space western-type thing; maybe fanfic for Firefly/Serenity. I think fanfic still fits in the rules, particularly if I'm just writing in the "'verse" and not using any of the characters.

Or I could write a dark fantasy with vampires, magic users, and vampire hunters set in New Orleans and maybe climaxing during Hurricane Katrina.

Then there's always been the desire to write a Celtic space-kind-of-thing, but again what's the plot? Who are the characters?

Why has my brain suddenly gone blank as soon as I started thinking about writing for Nano?

Great site!

Nicely done ladies! Especially when everytime I try to log onto the NaNoWriMo site, it's down! Arggg! Beginning to wonder if it isn't my computer! Anyone else having trouble? I'm hoping so.

I'm off to answer Kendra's questions now.

Lori

Cool, it's up and running!

Hi ya'll,

This is the beginning of the nano blogging fun. I think it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

We now have a place away from the nano boards where we can lament, cheer and encourage. We can yell and swear here without a problem. I won't have to delete posts that are inappropriate, yay!

So, what's everyone writing about this year? What genre? Is this a new genre for you? How about a brief synopsis? What do you plan to do with it when nano is over?

I think I'll stop there. I'll be back to answer my questions tomorrow or the next day. I'm trying to put together a sound synopsis that aptly describes my story. It's not going well so far, all of one sentence.

Later days,
Ken

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