The W1S1 Check-in and Chill Lounge and Bar

shelleyo said:

Way to go! Script Frenzy's a bit like Nanowrimo, right, where you finish a script during April? I'm impressed by anyone who even considers trying that, let alone finishes. Especially while writing other things, too.

Good luck!

Shelley

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Yes. Script Frenzy is like NaNoWriMo. I find it a lot easier, though. If you know a bit about scripts 100 pages in 30 days is not that hard. The word count for scripts (vs. novels) is much much lower. (The script I did last year was only 15k at the 100 page mark.)

And there's free software to take care of the formatting which makes the writing process much simpler. Not saying it's easy, just that I find it to be a lot more fun than NaNo.

Anyway. I do have work to do. (And laundry.)

Later all you writers of awesomeness!

I loved NaNo the last two years, though I don't think I'll be able to do it with W1S1. I've never tried to write a script - I don't think I'm good enough at dialogue.

Nathaniel Katz said:

I loved NaNo the last two years, though I don't think I'll be able to do it with W1S1. I've never tried to write a script - I don't think I'm good enough at dialogue.

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I wasn't so great with dialogue either. 'Til I took four courses in screenwriting. Once you start having to write dialogue that carries a story it's amazing how much you improve.



And you do know that there are plenty of NaNo folks who write collections of short stories during November instead of the 'all-powerful' novel.

My review week was a rather mixed success. I did, indeed, get a few reviews written, but not many were the ones I really needed to get done. Ah well, I'll work on those when I've time, as I definitely want to get back to W1S1 this week with a strange SF idea that I probably can't pull off. But if it was easy, what would be the point of trying?

Aggy B. said:

I wasn't so great with dialogue either. 'Til I took four courses in screenwriting. Once you start having to write dialogue that carries a story it's amazing how much you improve.



And you do know that there are plenty of NaNo folks who write collections of short stories during November instead of the 'all-powerful' novel.

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I'm not sure I could do a short story NaNo - there's no groove to settle into, I'd need so many ideas. 50k in four weeks of 2-5k stories is terrifying.

Some might find this interesting:

Flash Fiction 1-hour challenge at Shock Totem

I would LOVE to participate in this. I used to these kinds of challenges at another place. But Saturday, I'll be hauling my daughter and a few other teenage girls to an anime convention, and I won't have Internet access. (Even though I anticipate some time in the car writing when I get bored at looking at the costumes and being left behind by the girls--it's a small venue, fortunately.)

Another time!

Shelley

It's sounds interesting, but the mercenary in me keeps nagging that it's a story you are writing for no gain at all, and since it will be posted publicly, you can't even sell it afterward, except as a reprint.

One possible benefit is having the Shock Totem editors notice you... but you are just as likely to do that by sending them excellent stories.

alexshvartsman said:

It's sounds interesting, but the mercenary in me keeps nagging that it's a story you are writing for no gain at all, and since it will be posted publicly, you can't even sell it afterward, except as a reprint.

One possible benefit is having the Shock Totem editors notice you... but you are just as likely to do that by sending them excellent stories.

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It's not posted publically. It's posted in a password protected area of the forum which preserves your publication rights.

GreenRoom said:

It's not posted publically. It's posted in a password protected area of the forum which preserves your publication rights.

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Ah. That makes a big difference. I might give this a try this weekend if I am home/available.

I Shock Totem.

I've participated in a few of their bi-monthly flash contests. If you can't swing this hour-long one, there'll be a more official one beginning May 1 (I'll post a reminder when the sign-up thread goes up). It'll also be prompt-based, and you'll have a week to write a story under 1k.

Everyone who submits a story gets to read all the other entries and vote on their top three favorites (feedback is also encouraged). Once all the votes are in, the winner gets to choose a prize (usually a book). More importantly, at the end of the year, one of the winning stories will get published in Shock Totem.

It's great fun, and always neat to see what everyone comes up with given the same prompt. Plus, getting feedback from all the other writers is invaluable. Hope to see you guys there!

I managed to make it home in time for the contest and will be participating. Unless, of course, I can't come up with anything interesting based on the prompt. That's always a possibility. Any other fellow AW'ers playing tonight?

Shoot, I missed it, didn't I? Ah, well, it'd probably take me an entire hour to *think* of a story, let alone outline and write it. I'm terrible under pressure.

But I am considering the other flash contest Jgold mentioned. I need to go check out their site and forum, I think.

That was REALLY hard.

soapdish said:

Shoot, I missed it, didn't I? Ah, well, it'd probably take me an entire hour to *think* of a story, let alone outline and write it. I'm terrible under pressure.

But I am considering the other flash contest Jgold mentioned. I need to go check out their site and forum, I think.

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You DID IT? *bows*

Matt,

Your story was very good.

I, on the other hand, have failed *miserably*.

It took me about fifteen minutes to come up with an original story based on the prompt and outline it in my head. Then I began writing.

By 8:55 I had about 600 words down. I was roughly 75% into the story and there was no chance I;d finish it, so I gave up and began reading what I've written so far.

It was the trashiest trash I've ever had the displeasure of typing up. I don't even think it's worth finishing this story up (for non-contest purposes).

Still, it was a very interesting experiment and I learned some lessons. I already knew I was a slow writer, but didn't realize just how little I'd manage to produce in an hour, and of such low quality... Maybe it was just an off night for me, and the story really didn't work though. I may have to try again next time, to know for sure.

An hour leaves no time for thinking! I barely finished.

alexshvartsman said:

It took me about fifteen minutes to come up with an original story based on the prompt and outline it in my head. Then I began writing.

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Ouch, totally missed this. Could have been fun. I have, on occasion, gotten ideas that went form spark to near-final from in an hour or so. My one published piece would be one of them, though I did do a bunch more editing afterwards. I'm not sure if I could do that on demand, though.

I've been distracted by computer warnings:

hard drive failure is imminent... please back up and replace your hard drive...

So I've now backed up my hard drive, and I'm debating whether to continue writing today, or to go by a new SATA hard drive (at least I figured out what type I need finally) and then deal with figuring out how to put it in my computer and restore my back up.

Writing sounds so much better! But I really would like to replace it before failure, in case something goes wrong with my backup and I need to redo it.

sigh...

Beyond that, I'm looking forward to the Game of Thrones premiere tonight ( I won't be writing during that!).

On a more writing related note, I'm in the first third of two different short stories right now, and I'm trying to stop myself from brainstorming new ideas until I finish them (or at least one of them) since I've already piled up three more I want to write.

I've subbed two this month and I'm working on about three more, a bit at a time as I figure them out.

Izz said:

It's over halfway through April, peeps. How're we all going?

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Crickets. Two stories seem to be shortlisted.

I've been concentrating on my long story. Wrote the 3rd PoV (16.5k) this month, and just outlined the 4th.

What do you mean when you say 'Crickets'?

Lillie said:

I've subbed two this month and I'm working on about three more, a bit at a time as I figure them out.

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Same position here--subbed two newly written (April) pieces that is. Also subbed three older 2011 pieces and two really old (2009) pieces--one of which went through a rewrite before subbing.

Of the three I'm currently working on, two are completely new, one is a rewrite/lengthening of a flash piece I wrote for NPR last year. That one's almost ready to be re-submitted--going through a beta presently.