10.22.08
Posted in Books, Culture, Good Stuff, Media at 11:08 pm by thomas
OMG! It’s almost November… and again, it’s a very busy time with so many things to do – and that is a very bad thing, since I really, really would love to do another NaNoWriMo. It’s been four years now since I’ve been a NaNo Winner, and I’d love to repeat that feat.
In case you haven’t heard of it before, the idea behind NaNoWriMo – or the National Novel Writing Month – is to write a novel in a month. Yep. One Month. Just get it over with, like ripping off a band-aid.
Now you’d be correct in saying that this is insane, and you are probably right, but it’s a very sweet kind of insanity that I can only recommend to everybody to at least try once. All you have to do is think of a rough idea for the opening of your novel, say, on October 31st, and then around midnight you open a new document on your computer and you start to type. Easy.
To “win” NaNoWriMo, you have to write 50,000 words in 30 days, or about 1666 words every night. it’s not as hard as it sounds, and my only recommendations are:
- write daily
- write without editing
- don’t plot ahead for more than one day’s worth of writing
From my experience with several failed attempts after my first win, I can also tell you that plotting ahead and working along a frozen story arc is deadly for NaNo, since there is no time to think. It’s all about having a strong idea for the opening and then let the characters do whatever they want.
So. Are you up for the challenge? Come on! There’s kids taking part in this – it’s not that hard to write 1700 words a day… it’s probably going to take you about two hours every day for a month. Just cut down on TV and instead of wasting time on somebody else’s fantasy, set your imagination free!
Permalink
10.14.08
Posted in Culture, Media at 11:00 pm by thomas
James Lileks got “100 Movie Pack Mystery Classics” for his birthday and what else to do than blog the movies, one at a time.
The first three movie reviews are up on his site, and judging from them this could be a very long two years for James, but a very entertaining 100 weeks for his readers… 
Permalink
10.11.08
Posted in Books, Culture, Good Stuff, Media at 11:10 pm by thomas
Wow… yesterday I finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson and I have to say, it was quite some work to get through over 900 pages of rather amazing ideas.
The book is a world-building exercise on the level of Tolkien’s best work, with a wide swath of fictional geography, history, local languages and culture fleshed out to the point of ridiculousness. There is certainly a steep learning curve during the early chapters, where a lot of concepts are introduced in short order, but things calm down a bit with long passages were actually not much is going on other than Stephenson cementing the world he has created for this rather extraordinary story to live in.
But even these slow sequences are full of great details and sparkly little ideas that make this a typical Stephenson novel, that often feel like a grand tour through the brain of a genius.
I really enjoyed how much of the early philosophical concepts and historical background become crucial parts of the story as it unfolds in the second half of the book – I found that to be a nice payoff for what early on feels like overindulgence on Stephenson’s part.
The last third of the book takes the reader into a surprising direction, with the pacing picking up quickly and a rather amazing few chapters at the end where the book reminded me a lot of the action sequences in Snow Crash.
All in all I very much enjoyed Anathem and can highly recommend it to all Neal Stephenson fans. If you are new to Stephenson, check out Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon and if you like those, Anathem should be on your must-read list.
Permalink
Posted in Modern Life, Navel Gazing at 10:27 pm by thomas
We’ve added a new feature to MapSkip: Sounds of the World. This has been something I’ve been playing with on MapSkip since the beginning – geolocating sound recordings. We still only have a few recordings on the site, but I hope that by adding a special feature page, we can attract more people to add their recordings to the map.
So if you’ve recorded some interesting soundscapes on one of your trips or from around your hometown, please check out MapSkip and I hope you’ll consider adding a story – and your recording – to the ever-growing map.
Permalink
