Sunday Links: November 20, 2011 Edition

I haven't talked about progress on my November goals explicitly yet this month, so I figured this was a good time to do so.

1) Write 50,000 words of new fiction. Well on my way. I'm over 40,000 total words for the month with 10 days remaining. If I somehow fail at this one, it would be a shock.
2) Complete ("win") NaNoWriMo. I noted when I set these goals that 1 and 2 were sort of counterparts with 1 being a bit of a "safety net" in case I something went truly awry with my NaNo project. I'm over 70% done with the official NaNo objective now. Again, it would take some monumental collapse for me to not reach this goal.
3) Keep my regular blogging schedule. On pace. If I choose to skip a post or two over the holiday weekend, I don't think I'll count that against myself, though I'll still note it in my month-end wrapup.
4) Write at least one short story of 1000 or more words. Done as of yesterday. I'd written several flash fictions earlier in the month, but nothing lengthier in the short fiction realm.

So, unless anything really bad happens in the next week and a half, I should meet all of these goals. I'm really very happy about this, since I wasn't sure I would be able to both write 51,000 or more words of fiction in a month and keep up blogging regularly.

One other thing I'd like to mention before I get to the links. The recently-completed Platform-Building Campaign run by Rachael Harrie included three challenges. Regular readers of this site will know that I wrote a flash fiction for each challenge and that the 2nd and 3rd both were awarded 8th place out of over 100 entries. One of the other campaigners, Katharina Gerlach, worked with many of the writers of responses to the three challenges and got permission to use their entries in a collection which is currently on sale with the proceeds going to charity. One caveat, I have not vetted the charity to which the funds are going. I trust that it's a good one, but if you want to validate that, by all means do so.

"Writing Longhand: Tips and Tricks" (Stephanie McGee and Chronicles of a Novel Writer) - Admittedly, this is something I will never do -- try to write a novel (or even a short-story of any real length) longhand. I have a lousy writing grip and struggle with tendonitis in my primary arm. Writing more than a handful of notes during a business meeting is painful some days. But, I know that there are people out there who do write longhand and I thought that it was very interesting to see a collection of pointers from one who does.

"Story Climax: The Whole Point" (Victoria Mixon guest-posting on Jami Gold's blog) - A good illustration of how story climax and story premise relate with several examples from famous classic literature.

"Happy Writers: Using What You Love" (Natalie Whipple at Between Fact and Fiction) - I liked this post about how bits of Natalie's experiences, personality and likes trickle into her writing. I know that's happened with my own work from time to time. It can help something have an authentic feel if a character is enthusiastic about something around which the writer shares the same enthusiasm.

"How NaNo Confirmed my Pantserness" (Jani at Life Debatable) - Jani talks about how she tried to change her pantser ways for this year's NaNoWriMo by doing advance planning. As you can guess from the title, this didn't go well for her. She went back to her pantsing ways and is much happier now. I'm happy for her, and it's also a very interesting read as a comparison with my own experiences with NaNo so far (discussed in my Monday post linked below). We came to radically different conclusions, but both of us found that the way that we thought writing worked well for us was indeed the method we were most productive with.

Additionally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog:

"Four Things NaNoWriMo Has Taught Me (So Far)" - Monday I examined four things I've learned about my writing process during NaNoWriMo.

"On Persistence" - Tuesday, I really didn't feel like writing. But I did anyway, and that experience became the foundation of Wednesday's blog post. I talked about just how powerful (for me) the act of committing to write every day has been in terms of keeping myself moving forward.

"'Abandoned Items' (Call & Response Flash Fiction #2)" - To complete the second iteration of my "Call & Response" flash fiction series I posted this short-short story based on a prompt by Nellie. And then Saturday, I posted...

"Call & Response Flash Fiction Request for Prompts (Iteration 3)" - This starts the third round of the series. Readers have until Noon (EST) on Thursday 11/24 to submit their entries for the contest. The prompt entry which I choose will earn the submitter a $5 Amazon gift card and I'll publish the story I write based on their prompt on 12/2.

Next week includes Thanksgiving here in the United States. I'm still intending to stick to my regular blogging schedule. If I end up deciding to change that approach, I'll let everyone know.

For all those who are traveling this coming week, I wish you safe and happy travels.