NaNoWriMo did something good for me too the first year I tried it in 2020. It forced me to do a brief outline, something I'd never done before. In October I scribbled an idea for a novel, a few pages just saying: this happens, then this... a list of characters... very loose. It had a historical element, so I did some research online, noting dates and places. All very loose. I knew that if I didn't lay some groundwork in October I would run into a wall in November. It worked... I finished the book before the end of the year. The fastest I've ever written a first draft. It has been edited, revised, etc since but it's coming out next year. I'm now a big fan of NaNoWriMo!
Hi Ben - Here’s my Throwback Thursday story - with a twist. “Where was your head when you wrote the story?” I wrote Hoppers, a sci-fi dystopian satire in 2018/19 and of course we were all thinking “how bad can it get?” In my speculative world, the Flat Earthers are in power, their billionaire backers run all the services—like raising money to build a giant lever to tilt the earth and flush the garbage over the side. Authors use a persona hopping tool to write realistic characters. Never published Hoppers but decided to serialize it on Substack. Here’s the twist—revisiting the story inspired me to create the real deal—a mobile app for voice-activated brainstorming between author and their characters. I’ve got some authors doing proof of concept and we’ll see where this goes. There's a short video at charactersoncall.substack.com and the first episodes of Hoppers are there too. Appreciate your input and love the throwback concept. I wrote that book before AI took off.
NaNoWriMo did something good for me too the first year I tried it in 2020. It forced me to do a brief outline, something I'd never done before. In October I scribbled an idea for a novel, a few pages just saying: this happens, then this... a list of characters... very loose. It had a historical element, so I did some research online, noting dates and places. All very loose. I knew that if I didn't lay some groundwork in October I would run into a wall in November. It worked... I finished the book before the end of the year. The fastest I've ever written a first draft. It has been edited, revised, etc since but it's coming out next year. I'm now a big fan of NaNoWriMo!
Hi Ben - Here’s my Throwback Thursday story - with a twist. “Where was your head when you wrote the story?” I wrote Hoppers, a sci-fi dystopian satire in 2018/19 and of course we were all thinking “how bad can it get?” In my speculative world, the Flat Earthers are in power, their billionaire backers run all the services—like raising money to build a giant lever to tilt the earth and flush the garbage over the side. Authors use a persona hopping tool to write realistic characters. Never published Hoppers but decided to serialize it on Substack. Here’s the twist—revisiting the story inspired me to create the real deal—a mobile app for voice-activated brainstorming between author and their characters. I’ve got some authors doing proof of concept and we’ll see where this goes. There's a short video at charactersoncall.substack.com and the first episodes of Hoppers are there too. Appreciate your input and love the throwback concept. I wrote that book before AI took off.