Monday, December 7, 2009

Sentences

Wednesday, November 9th

The following are the plans for this coming Wednesday's Novel Orchard meeting.

Sentence Workshop

What is it exactly that makes a good sentence? Is it a hook? Is it simply a well-crafted sentence? What sort of information does it contain? Do you have any idea?

Wednesday, we'll go over this. We'll craft sentences, and then pare them down to good sentences. By the end of the evening, you'l understand passive voice and how to avoid it, modifiers and why they're not descriptive, and what sort of information you, as a reader, actually want to see in the sentences you read, and why you want to see it.

Come with paper and pen or pencil to write and then share what you've written.

What do you think makes a great sentence?

Friday, December 4, 2009

The 500

The 500 is a challenge to all writers everywhere, initiated by Boise's Novel Orchard.

It's as simple as this: write 500 words a day, every day, for a year.

Why so simple? Writers need to write, and, while it seems an oxymoron, writers have a hard time with butt-in-chair-hands-on-keyboard. BNO has noticed that challenges help to alleviate this issue. So, use this to hold yourself accountable and force yourself to spend time with words every day. Work on your craft in small, manageable chunks.

What can you write? As far as BNO is concerned, everything goes. Starting with working on a novel or short story to non-fiction to blogging and even good old fashioned journaling. It doesn't matter what it is, just write it for 500 words every day.

What doesn't count? In a word: editing. Adding a bunch of new words to something well under revision isn't writing so much as it is editing. Adding new sections or scenes to something undergoing the revision process is, however, more writing than editing.

How do you hold yourself accountable? You can use your own blog, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, or anything else that will hold yourself accountable. Announce it to friends and family that you're doing this - they'll ask about it. Whatever you do, don't keep it to yourself. Your friends will be pivotal in holding you accountable to your 500.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

NaNo 2009 is over

NaNoWriMo 2009 finished up a few days ago. We had a great time at the last minute write in, with all in attendance who planned to finish indeed crossed the 50k line. Way to go Boise WriMos!

Sunday (December 6) will bring about the TGIO (The Game Is Over) Party at Fairview Flying Pie at 3pm. Please don't forget to send your RSVP in before Saturday.

Also, we have some Participant Surveys available for you to complete to make NaNo even better next year. The first survey is for all participants in the Boise area, and is anonymous. The second is for those who wish to volunteer somehow in 2010.

Both of these Surveys will be available in good old fashioned paper form at the TGIO on Sunday.

Thanks to everyone who participated and made this year so awesome. We'll have some final statistics here in a few days.

See you on Sunday!