National Novel Writing Month – 50,000 words in 30 days (picture of a table at Milk Wood by Lizzie Gudkov)
NANOWRIMO AT MILK WOOD
We are excited to announce that we’ll be hosting a selection of online workshops again this year. Click on the links below to participate at the specific time. These workshops are held in Second Life®.
All scheduled events take place online at the Milk Wood Writing Group area (unless otherwise stated) or in the writing room at Book Island (Sundays at 12 noon PT). All are welcome to join us.
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Writing Workshops & Write-Ins
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Character (with Goal) + Conflict = Plot
Hosted by Robinette Waterson
Friday 22nd October, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
F. Scott Fitzgerald said about writing fiction: “Character is plot, plot is character.”
One approach at story writing is to first decide on a strong main CHARACTER (or characters). Once a writer knows what drives that character into action, their strengths, flaws, and internal conflicts will naturally and realistically lead to the kind of conflicts or obstacles standing between them and their goal. It is these conflicts and how the character overcomes them, that make up the PLOT.
Looking at two examples: Examine how the characters of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby and Katniss in The Hunger Games directly lead to the plot. Both characters have personality traits that predict their behavior, which indicate how they will approach their goals and how they will overcome obstacles in their path. Because of their character traits, one story ends in tragedy and the other in triumph. (Come to class for full disclosure!)
A fun exercise would be to look at what would happen to your story if another character was the protagonist. Can you swap the sidekick and the main character? Or take one good or one bad attribute from a minor character and add it to your main character’s profile?
Character is key. Put your writing effort there and see how all the other story elements fall into place.
About Robinette
Robinette Waterson is a writer of Victorian steampunk erotica, historical novels, and assorted ephemera.
Instructor for Workshops: Story Weaving on Thursdays @ 2pm, Nanowrimo Prep, and After Nano-What’s Next?
In Second Life®, Robinette role plays in historical sims, generally playing a strong-minded woman with a zest for life.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Huck’s Cube of NaNo
Hosted by Huckleberry Hax
Sunday 31st October, 2021
1pm PT / 4pm ET / 8pm GMT
It’s National Novel Writing Month again! Prepare yourself for pep talks! If there’s one thing aspiring novelists can rely on in the month of November (besides sleep deprivation and bleeding fingertips) it’s other writers delivering their ‘top tips’ for getting 50,000 words written in the space of 30 days. Huckleberry Hax has absolutely no intention of deviating from this formula (chiefly because it makes him feel for an hour like a real, grown-up writer), and will be once again delivering his ‘Cube of Nano’ talk at Milk Wood as novelists assume the crouch position, ready for the starter’s gun.
Why ‘cube’? Because he has six tips, and six without the framework of a cool geometric shape sounds like it really ought to be edited down to five – BUT WE DON’T EDIT DURING NANOWRIMO!
Join us for an hour in voice on 31st October at 1pm SLT. Please come voice-enabled so you can hear Huck talk. Every person who types the line ‘When is it starting?’ five minutes into the talk *will* be given lines to write.
About Huck
Huckleberry Hax writes virtual reality novels, many of which are set in Second Life® (the best known of which is ‘AFK’). He also films machinima and in 2020 released his first Second Life® feature-length movie.
He has completed NaNoWriMo nine times.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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NaNoWriMo Kick-Off Party & Halloween Hunt
Hosted by Harriet Gausman and DJ Grease Coakes
Treats donated by Harriet Gausman
Theme: Weird Science
Sunday 31st October, 2021
2pm PT / 5pm ET / 9pm GMT
A chance for you to meet your fellow Wrimos, pick up the resource box and titler, chat about your NaNoWriMo ideas, and dance to Grease’s grooves. Our dress theme this year is ‘Weird Science’. Best outfit wins a prize of 2,000 Lindens.
The Halloween Hunt follows the party.
About Grease
Grease has DJed for the Ark and AX, and many SLB parties. They’re currently working on the Summer of Trance furry story.
Event held online at the Fiesta Bar.
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“It’s not just music that has a beat”
Hosted by Rayne Bowdit
Monday 1st November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm GMT
How do we create a rhythm in our writing to ensure our readers have the best experience and are not pulled out of the story? Rhythm in voice, and story pace are important. Come along and find out more with Rayne Bowdit, author and publisher of over 30 books.
About Rayne
Rayne Bowdit has been a RL writer for over 4 years. She has self-published 30 books in a variety of genres. Better known for her romance fiction, most of her books have reached the number one slot on I-tunes and other sellers. She and her partner, Rennyparish Resident, run their own writer’s group at Omega.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Rose-coloured glasses or the unvarnished truth – what do we owe history?
Hosted by Finn Bookmite
Thursday 4th November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm GMT
A discussion, with no definitive answers offered, on how we portray the past in our fiction: given that we can never truly know the world about which we write, how do we justify our work?
About Finn
Finn Bookmite – Fiona Forsyth in RL – is passionate about the ancient world of Rome, particularly the first century BCE. Learn more about her novels at www.luciussestius.com
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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To Show or to Tell
Hosted by Ercila Robbins
Friday 5th November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm GMT
There is an interesting debate raging on social media between authors who insist on showing instead of telling and authors who believe that telling is just as good. In order to understand the discussion, we first need to understand the difference.
Ercila will discuss what ‘show not tell’ actually means, when and where to use each and how to prevent showing from being overdone and distracting from the plot.
About Ercila
Retired criminal attorney and author of six crime novels – and more in the works. Ercila is also a former journalist and newspaper editor, and a published poet. She is a mother, grandmother, and veteran.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Memoir; or, Did That Really Happen?
Hosted by Zoetrope Ocelot
Saturday 6th November, 2021
9am PT / 12noon ET / 4pm GMT
Are you writing from your life? Memoirs have seen a surge in popularity-everything from tell-alls, to loosely life-based vignettes, to completely fictionalized semi-autobiographical material, all making it out of the jumbled details of authors’ memories, and onto bookshelves and the screen. “In a tricky climate for books, sales of memoirs in the UK have surged 42% in the past 12 months, to 2.5 million,” wrote Rob Walker in The Guardian, on May of 2019. The latest to go from page to screen is Maid, by Stephanie Land. MSN reports, “The show did incredibly well after its initial release and has remained one of the top Netflix shows on the streaming platform.” How do successful memoirists form their jumbles of memory into compelling stories that someone else would want to read?
About Zoetrope
Zoetrope Ocelot is a recluse, serving as caregiver and housekeeper for a chronically-ill relation, busy with her garden and bees, and not much interested in publication. If she can keep that up she is sure to be as posthumously famous as Emily Dickinson.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Finding your Path to Publishing Fiction
Hosted by KeyKey Underwood
Monday 8th November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
Not every writer wants to publish, but there are several good options for those who do. Learn how to get your novel or short story collection into print and how to avoid the pitfalls along the path to publication. This workshop is geared for fiction writers but may also be useful to anyone who’s written a memoir or a collection of essays.
About KeyKey
KeyKey, a native Clevelander, is the former director of The Chautauqua Writers Center in Chautauqua, New York. Her debut novel, Painting Bridges, (Bottom Dog Press, 2013) was praised by Michelle Ross, book critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as “an introspective, intelligent and moving novel.” Her second novel, Resurrecting Rain (Golden Antelope Press, 2020) won a Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association and was a semi-finalist for a Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award under the title New Moon Rising. Her poetry chapbook, Missing Persons, (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) won the London based Lumen/Camden prize and was cited by Times of London Literary Supplement (November, 2014) as one of the best small collections of the year.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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World-Building 101
Hosted by Doyle Slen
Tuesday 9th November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
What is that ruin over there? How long has it been there? Who built it? What happened to them? Why does it matter?
Does your story take place in a neighborhood? A city, perhaps? Or is it a globe-spanning epic?
What do your characters and readers see as the story unfolds? World-building can be tedious or it can be exhilarating. You get to choose which. Easy steps to building the world of your dreams.
About Doyle
Would-be novelist, with somewhere over one million words scribbled down in several as yet unpublished, or even unedited novels. Too busy writing to do that edit and rewrite stuff. Began building a world in 1983 as needed for a tabletop RPG game. Started writing everything down after finding his way into Second Life® in 2011. Found his way to Milk Wood in 2013 and has made it his writing home ever since.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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It’s as if you were there!
Hosted by Colin Bell (aka Wolfgang Glinka)
Monday 15th November, 2021
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
Create a world that comes to life on the page. Come to Wolfgang Glinka’s session with a pencil and paper and try out some techniques in creating a vivid sense of place in your fiction.
About Colin
Colin Bell was born in a Franciscan convent in Surrey but grew up in Sussex, UK. Everything he’s done; he did for the first time in Brighton.
His poetry collection Remembering Blue was published in 2019 by Ward Wood Publishing.
His two novels are set in Brighton:
Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) long-listed for the Polari Prize 2014.
Blue Notes, Still Frames, (Ward Wood Publishing, 2016),
Formerly a producer-director of arts documentaries and then Executive Producer, Music and Arts, he made arts programmes for ITV, BBC, Channel Four, and for broadcasters in the USA (WNET and Disney), in Japan (NHK) and Germany (WDR). His television credits include Celebration, God Bless America, My Generation, Menuhin’s Children, and It Was Twenty Years Ago Today. He has been nominated for two Royal Television Society awards,
His poetry has been published in the UK and the USA by Cinnamon Press, Soaring Penguin Press, Muse-Pie Press, Bittersweet, Kind of A Hurricane Press and The Blotter. He has been nominated in the USA for the 2016 and 2019 Pushcart Prize. The American publisher, Musepie Press featured him as its new Featured International Poet in 2020. Many of his Fibonacci poems have been published in The Fib Review and have been set to music by American composer, Tim Risher, in a song cycle for tenor and piano, Fibonacci Poems (2017).
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Write-ins
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Monday – Sunday at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT.
Every Monday – Friday at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm GMT.
The session begins with a prompt, and a timer is set for fifteen or thirty minutes. Participants then write feverishly for the allotted time, using the word (or picture) as inspiration. The key is to disengage your inner editor and write freely. As well as being useful for sketching out notes and scenes before November, and for kick-starting your writing sessions during the month, these sprints are a fun way to increase your word count. For those attending the 6am sessions, there will also be an opportunity for you to receive a brief critique from fellow writers. Sessions are held throughout November at Milk Wood (unless otherwise stated).
Click here to be taken to the online write-in.
Additional sprint at Book Island every Sunday at 12 noon PT.
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Check out our website for pep talks from previous NaNoWriMo winners.
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