I have been following Kindle blogs, the ones that requires subscription, and available only on Kindle reader, not Fire. I guess the new Kindle Fire is sophisticated enough to follow on the blog directly. Of course, it does mean that the bandwidth will be greater, and not as convenient, since I have to actually link the pages on to some kind of favorite list. I guess I need to come up with a page of favorite links so I can do just that.
Still, the idea is intriguing enough that I want to try it out. Perhaps I can make something out of it.
On another front, I wonder if it is wise that I open up the blog, by which I mean this blog, to public. After all, I will be typing the content of Nanowrimo into this blog. That means first draft. It has been said that you should never put out first draft, or second, or third, or any other version, except the final most complete, most polished draft. On one hand, that is a good idea. On the other hand, I do not believe that I want to set up yet another blog or cloud directory just to store my materials. So, I decided that in the meantime, by which I mean the foreseeable future, I will post first draft out to the public, and we'll go from there.
I also wonder whether or not I should put adult warning on this blog. I'm thinking maybe I should. I do not foresee putting anything more intense than PG 13 equivalent. However, this being a first draft endeavor, some adult situation will no doubt leaks through. Since I believe in no offense, even accidentally, I'm thinking that I should just put out the adult warning up front.
Not that this means it will be all smut and gore. That's not my style. My style is that of relationship, preferably generational. There was an incident where one of the PSN game was marked adult. Looking into the game, it turns out that the game was "Shadow of Colossus". Adult material, yes, but that adult definition is that of wisdom required, instead of sex and gore. That is to say, adulthood sense of spiritual sense, instead of physiological sense. That is the definition of adulthood that I'm referring to.
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Stream of Consciousness (SOC) is a technique that allows you to type what you're thinking. There was a famous author who did such an exercise. I forgot his name just now, but that is what stream of consciousness gives you. You do not have the luxury to go and research material. You do note that you will need to research the material later. Anyway, what he did was to take a roll of paper and type it on a typewriter. The interesting is, he didn't do any breaks. I'm not sure if he does some paragraph breaks or not, but definitely no chapter break. Very interesting technique, that.
I suppose that is SOC technique taken to an extreme, but if it works, then great. Use what techniques are available to you. Bruce Lee is fond of saying "Absorb what is useful. Discard the rest." I think you should do that. The problem is that in order to really keep what is useful, you need to experiment with a lot of different techniques. Just because somebody so and so uses that technique and be very successful, does not mean you can apply the same technique and be just as successful. We are all built differently. The best teachers know this, and so they acquire so many different techniques and are able to impart their skills tailored to a particular student. Bad teacher will focus only on one super technique, which means that the student may not do well just because the student teacher relationship hinge on talent mismatch.
Take a look at this exercise. I'm typing freely. This you know because I mentioned Stream of Consciousness exercise. But do you know that I'm typing this while resting on my bed with my eyes closed? Bet you didn't know that! The trouble is that I do have my eyes closed. So when I accidentally hit the CAPSLOCK button, I didn't know that and ALL MY WORDS CAME OUT IN ALL CAPS. A few paragraphs down, I look at the text, and well, I have to type it all over again. Also, it does happen from time to time that my fingers have shifted from the original position and so the words came out ;olr yjod ejrtr s;; yjr ;ryyrtd str sts,b;rf/ That was supposed to say "words came out jumbled where all the letters are scrambled."
And so it goes. Just like anything, you need to start out slow. So, I'm doing Nanowrimo? I need to start out slow. Typing this exercise routine is but one way where I'm conditioning my mental faculty to type fast in order to complete Nanowrimo successfully. I suppose next time, I will need to write an outline, and all the characters that are involved in the story. Also, I need to do more than one outline since it is possible that I end the story prematurely.
What I usually do is to start at the end, the conclusion, the climatic ending. Then I would go back and build up to the scene. I do this because of the lesson Stephen King taught me. No, we never met. He did write an excellent book On Writing. In it, he mention about the exercise where he sold book through email, and serialized it. Unfortunately, he ran out of ideas somewhere in the middle, which he admitted happened more often than he like. Well, that happens to me, too. Since I already have the ending in mind, however, it is a simple matter for me to end it there. So, instead of this long epic novel, I'd get a novella. Not as good result, perhaps, but still an acceptable outcome. Better that than half completed manuscript that will never get finished.
It is now half an hour and it's time for me to edit the material and post it to the web. Word count: 1102. After edit: 1043.
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