In a profound insult to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., a racist sexist classist know-nothing soulless shitsack con-man thug and dime store Hitler will assume the throne of the USA on MLK day, January 20th 2025 – soon to be known as The Day the Music Actually Died. I don’t know about you, but I will not be paying the slightest bit of attention to it, or fucking anything that follows. We know by the end of the week there will be about fifty executive orders making things worse for just everybody that is alive now or going to be alive for decades to come. We will have all the time in the world to find out about these things as they fuck us over, so why speed-run our sorrow?
I don’t work Fridays and I have Monday the 20th off for the holiday, so I have a four day weekend. I will be doing a speed-writing event with whoever is willing from my writing group – which is likely to be nobody but my husband, heh. I will be attempting to finish a short novel in four days. To facilitate that, I have done a lot of preparation and intend to do more – coming up with answers to any questions that might bog me down with research, coming up with names, outlining the plot more specifically than I might for a more casual paced event.
So. Can you write around 12,500 words a day during that window of time? Or just part of that time? If not that ambitious, what could you write? Might you be available? It would be cool to have some solidarity on busting this thing out.
Another question for you: Would you mind if I posted the whole first draft here as I wrote it? I know some of you feel overwhelmed when I ramp up productivity for a minute, and just check out. I don’t mind if I don’t get comments, or get them days or weeks later when you’ve caught up. I do think it would be fun to post a big wild pile of unedited mayhem on here, but I don’t want to waste your time or my own if that’ll just hit like a lead balloon.
And with regard to the solidarity thing, you could post your first drafts in my comments. Long posts will end up going to spam and need to be manually cleared so might not show immediately, but I will approve them. Or you could post reminder links to somewhere else online where your words are posted. Sharing your first draft is for egomaniacs only; it is showing your ass in the worst way. I’d love to see it. If you do post yours, I might not have time to read them until after the event, but I’ll read yours if you read mine.
Holla at your dogg.
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Edit to Add: i forgot that critique is an implicit ask when posting something publicly. if it helps you feel more bold in posting your stuff, we can make this officially “no critique” or “positive feedback only.” it’s my house; i can make that happen for you.
Do what you will, it’s your blog.
As far as critiques go, we’ll be gentle (probably). As long as all if us, including you, remember that critiques are no reflection on you personally. That you, the author, is fully authorized to disregard any critique any of us make. And that any critique we offer should be provided with a reason. Even if the reason is, “I don’t like that phrasing”, that will give you, the author, some idea of how important the critique is. An important critique might be something like, “You have an open window on the ground floor of your locked-room mystery. Maybe you ought to shut it?”
I won’t join you. While I can crank out 12500 words/day easily enough, it wouldn’t be fiction. I’ve tried my hand at fiction, and I don’t have the talent for it. If you think my non-fiction is unjustifiably prolix, you need a machete to get through the jungle of exposition I inevitably include when I try writing fiction. I wouldn’t have been able to start A Christmas Carol with “Marley was dead, to begin with.” I would have thrown in what Marley died of, where he died, who was present, what he ate for his last meal, the doctor’s fee, the undertaker’s fee, the cost of mourners, and the memorial service. But Dickens manages to start the whole shebang in a single, short, sentence. I also will be working that Friday and Monday, which would cut into the time available.
So post your work, if you so desire. We’ll read it, and carefully, gently, cautiously, politely, and gleefully, tear it to shreds.
If, for some protection, you would rather only people willing to post their own work make critiques, I would understand and refrain. You are absolutely correct, asking for critiques of writing on the internet, even in a place as friendly as FTBs tend to be, is like exposing your naked ass to a dozen ravenous wolves (or one catholic priest). You can expect a certain amount of pain. Asking that only people who are willing to do the same engage in actual critiquing would be a lot less scary.
(BTW, I just reread this comment before posting it, and cut out about 100 words. It’s still probably too long.)
thx for the answers flex. i think nonfic would be fine, if you’re up for just the weekend days of it.
Okay, I’ve given due consideration to your suggestion/request, and against my better judgement, I’ll join you in this exercise. I’ve also talked it over with my wife and she is fine with me spending a weekend typing away. I didn’t think she would mind, but I’ve got to be aware of the feelings of the people around me as well as my own.
I’m not going to promise what I will write about, only that I will make an attempt to write 12,500 words each day on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th. It may be six 2,000 word essays (because I am a lover of the essay form. Not the form we were taught in high school, but the form Montaigne and Emerson used). It may be stream-of-consciousness. It may even be purple prose. And at the end of that time I’ll expose all my weaknesses to the readers of this blog. Not that I really have anything to hide, the secrets I keep are not my own.
Any other takers out there? The more the merrier!
yeasss it’s on! i’ll keep mentioning it on posts between now and then. sounds like your 25k could be pretty interesting.
Way too old and slow to keep up with multiple novels over four days, but I’ll take a peek now and then. I write, too, for myself, and very slowly. My last story of 3,000-ish words took six months.
aww! im sorry bud, but thanks for your feedback.