Party and the future

[nanonano]

NovaNano met for its "Thank God It's Over" party tonight at Ned Devine's in Fairfax, a Irish/Aussie style pub. Unfortunately we picked the night of the snowstorm, so we were a little worried we would either have to cancel or no one would show up. They had wanted to set us up in what they charmingly called "the WB Yeats library", but the previous large party would simply not leave and they couldn't exactly force the issue. Our two gentlemen managers had the most delicious accents. Jen and I suggested that it was quite all right if they wanted to talk to us all night. I certainly had no objections, but her husband might have. So instead they linked up a bunch of tables right in front of the band setup. Our managers mentioned blithely that they had live music starting at 9pm and they'd have to move a few of our tables to accomodate them. (Actually it was probably to save some eardrums. They were quite loud in usual local band mode. I wanted a decent incendio spell for the drum machine or whatever they thought was sounding out a beat. Because I don't know what it was but you sure as heck couldn't dance to it!)

Despite the weather, we had a decent crowd. It was nice to see iced_spice again since the first NovaNano party, especially since she's been so encouraging about "Where or When". Hopefully I can carry that into writing the rest of the novel. Delighted to see littlemy and writer_rivki again from the writeins. I finally also placed a face and name with one of our more prolific posters/writers on the board, which was a bit jarring, but in a good sense. We had some good discussions going back and forth, although sometimes the background noise made it hard to talk.

Speaking of the novel, I have not worked on it this week at all really, just finishing one HP fanfic piece I had in the works before Nano started. I knew the post Nano exhaustion was going to hit, I just wasn't expecting it to be so sudden. I made my CVS goal for this week to rewrite the dread 14K. I'm rather stuck on some level. I know they're at a party and something will massively blow up amongst the group, but I haven't figured out what happens yet.

btw, if you want to friend the "other" mes, look at hildy or wabbitseason. I'll probably continue to update this one as I'm working on "Where or When", but obviously nowhere near the frequency as during November.

Comments

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I think it was supposed to represent the heartbeat of a Sarlaac (sp?). Or he was letting out his Inner Road Rage. Or he just wanted to torture the sound check guy.

It was good to see you too, btw. :) I'm looking forward to reading your novel when it's done, *and* the other guy's "Rust." I'm loving historical fiction right now!

So the CVS meets every week? What do they *do* at the meetings? Pass around each other's work? It sounds very cool, but I'm still spotty on how it all works.

*goes to look at your other journals*

[nanonano.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you too, in spite of the drums and general noise. Someday we will meet in a nice quiet room and we won't know what to do with ourselves. I would actually like to read your book as well. The whole setup sounds quite nifty. I didn't do fantasy this year, because I may have burned myself out *last* year. The offer stands on "Trial by Light". There should still be one excerpt hiding in the journal's archive. Very fantasy and magic oriented, but no critters, just lighthouses and ships. I based most of geography and setting on Vancouver Island itself. The lighthouse I saw was named "Trial Island" and that just seemed too appropriate to not use.

The CVS Website (http://www.jenniferbrinn.com/cvs) can answer some of basics, but yes, unless there is a major holiday or B&N is closed, we meet every Thursday night, usually downstairs in the cafe. The group is fairly large now. We started with a few hardy souls, acquired a bunch more from last year's Nano including Mike and myself, and then B&N started to notice us. They didn't know how to deal with a writing group, so we're a kinda book group, reviewing a writing book at the beginning of the month. Those discussions are usually pretty short, though.

We do pass around our work and receive critiques as detailed as you want. We cover the wide range of genres with everything from young adult to mystery to science fiction and fantasy to the unexplainable. (We have one member whose stories vary from outright horror to Douglas Adams style wackiness. It was very disconcerting the first time we critiqued him and realized "wait, this isn't his usual funny stuff!")

We have done random writing exercises during the meeting with topics generated on someone's Palm, but we have gotten out of the habit lately. Some people are of two minds how much they work, especially for people with ongoing projects. *shrugs* I personally liked having one period where I knew I'd be writing, but I seem to work differently than others. I don't outline nearly as much as Jennifer either.

We also do weekly goals which I alluded to in my post. Each week we go around and say what we're going to work on during the week. Goals are voluntary. You can pass if you don't want to set a goal. It can be writing oriented "Revise X project" or it can be planning oriented like outlining or research. During the pre-Nano, my goal was usually a "find a Nano idea" or preparing for Nano, gathering the ideas and background.