Monday, November 4, 2013

Home Ruling NaNoWriMo for Gaming

Like a good game system that gets house ruled, that's what I've done to NaNoWritMo.  I've taken the concept and skeleton form of it and then applied my own house rules.  I am not writing a novel.  I did this in the past and while the exercise was interesting and fun, its not something I'm interested in right now.  What I am doing is applying those 50k words into gaming.  Yesterday for example, I wrote nearly 2500 words for the 5th Manor.  The first draft is nearly done now.

Some of the other areas I'm applying my 50k words is the campaign world I've been tinkering with.  I've done some work on this morning, a few hundred words, but tonight I'll need to sit down and pound out at least another 1500 words.  No revising.  No editing.  Just producing now.  I can second guess myself in December.

I'm using NaNoWritMo to develop a writing habit.  An expectation of myself.  I love to write, but rarely give myself the chance to do it.  NaNoWriMo focuses your attention on the writing and makes it a priority.  While I may not have a novel at the end of the month, I will have a lot written for my gaming world.  Some will be for publishing purposes, but most of what I do this month will be for me and the Monday Night crew. 

Off to work.  Hope to get some good writing time in afterwards.  Either way I will be hitting my minimum goal of 1700 words.


8 comments:

  1. Peter Elbow (an unfortunate anatomical name) wrote a book called "Writing with Power" and he strongly advised separating the "creative" component of writing from the "critical" component as a means to get past writer's block and crank out content.

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  2. Sounds like you're a candidate for National Game Design Month (NaGa DeMon)!

    http://nagademon.com/

    (Going on now, in fact!)

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  3. Very cool, Tim. And definitely the way to go. I agree with Mr. Elbow, as it's the same with academic writing -- just crank it out at first, then fix it later. It's too hard to "perfect" anything until you have a full (or at least nearly full) draft whatever you're working on and can see the big picture.

    I can't wait till we get to run amok wreaking havoc in your creation!

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  4. I like your approach, probably because i'm doing something similar - zine articles, adventures, short stories, etc.

    Already looking forward to the next Manor!

    -John

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  5. Sounds like we are taking somewhat similar paths. I flapped around with four different starts before I finally found my footing on Sunday. I plan on working on this story as well as working on other projects and applying the word from all to hit my numbers.
    Look forward to seeing the results of your labor.

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  6. So happy for you, Babe. Keep up the great work.

    Smooch.

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  7. Sounds like a great idea. I actually wind up doing something a lot like Matt suggests: every creative project I work on during November gets added to my total. My goal is not necessarily to write The Novel, but to exercise my creativity, which suffered so much anguish in law school.
    Keep it up, Tim!

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