Sunday, November 20, 2005

Things I don't understand

Write a diary of your attempt to scale the mountain of a 50,000 word novel in a month, and nobody comments, not to offer wishes of support or cheer you on your way, not even to say "this is boring, tell us more about Wonder Woman". Stop writing it and you get more comments than you've seen in the best part of a month put together saying no don't go.

Don't misunderstand, I like a bit of feedback at any time. Anyone who does a blog I read knows I read it because I regularly leave a comment, even if it doesn't really contribute anything. Except for Dave's Long Box, which doesn't need my patronage, since it gets more comments during the week when Dave is on vacation and not posting than I get in a month of daily wit and crit. Everyone needs a little support, and unless you are paying to read a blog that you enjoy then it seems only polite to say so now and again.

It's great to find that something I've written has been used in a classroom. But why wait till now to tell me? When I last posted I was going through a very difficult time with the novel and I was getting very depressed about it. The apparent indifference of anyone who read the blog just made me wonder why I was bothering.

So I took a break and didn't even look at the blog for a few days, and I come back and find a bunch of nice comments, so thanks for that.

Meanwhile, somehow the novel just about manages to keep on schedule. Day twenty, the word count is now at 34,374 and I'm in the middle of writing the big lesbian sex scene. Does it count as erotica if they fall out of bed?

11 comments:

Walaka said...

I guess it depends on what they land on...

Scipio said...

"this is boring, tell us more about Wonder Woman".

My perception is that no one is interested in us as people, Marionette, or in what we do. They do like us to entertain them, however...!

And I think that's just fine.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I've been reading along with your progress reports: my wife is also doing the novel in a month thing (well, so am I, but I fell off the wagon).

Sorry I haven't written before! Glad to see you are really getting close to the end, though!

Snard said...

Hi Marionette,

I've been a regular "reader" of your blog. Actually, I subscribe to it via RSS, and I check my my feeds for updates every day or so. Sometimes I see that you've posted something, which I read when I see them, but I don't always find the time to respond. Or, I feel that what you posted is interesting, but I can't think of a reply, witty or otherwise.

I've tried in the past to write in my own blog, but it doesn't work for me. I admire people who have the tenacity to keep up with it. As others have said, sorry I haven't written much before, but trust that you have an audience out there, albeit one that doesn't always give you immediate feedback.

- Snard

Anonymous said...

Marionette...

Count me as one of the many that read regularly, but only sometimes gets around to commenting. I don't think of myself as really qualified to comment on the process of writing, which has (understandably) been your recent focus. I do hope you're having fun with it!

Oh, and good erotica, like good sex, can involve laughter! Anyway, it would be hard for a "big lesbian sex scene" not to be somwhat erotic.

JP said...

Nothing's hotter than lesbians falling out of bed. Except maybe you could somehow get them onto a space station and make it a Zero-G scene.

I'm jealous. I'm stuck at a little over 10K on my NaNoWriMo.

This post brought to you by Sqezbad, supplier of bath sponges to Haroun-Al-Raschid.

Marionette said...

Spitzig is right. I made a deliberate decision when I started this blog to make it less personal and more based. But when I started the novel and decided not to blog it, keeping a record about writing it seemed like a fun way of blogging something over this period, and it's hard to do a diary without it getting personal.

Anyhow, I have to get back to the novel, I think one of my characters is waking up...

Anonymous said...

Another factor here is a logistic problem I have with this whole write-a-novel-this-month deal: your blog audience consists of cybersavvy people who may very well be working on novels of their own this month...or have a dozen other friends and/or favorite bloggers who are doing the same, and all of them want attention and feedback on their efforts. In my case, I'm just totally burned out by all the people I know who all want my comments on their stuff or encouraging words at the same time.

And I might add, these same people are nowhere to be found when I need feedback on my work...ahem!

Anonymous said...

Today's lesson. Including the phrase "big lesbian sex scene" in your post drastically increases your number of comments. Probably a lot of google hits as well.

Bill Burns

Anonymous said...

As a coder-geek that has all too often seen the faces of people who are completely disinterested in my never-ending rants on the morality of file sharing or antitrust legislation, I've been trained that if you don't have anything interesting or useful to say, then shut up and let the other person talk. Similarly, when I'm posting on my blog I am at home. I don't tend to feel that I need a pep squad unless I post something that says "I need a pep squad". Thus, I tend to gloss over the "wow, what a great blog!"-type comments and search for the ones that end with question marks or start with "you're an idiot". Through the magic of projection, I just assume that everyone else tend to work the same way, thus also reducing the number of comment posts I write.

However, having said all of that, I would be completely remiss if I didn't expect my wife to smack me upside the head for such an attitude. She would tell me that normal people need reinforcement and encouragement, and that I should try to turn on the emotion chip every now and then.

So, yeah, being a geek and a guy sucks. We never know when to talk and when to shut up.

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