Month: November 2023

NaNoWriMo 2023 In Review

John Winkelman

Poe, worn out from being Poe

I am happy to report that, for the eighth time since I first participated in National Novel Writing Month back in 2013, I have reached (and passed) my goal of 50,000 words. So, yay me!

This year I did something new. Instead of working on a novel or collections of short stories, I started a project called “Fifty Flashes and Fragments,” with the goal of writing fifty flash fictions or fragments of stories over the course of the month.

I hit 50,000 words on November 27 with piece 39, and then wrote one more because “Forty Flashes and Fragments” flows better as a project title. About half of the pieces have some merit, and of those, maybe half a dozen are genuinely good.

In service of this project, I created on this website a simple prompt generator which produces, at the click of a button, two subjects, a setting, and a genre. The only rule I set myself was that I had to use the prompt generated. Or rather, what I would NOT do is click the generator until I found a combination of subjects, setting, and genre that I liked. I only broke that rule once, when the generator produced a duplicate of the previous prompt. Random numbers are funny that way.

This method worked wonderfully, and I plan to continue to use the generator (with some modifications of the subject, setting, and genre options) for weekly writing exercises.

For NaNoWriMo 2021 and 2022, I came up with a new method of tracking my writing which focused more on the day-to-day nature of NaNo and less on things like chapters, scenes, and so forth. In those years I created one document for each day of the month, and when I started writing for a new day, even if I was still in the middle of a chapter or scene from the day before, I put that writing in the new document.

Psychologically, this had the benefit of breaking me out of the mindset of “I need to finish this chapter before I go to bed” or “I don’t want to start this chapter/scene/etc. until I have time to complete it in one writing session.” That kind of thinking is, to me, less valuable during the month of November. November is for writing 50,000 words. December is for editing those 50,000 words. Or not.

I feel that my 2023 NaNo project is a natural outgrowth of the method I used in the previous two years, and I recommend it to anyone who feels trapped between the demands of the story they are writing, and the demands of NaNoWriMo.

As always, I want to thank the members of NaNoWriMo Grand Rapids for their help, community, and support.

Here is the complete list of prompts I used for NaNoWriMo 2023.

Index: Subject 1, Subject 2; Setting; Genre

01: Economics, Aliens; Subterranean; Science Fiction
02: Revenge, Empire; Ship; Technothriller
03: Dragons, Evolution; Ship; Biopunk
04: Cyborgs, Possession; Small Town; Mystery
05: Super Powers, Portals; Battlefield; Solarpunk
06: Super Powers, Kaiju; Urban; Adventure
07: Cryptids, Music; Boardroom; Utopian
08: Cyborgs, Portals; Outpost; Literary Fiction
09: Evolution, Economics; Virtual Reality; Steampunk
10: Spiritual Beings, Super Powers; Lost City; Spy
11: Aliens, Cyborgs; Library; Noir
12: Apocalypse, Precursors; Labyrinth; Dystopian
13: Aliens, Dragons; Ruins; Western
14: Addiction, Language; Urban; Literary Fiction
15: Dreams, Espionage; Ocean; Western
16: Empire, Death; Lost City; Adventure
17: Possession, Dragons; Bar; Horror
18: Portals, Dragons; Battlefield; Biopunk
19: Kaiju, Language; Wasteland; Horror
20: Portals, Revenge; Labyrinth; Folk Tale
21: Music, Cyborgs; Ocean; Magic Realism
22: Robots, Revenge; Ship; War
23: Dreams, Fae; Subterranean; Cyberpunk
24: Colonization, Cryptids; Wasteland; Solarpunk
25: Music, Super Powers; Lost City; Steampunk
26: Genius Loci, Reincarnation; Battlefield; Weird Fiction
27: Portals, Espionage; Library; Weird Fiction
28: Revenge, Artificial Intelligence; Wilderness; Solarpunk
29: Language, Spiritual Beings; Space; Noir
30: Super Powers, Cryptids; Ocean; Utopia
31: Portals, Kaiju; Labyrinth; Horror
32: Politics, Dragons; Wasteland; Romance
33: Addiction, Spiritual Beings; Wilderness; Spy
34: Aliens, Music; Ship; Literary Fiction
35: Espionage, Robots; Boardroom; Western
36: Relic, Apocalypse; Space; Science Fiction
37: Fae, Politics; Small Town; Literary Fiction
38: Revenge, Mutants; Academia; Procedural
39: Mutants, Environment; Bordertown; Utopian
40: Portals, Colonization; Wilderness; Utopian

October 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

October was an excellent month for books, thanks primarily to me having a couple of weeks off from work to rest and recover and read and visit bookstores. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked, due to overall burnout, but again, what my reading list lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.

Acquisitions

Books acquired in the month of October 2023

  1. Jean Daive (Rosmarie Waldrop, translator), Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan (City Lights Books) [2023.10.03] – Purchased at The Book Nook& Java Shop in Montague, Michigan. This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase. I saw the City Lights logo and pulled the book down, opened it to a random couple of pages, and immediately became obsessed. It’s not often that I read a book in the same month that I purchase it.
  2. Elmore Leonard, When the Women Come Out to Dance [2023.10.06] – Purchased at Argos Books and Comics in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I recently read Get Shorty, because the movie version is one of my all-time favorites. This collection contains the short story “Fire in the Hole,” which is the basis for the TV series Justified, which is very good.
  3. R.F. Kuang, Babel [2023.10.06] – Purchased at Books & Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I read Kuang’s Yellowface a few weeks back and quite enjoyed it. This one has been on my TBR list for some time, so I when I saw it at Books & Mortar, I grabbed a copy.
  4. Jim C. Hines, Amelia Sand and the Silver Queens (self-published) – This is the reward for Hines’ latest Kickstarter.
  5. Antonio Machado (Stanley Appelbaum, translator), Fields of Castile/Campos de Castilla [2023.10.15] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A few months ago, after looking up interviews with Cormac McCarthy, YouTube began suggesting clips from a movie called The Counsellor. I had never heard of it, but it looked intriguing. The first clip I watched was from the end of the movie, and consisted of a conversation between Michael Fassbender and Rubén Blades. It was a powerful scene and the poetry of Machado figured prominently. I watched a few more scenes from the movie, enough to realize that (a) I really need to see it, and (b) I need to be in the right frame of mind because it is VERY dark. So I have not yet seen the movie but I do have some Machado to read in the meantime.
  6. Paul Celan (John Felstiner, translator), Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan [2023.10.15] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I ordered this after reading about fifty pages of Under the Dome. I knew Celan’s name, but nothing more. I am very much looking forward to reading this one.
  7. Jean Daive (Norma Cole, translator), A Woman With Several Lives (La Presse) [2023.10.23] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Also purchased after reading a few dozen pages of Under the Dome. Also looking forward to reading it.
  8. Marosia Castaldi (Jamie Richards, translator), The Hunger of Women (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.
  9. Michele Mari (Brian Robert Moore, translator), Verdigris (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.
  10. Lutz Seiler (Martyn Crucefix, translator), In Case of Loss (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.

Reading List

Books I read in the month of October 2023

Books

  1. Shawn Speakman, The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Grey [2023.10.02]
  2. Olga Tokarczuk (Antonia Lloyd-Jones, translator), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead [2023.10.17]
  3. Jean Daive (Rosmarie Waldrop, translator), Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan [2023.10.18]
  4. Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle (editors), Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia [2023.10.26]

Short Prose

  1. Jennifer Fliss, “Ijo de Ken Sos Tu?”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.18]
  2. Simo Srinivas, “The Girls of St. X”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.19]
  3. Jo Kaplan, “Humanities 215”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.19]
  4. Amber Chen, “Hugging the Buddha’s Feet”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  5. Cyrus Amelia Fisher, “In Vast and Fecund Reaches We Will Meet Again”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  6. John Langan, “Applicatio”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  7. Steve Rasnic Tem, “Higher Powers”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.22]
  8. Michael A. Reed, “Twisted Tongues”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.22]
  9. Brian Evenson, “The Allard Residency”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.23]
  10. Hussani Abdulrahim, “The Library Virus”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.23]
  11. R.B. Lemberg, “The Occupation of the Migratory Library of Oanno”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  12. Gabino Iglesias, “Tiny Hearts in the Dark”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  13. Ana Hurtado, “Parásito”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  14. Suzan Palumbo, “The Davinci Chip”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  15. Ayida Shonibar, “An Inordinate Amount of Interest”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  16. Premee Mohamed, “Preservation of an Intact Specimen”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  17. Octavia Cade, “Those Shining Things Are Out of Reach”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  18. Marisca Pichette, “Her Finished Wings”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.26]
  19. R.J. Joseph, “Those Who Teach Pay Knowledge Forward”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.26]

IWSG, November 2023: NaNoWriMo, Y’All!

John Winkelman

Poe, helping us make the bed

Life is crazy busy, so this will be a short post.

The Insecure Writers’s Support Group question for November 2023 is:

November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

Yes I have! This will be my eleventh year, and this year I am switching things up by attempting fifty (50!) flash fictions in the month of November. To aid that quest, I created a simple prompt generator which you can play with here. It produces random combinations of subject, setting and genre. Here are some examples:

Subject: Espionage, Empire
Setting: Virtual Reality
Genre: Horror

Subject: Revenge, Environment
Setting: Outpost
Genre: Western

Subject: Precursors, Dreams
Setting: Boardroom
Genre: Cyberpunk

The only rule I am holding myself to is that when I generate a prompt, I have to use that prompt. Generating prompts until I find one I like is not allowed.

My user name on nanowrimo.org is JohnFromGR, so feel free to send me a buddy request.

Happy NaNoWriMo, everyone!

 

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