National Novel Writing Month – 50,000 words in 30 days (picture of a table at Milk Wood by Lizzie Gudkov)
NANOWRIMO AT MILK WOOD
We are excited to announce that we’ll be hosting a selection of online workshops again this year. Click on the links below to participate at the specific time. These workshops are held in Second Life®.
All scheduled events take place online at the Milk Wood Writing Group area (unless otherwise stated) or in the writing room at Book Island (Sundays at 12 noon PT). All are welcome to join us.
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Writing Workshops & Write-Ins
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Creating Workshops for Second Life®: Writer’s Edition
Hosted by Mossy Symbiosis
Monday 19th October, 2020
1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm GMT
Mossy will take you through the process of making a workshop come to life in Second Life®. She’s hosted many circle talks, made worksheets for her own creative purposes, and led people through feedback exercises for their work. She combines the knowledge and skill she’s gained in an easy to tackle format.
About Mossy
An artist, poet, pagan, philosopher, wounded healer, and dilettante. Mossy hosts open talks on spirituality and open mics for poetry gatherings; she’s led pagan ceremonies and classes on Wicca from a Religious Studies perspective, and has been involved in various Second Life® installations, expos, and exhibits, including showcases of RL photography, poetry, Second Life® photos, drawings, digital art, and mixed media.
Mossy is also an amateur builder, novice scripter, and aspiring sound sensation. Feel free to keep up to date with her projects, side quests and intermission missions, by joining her Second Life® group “Mossy’s Glorious Shenanigans“
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Writing Through Covid-19 Constrictions
Hosted by Barbara Jacksha (aka Raina Anatra)
Friday 23rd October, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
Feeling uninspired, cramped or constrained by Covid-19 restrictions? If so, you’re not alone. Many writers have found it difficult to focus on their writing projects during the upheaval and uncertainty that the coronavirus has caused during 2020.
In this workshop, we’re going to turn the tables.
You’re going to learn how to use some of the restrictions you’ve been experiencing to jump-start your writing. You’ll receive writing prompts and some tips designed to get you and your writing process moving again — and keep you moving. No matter what new manner of craziness pops up in the world.
The hand’s-on workshop will run for 90 minutes. Be prepared to write!
All writers are welcome, no matter which genre or form you write in. You can interpret the prompts however you wish. Wild creativity is always welcome.
About Barbara
Barbara Jacksha is the author/creator of the Vision Pages series, which includes “Vision Pages for Creative Writers with Daring Dreams: a vision journal for imagining your dreams to life.” Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Smokelong Quarterly, Beloit Fiction Journal, The Summerset Review, Per Contra, Mad Hatter’s Review, and the W.W. Norton anthology Flash Fiction Forward. Barbara has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize. She was also a co-founder/co-editor of the literary journal Cezanne’s Carrot and an editor at the online journal Flashquake.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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From soup to nuts: The art of description
Hosted by Ercila Robbins
Monday 26th October, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm GMT
The cover looks great. The summary is tempting. The plot has promise. Ten pages in, you’re wondering: When will the story begin? We all want to write beautiful descriptions that take the breath away, but at some point we end up writing pages of poetry instead of telling a story. Stories require movement, action, dialogue and description. How much description is too much?
About Ercila
Retired criminal attorney and author of five crime novels – and more in the works. Ercila is also a former journalist and newspaper editor, and a published poet. She is a mother, grandmother, and veteran.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Say it as it is!
Hosted by Colin Bell (aka Wolfgang Glinka)
Wednesday 28th October, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 3pm GMT
Colin will discuss ways you can keep it real and provide a number of exercises to get you writing authentically. How do you talk to your grandmother? How does she talk to you? How do you phrase things under police interrogation? Do we ever speak in full sentences or in paragraphs? Can your grammar get dumped for verisimilitude? Let’s try some writing – see how you get on. Come expecting to write.
About Colin
Colin Bell was born in a Franciscan convent in Surrey but grew up in Sussex, UK. Everything he’s done; he did for the first time in Brighton.
His poetry collection Remembering Blue was published in 2019 by Ward Wood Publishing.
His two novels are set in Brighton:
Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) long-listed for the Polari Prize 2014
Blue Notes, Still Frames, (Ward Wood Publishing, 2016)
Formerly a producer-director of arts documentaries and then Executive Producer, Music and Arts, he made arts programmes for ITV, BBC, Channel Four, and for broadcasters in the USA (WNET and Disney), in Japan (NHK) and Germany (WDR). His television credits include Celebration, God Bless America, My Generation, Menuhin’s Children, and It Was Twenty Years Ago Today. He has been nominated for two Royal Television Society awards,
His poetry has been published in the UK and the USA by Cinnamon Press, Soaring Penguin Press, Muse-Pie Press, Bittersweet, Kind of A Hurricane Press and The Blotter. He has been nominated in the USA for the 2016 and 2019 Pushcart Prize. The American publisher, Musepie Press will feature him as its new Featured International Poet in 2020. Many of his Fibonacci poems have been published in The Fib Review and have been set to music by American composer, Tim Risher, in a song cycle for tenor and piano, Fibonacci Poems (2017).
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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How to be a NaNoWriMo Pantser
Hosted by Huckleberry Hax
Saturday 31st October, 2020
1pm PT / 4pm ET / 8pm GMT
It’s National Novel Writing Month again! This year, those helpful folks at NaNoWriMo have identified three categories of wrimo writing: the Planners, the Plansters and the Pantsers. Huck is very definitely a Pantser!
Essentially recycling his ‘Cube of Nano’ yearly talk yet again, just with a fresh coat of new nomenclature, Huck will be sharing his six top tips for delivering your 50,000 words by the end of November.
Join us for an hour in voice on 31st October at 1pm SLT. Please come voice-enabled so you can hear Huck talk.
About Huck
Huckleberry Hax writes virtual reality novels, many of which are set in Second Life® (the best known of which is ‘AFK’). He also films machinima and in 2020 released his first Second Life® feature-length movie. This was also created through a Pantser approach.
He has completed NaNoWriMo nine times.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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NaNoWriMo Kick-Off Party & Halloween Hunt
Hosted by Harriet Gausman and DJ Grease Coakes
Treats donated by Laraa Short and Harriet Gausman
Theme: Dance of the Dead
Saturday 31st October, 2020
2pm PT / 5pm ET / 9pm GMT
A chance for you to meet your fellow Wrimos, pick up the resource box and titler, chat about your NaNoWriMo ideas, and dance to Grease’s grooves. Our dress theme this year is ‘Dance of the Dead’, so be creative. We’ll be looking for originality and flair. Best outfit wins a prize of 2,000 Lindens and a month’s free stall rental.
The Halloween Hunt follows the party, so get your goodie bags ready.
Event held online at the Fiesta Bar.
About Grease
Grease has DJed for the Ark and AX, and many SLB parties. They’re currently working on the Summer of Trance furry story.
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Staying Motivated
Hosted by Rayne Bowdit
Tuesday 3rd November, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
You know how it goes. Day 1 we are organised, motivated and have a plan that cannot fail!!!
But by day 5 we are behind on our words, wondering why we ever thought we could do this and ready to throw in the towel.
Before you do, STOP!!! Breathe and chillax.
Rayne has some advice to help manage your expectations and to help you succeed – so you can get to day 6, 7 and beyond.
About Rayne
Rayne Bowdit has self-published 30 books in a variety of genres. Better known for her romance fiction, most of her books have reached the number one slot on i-tunes and other sellers. She and her partner Rennyparish Resident also run their own writer’s group at Omega.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Getting to Know You
Hosted by Nathaniel Ballard
Wednesday 4th November, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
So, you have your cast assembled – the ex-marine with an alcohol problem trying to make her way as a private eye, the roguish horseman with an eye for the ladies, the conceptual artist looking for her big break … But, who are they? What are they like? What makes them unique? Come and explore ways you can get to know them and turn them from words on a page to living, breathing beings.
About Nathaniel
Nathaniel Ballard has been occupying various fictional worlds in his head for as long as he can remember. In handwritten and typed stories, in table-top RPGs, in Second Life® sims, and occasionally in longer projects like NaNoWriMo. He likes to populate those worlds with characters that he’s fairly sure are fictional, and likes to kid himself that they are nominally under his control. Occasionally, he has to pay attention to so-called real life, but he doesn’t like that much.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Poetry for Novelists
Hosted by Zoetrope Ocelot
Saturday 7th November, 2020
9am PT / 12 noon ET / 5pm GMT
Sprints are good training practice for distance runners. Poems are good for novelists.
The Poetry for Novelists workshop will provide you with an assortment of poetry exercises. Playing with poetry can give you unexpected insights and inspirations, and even provide you with some material to use directly in your novel.
Join us for an hour-long workshop that’s a bit like literary cross-training to help you run your marathon.
About Zoetrope
Zoetrope is a granola-eating, organic-gardening, structure-loving poet who relishes subverting the constraints of haiku and sonnet to serve a spirit of silliness. Zoe is currently hard at work on a second novel: working title, Crime and Pun (her first novel was devoured by worms in the compost bin).
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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What Can Prose Writers Learn from Poetry?
Hosted by Aoife Lorefield
Monday 9th November, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
We love poetry for the beauty of its language and its ability to have a big impact in a small space. What can prose writers learn from poetry? Aoife will explore ideas for brightening our prose with ideas from poetry.
About Aoife
Aoife is a writer and educator who has published essays, poems, articles, and a novel. She has more novels in the works and hopes to make significant progress on one of them this year.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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The Rhetoriscope: a simple mind-tool for seeing texts differently
Hosted by Edmund Broek
Thursday 12th November, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
Edmund will give you a simple mind-tool you can apply to text you read or write, to see it usefully from new angles or on new frequencies. The tool uses ideas from the study of rhetoric through the ages, starting with Aristotle. “Rhetoric” here means “persuasive speech,” but the tool has wider scope than that. The key starting idea is: A speech within itself constructs its speaker, audience, and argument.
About Edmund
In real life, Edmund Broek is a retired programmer. He took courses in the same department as the narrator of ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance‘, though years later. In Second Life®, he helps with the daily writing events at Milk Wood.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Top 10 Author Mistakes
Hosted by Emerian Rich (aka Emz Mazie)
Friday 13th November, 2020
8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT
Join Emerian Rich from HorrorAddicts.net Press as she reveals the top 10 mistakes authors make when submitting. Why might they be rejected, and how can you get yourself on the shortlist?
About Emerian
Emerian Rich is a writer, artist, voice actress, speaker, and editor. She writes the Night’s Knights vampire series, is the horror host for the internationally renowned podcast HorrorAddicts.net, and Publisher at HorrorAddicts.net Press. She also writes romance and is Editorial Director for SEARCH Magazine. You can find out more about her at emzbox.com.
Click here to be taken to the online event.
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Write-ins
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Monday – Sunday at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT.
Every Monday – Friday at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm GMT.
The session begins with a prompt, and a timer is set for fifteen or thirty minutes. Participants then write feverishly for the allotted time, using the word (or picture) as inspiration. The key is to disengage your inner editor and write freely. As well as being useful for sketching out notes and scenes before November, and for kick-starting your writing sessions during the month, these sprints are a fun way to increase your word count. For those attending the 6am sessions, there will also be an opportunity for you to receive a brief critique from fellow writers. Sessions are held throughout November at Milk Wood (unless otherwise stated).
Click here to be taken to the online write-in.
Additional sprint at Book Island every Sunday at 12 noon PT.
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Check out our website for pep talks from previous NaNoWriMo winners.
