Friday, August 29, 2008

write while sleeping

The 3-Day Novel Contest starts tonight at midnight. I will be asleep. My plan is to get up at my usual time tomorrow, between 5 and 6 am, have breakfast and write until noon. Break for lunch, write again until dinner. Write until I feel sleepy and stupid, then go to bed.
Sunday night I may invoke caffeine and ginger teamix and stay up into the stupid stage. We'll see. I will try to pop online and give a brief rundown of where the plot has gotten to--probably somewhere between the table-legs, covered in dust bunnies--each night.

I've stocked up on ginger teamix, black tea, dried fruit, rice crackers, and emergency chocolate. I have an outline written out on 3x5 cards. I have no commitments except writing.
Wonder how much of the appeal of this contest is the opportunity to get into the siege mentality? The attraction of zombie movies--how would I defend my house against zombies, and what supplies would I need to have on hand?
Now I wish my outline had zombies in it. I could write about a hopeful novelist besieged by zombies over a long weekend. Nah, it's been done. My outline does have rather a lot of plot in it, so I should be able to restrain my style by concentrating on the action. And I've acclimatised myself by reading several past winners over the last couple of weeks.
Love Block
Struck
Body Speaking Words
Stolen Voices / Vacant Rooms
Circle of Birds
Wastefall
Starting Small
Hardwired Angel (the only sf to win)
Momentum
Accordion Lessons
Dr. Tin

As soon as the blackberry pie comes out of the oven, I'm going to bed.

No comments: