I’ve been setting aside a little pocket of time every day to brainstorm a new project. It’s nowhere near the drafting stage, it’s just a huge host of characters, some raunchy situational comedy, and a vague idea about the apocalypse, but it’s got potential! I’ve been watching New Girl, The Good Place, and Dexter lately, so those three things are heavily influencing it, but I’ve also always loved Abrahamic mythology, so there’s a heavy dose of my own brand of angel vs demon lore imbedded into these ideas. I want to present the end of the world and/or death and/or all the cosmic knowledge of the universe as campy and ridiculous, so maybe I’ll go all in on this one. I know that mood board up there is a little somber in comparison, but comedy works best up against a backdrop of eternal damnation and hellfire and sadness, I think.
I don’t know if I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo this year. [Redacted] and [redacted], but my best laid plans have been falling apart since the height of summer and the total flop Kindle Vella has been. Maybe I’m tempting fate too much by being organized, but it feels like if I say a thing, that thing just won’t come to fruition, hence the redactions earlier. So, I guess I’ll decide on November 1st.
I’ve also been disillusioned by the program, in a way. Perhaps I’m just outgrowing it, but I’m increasingly bothered by NaNoWriMo’s emphasis on “just write,” the handwaving at plotting ahead of time, and the way too many people take 50k words drafted as an equivalent to being done. Those things might actually be good for people starting out or getting back into the groove–I guess they were for me, in a way–but long-term there are very few successful people who do it that way. I also follow the NaNo blog, and the advice is sometimes…cringey? Or rather, it’s just so across the board, flouncy, do whatever that it seems useless.
Again, I may just be outgrowing it, and passing this kind of judgement isn’t fair, but I can’t help these thoughts that keep popping up. And I hate to think of it this way. I want very badly to love NaNo, and I know it does a lot of good for people, I just don’t know if it’s changed, or I have. I’ve always known it was a little hokey, and I embraced that. It was fun, silly, lofty, and a thing you could just throw yourself at with no consequences, and that’s something a lot of people need, but the program seems to take itself a little more seriously now while simultaneously being something that has even less value than it did before. Of course, they raise more money now than ever, and they “upgraded” their site (though most users will say it blows now, which it does), so technically the NaNo program is more valuable, I just think it’s less valuable to individuals as a way forward into writing.
Or I’m too pretentious for my own good now. Oh, well!
A.K. Caggiano 