Someone tell me

[kaberett]

not to write the selkie novel this November? (Yep, that snippet is about selkies - when listening to Still Catch The Tide on repeat, I found myself wondering what it would take for a selkie to choose to destroy her sealskin, and then things kind of... spiralled. I have only a very broad-brush outline and part of the point of trying to NaNo it would be to find out what the hell's going on! BUT it is still not necessarily a good idea for me to try to the thing.)

Comments

[rootsofthestories]

...If you expect me not to enable the crap out of you after reading that, you're being ridiculous.

DO THE THING!

[kaberett]

*snort* :-)

[aella_irene]

I think the selkie novel sounds amazing, and I would very much like to read it, but not if it requires stuff which you cannot give.

[alexseanchai]

While I would very much like to see the selkie novel, if it would hurt you to write, then don't.

[davidgillon]

There are two questions to ask yourself:
1) Can you do the concept justice? When it comes to the micro-writing your poetry tells me that absolutely you can. WRT larger scale structure, characterisation, plotting, I haven't actually seen any of your longer prose writing to tell, but if you aren't there yet you clearly will be eventually, and you get from here to there by doing more writing. OTOH sometimes you need to set an idea aside until you're ready for it.
2) What will writing it do to you? Some ideas are just too personal to approach without ripping open wounds - I want to write fiction based on what happened to me at work, but it's still too raw (and there's the inconvenient gagging order).... Listen to the people who know you better than I do.

[rmc28]

I'd love to read more, but only NaNo if you can afford the time to NaNo.

[calissa]

Before I can talk you out of it, I'd be interested in hearing more about why you feel like it might not be a good idea.

[kaberett]

Hah, excellent answer.

Reflecting, I think it's a mix of:

(1) Last time I did NaNo (a decade ago) my RSI kicked off properly badly, but it is probably worth noting I was using a shit keyboard and also doing some really punishing knitting to a deadline simultaneously?
(2) "But it's the ten-year anniversary of my winning NaNo and this time I actually have a story idea!" is... not good motivation.
(3) I'm concerned it'll be another thing for me to Fail At; specifically, I've got a massive block about "big" writing at the moment (anything for work, anything for volunteering stuff, anything I end up editing) and I'm scared that NaNo would run smack-bang into it and I'd just feel bad about that too? The flipside is that it might help me work out why it is I'm flailing about everything else (not least because it will inevitably challenge me to do things I'm uncomfortable with in writing - DIALOGUE WHAT IS DIALOGUE - so even if it doesn't map directly I'll probably get useful experience?)

idkkkkkk

[calissa]

I understand (1), having had similar problems. Could you scale it down in a way that you would still find satisfying? This might also help with (3).

Also, I don't think (2) is really what's going on here. You seem pretty excited about the idea itself.

I'm struggling with my own writing at the moment and debating whether I want to come up with some kind of modified challenge. Either way, I'd be interested in supporting you if you decide to go ahead.