improv » Random Says...

The natural progression from gibberish to bird poo

Feb 142012

I’ve been working on a post about speaking gibberish in improv, but then I thought of a quote attributed to Mark Twain:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

It may seem counterintuitive (because you’d think fewer words = less time), but it’s much easier to write long than to write short. At least, it is for me.

In other words, the gibberish piece is still too long.

So, I thought I could try cheating. If a picture is worth a thousand words, at least it doesn’t seem like a thousand words. Maybe by posting some pictures, it’ll be easier for me to keep the number of (written) words down. This may not make sense. Nonetheless…

Heaven forbid I post pretty pictures. Instead, here are a set of pics I like because of the elements of decay or, perhaps I could say entropy.

(As always, click on an image to see a larger version of it.)

There, that should make this post [worth] roughly 6,200 words. I hope it didn’t feel like it.

What words do you think the photos are trying to say?

Fifty thousand words in thirty days

Writing 2 Responses »

Oct 142011

It’s nearly time again for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). The rules are simple. Write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. Sounds fun, right?

Or not. It’s either fun, or it’s sick. Since I’ve done it five years now, I must either get something from it, or I must be a masochist. (By the way, I only succeeded in writing 50,000 words one year out of those five.)

If you’re like me, writing a 50,000-word novel in a month may sound daunting at first. But let me list a few facts about NaNoWriMo that may help put it in perspective:

It’s a game. The only thing at stake is a winner’s certificate, a web badge, and maybe your soul.
The goal is 50,000 or more words, not a completed novel.
Nobody is going to check your work or read your story (unless you want them to).
Writing 50,000 words in 30 days is fewer than 1,700 words a day.
Nowhere in any of the rules or discussions is any mention made of the 50,000 words being good. On the contrary.

These facts segue nicely into some tips I’d like to share:

It’s a game. The spirit of this is to get people writing with abandon, to get words on paper (or screen), not to create literature.
Everything about NaNoWriMo is on the honor system. You could write “the” 50,000 times and the only one who would know is you.
The key is consistency. Writing every day makes this far easier.
You may as well accept that the 50,000 words you write will include a high percentage of crap. It may all be crap. But chances are, some of it will be gold.

Regardless of what you produce during that time, if it gets you writing consistently and freely, that has value in itself.

If you’re a writer, you may feel some trepidation at the sight of a blank page. Or, you may have trouble being consistent. Maybe you write when the mood strikes you. Perhaps you worry over stuff you’ve already written and go back to edit it.

Guess what? None of those things will serve you in NaNoWriMo, and that’s the beauty of it.

In other words, attempting NaNoWriMo is an AFGO.

So, I invite you writerly-inclined folks out there to give this a try if you haven’t already. You can sign up at nanowrimo.org (it’s all free) and get ready to start writing at 12:00:01 am November 1st.

As for me, I have never planned out a story ahead of time (though some people do). The only plan I have is to approach the writing in the spirit of improv:

Say “Yes!” to myself and to whatever comes out on the page.
Celebrate the mistakes I make (of which there will be thousands).
Let go of control and follow the story wherever it may go.
Have fun!

So, will you try it this year? Have you done nanowrimo before? Any tips from your own experience?

If you decide to play this game in November, you won’t be alone. Last year more than 200,000 people participated and more than 30,000 made it to 50,000 words. So, come play with us!

Blog move status update and Improv in Ashland

Uncategorized No Responses »

Sep 172011

Greetings!

A few days ago I said I was going to be moving randomsays.com to a new host “in the next day or two. ”

You may notice that “next day or two” equates with 1 or 2, but “a few days ago” equates with 3. What gives?

Turns out that, because my domain is so new, I can’t redirect it until the 17th. That’s tomorrow here. But, the 17th might be today there, in WordPress-land, so let’s just say this is all gonna go down soon.

I’d like to remind you who subscribe that your subscription will probably not get transferred. So, if you would like to continue to receive updates on my posts, you may need to resubscribe. (Sorry for any inconvenience.)

Then again, I could be wrong. All of this is in theory. I’ve never done this before, so it’ll be an adventure. Fortunately, my experience with software is that things always go smoothly the first time…

Here’s my understanding of what will happen:

I’ve already created the website and it’s ready to be viewed.
Next I will go and try to change the nameservers for my domain, randomsays.com — preferably without breaking the internet.
Then it’s a matter of waiting (supposedly 24-48 hours) for the switch to propagate through whatever it is it needs to propagate through.
In the meantime, randomsays.com should continue to point to this site.
Once the switch has happened, randomsays.com should point to the new blog site. (Duh.)
This should be transparent to everyone but (maybe) subscribers.

As a safety measure, here is an address for this blog that will work even after the transition: whatrandomsays.wordpress.com

Good news! My plea for improv has not been in vain. Thanks to help from one of The Hamazons, I have found an improv class in Ashland, conveniently starting in only two weeks!

To all my improv buddies up north, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.