The Sword and Laser discussion

I know a lot of people would like to take part in NaNoWriMo but find the concept of writing an entire novel to be too daunting. What I would like to propose is a workshop where, instead of a novel, the participants would each write a short story (1500 - 7500 words). The stories would be due by November 30th and would then be peer-edited by the group members in December.

This workshop would be open to speculative fiction from all ages and skill levels, but we would need at least six people to sign up before going ahead. If we get 10 or more, we could bundle the stories into a collection and give it away as a free ebook (cc-by-nd-nc 3.0). If you are interested in participating, please reply using this form on the Foil & Phaser website before November 1st.

I like this idea, even though I am doing #50kKillMeNow on the 2nd (thinking about live streaming it, 50k words in a single day is insane).

How many people have signed up so far?

Jacob wrote: "I like this idea, even though I am doing #50kKillMeNow on the 2nd (thinking about live streaming it, 50k words in a single day is insane).

How many people have signed up so far?"

We'd still need a couple more to go ahead. You have to assume that a certain percentage will drop out so you need at least six to start. It's a lot of work if only a couple of people are going to participate. There's still a week to sign up.

PS I don't envy anyone who tries to write 50k. I think my record is about three thousand.

Will there be involvement with the group before the end of the month or do we just "show up" on Nov 30th and exchange stories?

Dustin wrote: "Will there be involvement with the group before the end of the month or do we just "show up" on Nov 30th and exchange stories?"

It will depend on what the group wants. With other workshops we've done, we've had a password protected page on the website where the group can interact in the comments section, similar to a forum thread here. If people need help with developing ideas and getting started, we can work with them as a group or individually as the case warrants.

Also hopefully not everyone will wait until Nov 30 to turn something in. I've set up a NaNoWriMo account under Foil & Phaser. If people send in updates or finish early, I can add them to the tally.

I kind of like this idea, it seems a lot more intimate and a little less daunting than NaNoWriMo. I've never participated in one before.

Set up an account on the NaNoWriMo site, Shadowy Shores is the username. Already have an idea for what I'll write for this, and added Foil & Phaser as a buddy on there.

Sure, why not. I've got three short stories to work on, chances I'll finish one of them before the end of Nov.

Thanks to everyone who signed up. We now have enough people to go ahead. I'll be setting up the web page for the group in the next couple of days and will send out an email when it's ready.

For everyone else - there's still a few days left to join in. Details are in the first post. The more people that participate, the better it will be!

Cool, trying to talk my sister into doing it, she is hesitant because of NaNoWriMo, to say the least, hopefully she comes around soon.

Great idea! I just signed up and was unaware of Foil and Phaser until now. Thank you for setting this up.

Thanks Tom and Veronica for the mention on #148. We're going to keep registration open until November 4th so anyone who hears about it on the podcast can still join in.

We have ten people signed up, so things are looking good. You still have a couple of days to join in but don't wait too long.

For those who did sign up, don't forget to send in your word counts so I can update the counter.

I'm working on mine as we speak. sadly, I only just got to outlining because i'm having a genre crisis.

Starting mine this morning, hopefully will finish my rough draft by tomorrow. It's only going to be four or five thousand words, as long as I don't go off script that is. Good luck to everyone writing!

I'm estimating that mine will be between 5-10k words, I hope a little less.

"Technically" I've written about two thousand, but that's is split pretty evenly between two stories(about 900 and 1200). So only one of those counts.

Couldn't choose between the fantasy one or the science fiction one. However the scifi one is basically me continuing my anthology bit which was only 2k. Like the world but didn't want to have to reexplain everything.

So that one probably doesn't really count but it's a nice break from the fantasy. Trying to write dragon romance is.... an odd experience. Also have another scifi I might try if I have time.

Just signed up. I have always wanted to participate in Nanowrimo, but was too intimidated by the prospect. I think that this is going to be fun!

We've signed up a few more people, but if you still want to join in there's still a few hours left to apply.

Hurry, hurry, hurry! Only a few days left to get your stories in. Group members be sure to check the website for new stories to review.

For everyone else, we should see the results of this project by early next year.

We didn't make our goal, but we did bring 10½ new stories into the world for a total of over 35,000 words. Maybe next year. In the meantime, more details and some announcements for next year's workshops are on the site at Foil & Phaser.

2014


Hey everybody. We are repeating our NaNoWriMo workshop this year with Divide and Conquer Volume Two.

Our collective NaNoWriMo project from last year was a resounding success (we’ve given away over 450 copies), so we’re going to try to better our record of 38,000 words this year with Volume Two. For those who don’t know Divide and Conquer is a Foil and Phaser Workshop where a group of writers try to complete NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a novel in the month of November. Each member of the group submits a short story (1500 – 10,000 words), and hopefully the total count will exceed the required fifty-thousand words.

The stories would be due by November 30th and would then be peer-edited by the group members in December and January. Once completed, all the stories will be published on the Foil & Phaser blog and compiled into a free ebook (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

If you are interested in participating, please reply using the form on this page before November 1st. This workshop is open to speculative fiction from all ages and skill levels. If you have any questions, you can ask in this thread or in the blog comments.

If we did it last year are we allowed to participate again this year?

Sophie wrote: "If we did it last year are we allowed to participate again this year?"

Absolutely. I'm thinking of doing a sequel.

Nineteen days left to sign up.

Our NaNoWriMo page for this year is live at http://nanowrimo.org/participants/foi...

Only six days left to sign up for our NaNoWriMo short story workshop at Foil & Phaser — Divide and Conquer Two.

Alright, fine. I've got an idea that should be fairly simple if I can't manage anything better.

Joining! Last year was a blast and made me actually finish a story.

Yay Dustin and Denise. We still need more people to sign up though and there's only two days left.

Last day to sign up. (Okay we'll take latecomers, but we're starting tomorrow.)

I had an idea on this: why not do a December/January NaSsWriMo? That is, do this same idea in December or January (or later) to get people doing short stories as well as novels? I saw this thread earlier, but want to take a shot at writing a novel, and figure there's no way I could do both at the same time.

But if this was a bit later I'd love to do it, and could allow people to revise their novel down if they realize it doesn't work as a novel but could be good as a short story.

David wrote: "I had an idea on this: why not do a December/January NaSsWriMo? That is, do this same idea in December or January (or later) to get people doing short stories as well as novels? I saw this thread..."

Part of the reason to do the project in November is to take advantage of the momentum generated by NaNoWriMo and its various clones toward getting people to write. I had considered doing two books per year, with the second in the spring or summer, if there was enough demand for it. Logistically it makes better sense not to run our workshop in Nov/Dec because it invariably runs up against the Christmas holidays, but sometimes you have to work with what you've got.

As to doing both, I am actually doing both a novel as well as a short for this project. At 1700+ words per day, one could easily knock off a short in a day or two, and it is perfectly within the rules of NaNoWriMo to add that word count to your score. Some people write a sort as a prelude or an outline for their story or just to get the idea down so they can expand on it later. Or if you have a short lying around that you want to workshop, we are not that precious about sticking to the calendar as NaNoWriMo. Honestly there's no way for us to know when you wrote it. Additionally, the editing portion of the project will not begin in earnest until December, so you could just leave a rough draft and come back to it later when NaNoWriMo is done.

Also, we do run short story workshops throughout the year if you interested, although those are not published in an ebook. You can always put them up on 20lines or wattpad, or we will post them on our blog. You can subscribe to the blog or out Goodreads thread to get notification of those.

That being said, enrollment is down for Divide and Conquer this year so we will keep taking people until the end of the month if anyone does change their mind. We'd still like to beat the 50,000 mark. Sign up

Last day to get your story in.

I'll probably do this next year if you're going to do it again. 50k is just way too much for November, which is always ridiculously busy for me for some reason.

So yea, I totally didn't get my story done, sorry guys, this Nov turned out to be a nightmare. I hope you all had fun and I am really sorry to bail on everyone...