innovation

NaNoWriMo “fail,” Toronto inspiration, and other news

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Hello dearest readers,

Hey, remember that time that it was November, and I committed to NaNoWriMo without a plot?

… apparently that doesn’t work for me. I didn’t “win” this, my second year of attempting, but I did learn that I shouldn’t try for NaNoWriMo on a whim.

This last month was not as productive as one would hope, writing wise. I wrote maybe 20,000 words on my NaNo project, but stalled due to 1) an awesome vacation to Florida and 2) the busiest work month I’ve ever had. I’m not using these things as excuses (especially not the vacation, on which I certainly could have written more), but working half again as many hours as I typically do certainly demanded that some part of my schedule be sacrificed. For my brain’s sake, I let it be the writing.

Why was I so busy at work? I was put on a national project  that was all kinds of neato. It centered on innovation,  and I was working with the kickassiest team imaginable. At the end of November I was even sent to Toronto to help out on the day of (and days leading up to) the big event. It was tremendous. Toronto and I have a much better relationship than before: I got to see one of my best girls in the world (and eat much Korean BBQ with her); I fell in love with the people with whom I got to work; I even enjoyed the Toronto vibe — after I had thoroughly mocked the lack of cold weather hardiness in the very non-Prairies people. Picture me, scampering down the street, jacket open, smiling up at the medium grey sky, breathing in the cool breezes. Now picture others, Canada Goose jackets zipped to the neck, scowls and shivers as adornment, squinting eyes braced against the buffeting winds. They thought I was peculiar, but I hope there was a charm to it.

I really enjoy going somewhere new. Though I’d been to Toronto before, it was never as an adult and never on my own. It’s a small kind of exploration, but I enjoyed finding my way down the city streets, trying to make up shortcuts through the downtown buildings (with limited success — my sense of direction is comically bad), absorbing the emotional atmosphere of the place.

I feel like I could write it now – the feel of downtown Toronto – much better than I would have with my teenaged, chaperoned memory of the place. But I will not. Instead, I want to write characters. ‘Cause boy did I meet some.

A picture is worth 140 characters

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

JT got a smartphone last week. His first. For the last seven years he’s been using one of those old brick phones (it slides!) — specifically the Samsung Messager (SCH-r450), seen below.   samsung messager “The Brick,” as we affectionately called it, was a source of pride and conversation for JT and a source of amusement for me. I loved to watch people’s faces when they noticed it — especially in the last two to three years.  It was a good phone, and my husband – so practical, so… economical – found it hard to justify replacing it. I actually agreed with him. The Brick was hardy. You could chuck it full-force against a wall and it would still be pristine. It had a battery life of at least a week on a full charge (even in year seven). It had a full keyboard for texting. It received and made calls. He has an iPod for music, and who needs the internet, anyway? Data is expensive and besides, as he pointed out, everyone around him has a smartphone if he has a webmergency (read: if he needs to check his fantasy football).

But last week he took the plunge and got an iPhone 5S, and something unexpected happened. I learned that we communicate very differently.

I’m going to be real with you, folks. I’m in communications so I have an obligatory Instagram account, but anyone who follows me will know that it’s not my favourite medium. My nine photos will back that up. Pictures are powerful and impactful (let’s exclude selfies here), but I like words. Twitter is my platform of choice.

Apparently JT is an entirely different beast. Now that he has a camera better than 1mp on his phone, an extraordinary number of his texts have been photos.  I don’t think he’d ever commit to Twitter, but Instagram is probably right up his alley. Hell, he even makes me understand why Snapchat is appealing to people.

I suppose my point is, technology allows us to tell the stories of our daily lives in new, innovative ways that not even we could have predicted would be appealing to us. Massive creative freedom.

Innovation and Penguin PR: #TwitterFiction

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Good morning dear readers.

How has the writing been going? Are the prompts helping? The quote from Emma led me to a  story of two upper-class girls in modern New York, but told as if they lived 200 years ago. Think “Gossip Girl” as narrated by Jane Austen. Really fun to write. I’d love to hear about where the prompts have taken you so far.

In other news:

Tomorrow is the beginning of Twitter Fiction Fest – a five-day online festival exploring the question, “Can one use Twitter to tell a story?”

Penguin Random House is the figurative host of this fiction party, having selected several Twitter authors to showcase . The neato thing about this charming PR gambit is the innovation in storytelling. It’s more than just writing in 140 character chunks; the chosen authors have employed creative techniques to take full advantage of the specific medium to which they’re bound.

Whether it’s linking photo- and video-sharing sites to their feeds to create a vivid sensory experience, or setting up feeds under the names of multiple characters to tell the story from several viewpoints at once, #TwitterFiction challenges the notion of what it means to be an author, and proves once again that it’s quality and not quantity that counts.

Follow @twfictionfest to indulge in the experience and use #TwitterFest to participate yourself. For good measure, also follow @americanpublish, @randomhouse, and @penguinusa. Oh, and me: @sarahelund.

S.E. Lund