Today is the first day of MoWiTy (Monkeys with Type Writers), which is the continuation of the write-ins from NanoWrimo at The Soundry in Vienna.  Once November was over we didn’t want to stop writing though the group needed a new name.  Today was our biggest group yet with a total of 13 people. A combination of activies are going on, not all directly novel writing related.  Some people are working on cartoons, another is coding and everyone else is writing something.  In my case I’m working on blog posts, including this one.  The last time I attended a write-in I had not worked on my novel in weeks so I did blogs then as well.  It was really helpful to work on a serious of blog posts for a couple hours and then just have to go back and edit them to publish.

One of our traditions of the write-ins is doing word sprints with this website Write or Die (which appears to have gotten its own domain now). Everyone agrees on a number of words and a length of time and the goal is to write that many words.  You event this information into the Write or Die website and press “go.”  The next page features a large text box on a basically blank screen.  If you don’t keep typing the page turns darker and darker shades of pink/red.  One way of cheating and making the red go away is buy typing and space and then quickly deleting it.  Some of us have a hard time not doing this for some reason the changing of the screen colors freaks us all out a bit.  In the case of this particular sprint we are aiming for 400 words in ten minutes.  We’ll see if I make it.

If you are interested in joining our group it is every Monday from 7pm-11pm at the Soundry (address here).  We are a really informal group, people mostly work on their own projects and only occasionally discuss what they’re writing.  This may be different than other writing groups, but I’m not sure since I’ve actually never belonged to another writing group.  As the group grows I’m sure the structure will change depending on the will of the group. Since we are informal though this format is adjustable and if people want to share what they are writing there is no reason they can’t do that with others who want to participate.

Tonight we are having a write-in at the Soundry in Vienna.  Basically we get together and write, giggle and drink too much coffee.  This always makes me a bit nostalgic because we’ve been actually doing things like this for the past 18 or so years.  Key is keeping somewhat on task, which means limiting at least a portion of the giggling.

One of the ways to increase productivity is by having “Write or Die” sessions.  Write or Die is a simple website that has your word count and a timer.  We decide ahead of time how many words we are going to write and what the time period is.  Clicking go all at the same time we then start feverishly typing away.  If you stop typing the page for Write or Die goes from white to pink to red.  There is also a mode where it starts making terrible noises but none of us do that mode.  The suicide mode actually has the select grayed out so we don’t know what that even entails and nobody has survived it to tell us about it.

Instead of writing a story I’ve been writing blog posts tonight.  Look for some of them to come out over the next week or two on my geonerd blog “MapLoser.”  I’m going to do editing before I actually post them there, there are is also one that I may consider too ranty to publish.  Some people have been known to say things like “I wonder how many of these NaNoWriMo novels are just one long rant composed over an entire month.”  It is easier to get out a bunch of words by ranting.  Well, or typing etc, over and over and over again (oops sorry folks I was totally slipping into cheating for a moment there (oh wait I’m doing it again)).  Anyway in the case of this writing on OfBob I’m posting the blog post as is.  If you’ve gotten this fair in reading my crazy stream of consciousness I’m sorry, really really really sorry (oops, totally cheating again, I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far).  The only changes are adding links which I looked up immediately.  Everyone else is working on either novels, drawings or collections of short stories.  I’ve heard references to chick-lit, dragon slaying and enjoying making everything go wrong.  We’ve also taken time to view the necrophilia article on Wikipedia and laugh about how Jimmy Wales face appears over it and looks at it you while you read it right now.  Whether or not you ever see the results of some of the other participants in “Write or Die,” is up to you though I have heard things such as “I’m not deleting any words until December.”  So if the literary works do come out I expect they will be edited with slightly less abandon than they were written.

Our next official write-in is this coming Monday, once again at the Soundry in Vienna.  It is a cute little workshop where artists come to work on projects.  There is plentiful coffee and wifi, so come join us if you don’t mind a bit of giggling interspersed with periods of head down writing.   There is also at the moment lots of cool robot artwork, including a crazy 3-D hand wearing a computer chip embedded in it which has some biostatistics and latitude and longitude on it.  We’ve had people we didn’t directly know join us which has been fun.

Today and last week we had an interested combination of ourselves and high achieving high-school students.  What is funny is NaNoWriMo is exactly the sort of thing our crew would have done in highschool, though we probably wouldn’t have said things like “I have to go home an finish a class project.”  Fortunately “the Bastard Children of Bob,” as this blog is named after all turned out okay anyway.   Anyway if you made it with me all the way this far wow! It doesn’t look like I’m quite going to make the goal of 1,000 words in 20 minutes but I at least came pretty darn close.

sheribomb started the battle with

k8 jumped in with

xiann stepped in with

sheribomb retorted

(and xiann said, “fuckwagon isn’t in the spellchecker?”)

k8 threw down

to which came sheribomb’s

and xiann observed

and wonderchook wondered

and wonderchook threw one down for her geonerd homies, too

and sheribomb called us out

wonderchook answered the call

sheribomb responded

and xiann (who was laborously writing this blog post all the while) was ready for a snack

This is also the first post we decided to do via iPhone. Hope it works? [Edit to add: it worked, more or less, but needed this edit.]

Here is sheribomb’s roboctopus painting, acrylic on canvas, with the sketch (sketch on the left). She’s not done yet, so he or she is a work in progress. She also updated her blog with a new illustrated haiku.

K8′s buffalo is a watercolor postcard, with pen and watercolor paints. It’s not just any buffalo. It’s a fluffy buffalo. Fluffalo? Fluffy buffylow?

xiann did some watercolors of a robot and some flowers, plus a silly dog and oher stuff (not pictured). The flowers are on a watercolor postcard.

More awesomeness next time!

sheribomb painted some misty watercolor robots, or NSFW bots, or sexbots of the future, or ho-bots.

k8 made an ode to internet memes, or “OMG the internet bit me,” or “see below to be rickrolled.”

xiann made an illustration for a forthcoming short essay by k8, tentatively to be titled, “If you’re gonna be a douche at a conference, I’ll be wearing my Victorian attire,” or “AustenCon meets AustinCon,” or whatever. (It will probably be colored in the future.)

Stay tuned for our next adventures, which may be some drunken FSM crafting. Same Bob time, same Bob channel.

We had a blast, made a mess, and ended up with some awesome recycled plastic fabric. And what did we decide to do with it? Make special Shenanigan Club cuff bracelets, of course!

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting adventures!

Update to add: Although we did the group project, here’s a shout-out to some individual projects we worked on: xiann sewed a small change purse (photos below) from the recycled plastic fabric, sheribomb updated her blog with an illustrated haiku, and k8 did an awesome work project.

To start I only have put up four items, mostly because I’m unsure of the where-abouts of my digital camera and iPhone pictures were difficult for small items. The only potential use of this site I can think of is if someone wants to give me a chicken related gift they can determine whether or not I already have that item. Though hopefully displaying bottles of Rex-Golaith Wine and Fighting Cock Whiskey will not discourage people from duplicate purchases of those items.

Anyway, may I present Wonderchook’s Museum of Chicken Memorabilia

k8 made a “Personal Map,” which is sort of a map of what the world looks like in her mind.

It’s super cute. See her website for a rockin’ description.

xiann updated her sticky comics website and worked on an awesome Star Trek-themed comic that will be released later this week.

And I (sheribomb) worked on this hand-painted belt buckle.

I also updated my random haiku/project blog with a new illustrated haiku.

Next projects may include a PSA on why dropping out of high school isn’t the worst decision you could make and a Rube Goldberg machine to destroy the aforementioned peeps diorama.

Stay tuned.