"Damn we're good." / Novel-ing in Brighton & Sussex
It’s EPIC MUSIC DESPERATION HOUR. USE THE KNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE GAINED TO FIGURE YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS CURSED PLACE ONCE AND FOR ALL!
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| like short sprints | do Desperation Hour in #word-wars | write better by hunkering down and focusing | 1 hour word war in #writing. | really want to push yourself | aim for 3k by the end of the hour! How close can you get? |
As you look at it, trying not to meet the building’s eyes, the autumn trees rustle silently in a breeze that shouldn’t exist. You see yourselves in the painting, arriving outside in your taxis. That can’t be right, can it? The front of the building fades, and now you’re watching your tiny selves carry your writing things to the Library. Was that really only a few hours ago? What is an hour, really? What is time? The picture changes and your tiny painted selves walk into a library. This library. Even as you think the word, it capitalises itself. Library. The lights in the painted Library go out, and the darkness spreads. It spreads out of the painting, creeping across the wall to the nearest floating candle, and the darkness consumes it. Tendrils of dark spreak in every direction.
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| Choose to run to Technology to find a book on building construction in case it can give you a tip on how to use a card catalogue drawer, or a shelving trolley, as a battering ram to break down a wall that may or may not actually exist… | sprint to the nearest 600 (eg if your wordcount is 1,234 you would sprint to 1,600. if your wordcount is 1,653 then sprint to 2,600) | Choose to run to Arts & recreation to find a book on historical buildings, because Manderly was based on a real place! Perhaps there will be something that helps you to spot a secret door, or a hidden passage! Servants passages were a thing, right? | sprint to the nearest 700 (eg 1,234, sprint to 1,700. 1,845 to 2,800) | Choose to run to Philosophy and Psychology for a book on communicating with the supernatural (you knew you were coming to a gothic mansion. you did bring your pocket ouija board, right?) to have a chat with whatever entity is behind this and see if you can work something out… | sprint to the nearest 1,000 (eg, 1,234 goes to 2,000) |
The picture slowly settles. It’s *Rebecca’s* Manderley… isn’t it? It *is*, but you never imagined that it would feel like every window was an eye, all of them somehow watching each of you all at once…
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| got it right and want to gloat | Attempt the 50 headed hydra for bragging rights and glory! [try to write 500 words in 5 minutes] | Got it wrong and want to argue | also attempt the 50HH. For Truth, Justice, and… Something else. Look, it’s getting really late, okay? Or is it early at this point… | Really don’t care either way, or couldn’t figure it out | a) do the 50hh. b) do TWO 50HH. c) take a half hour break, because this hour isn’t done with you yet… |
Once upon a time, at a Night of Writing Dangerously, an NaNo HQ intern managed to write 500 words in 5 minutes. Legend has it that the only words which were spelled correctly were “fifty” “headed” and “hydra”. How will you fare against the speediest challenge of them all?
Leave a CommentAll good things must come to an end, and we have come to ours. Write to the end of your scene (or the end of your song, if that’s going to take too long). Anyone who chose to communicate with the Library (Kathryn, Matt, Ice, Nat) must make one final choice: Do you use the knowledge gained from the Library to try and escape, or do you instead choose to… *Stay*.
Write to the end of your scene, add your words to your spreadsheet, then work out your ending…
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| wrote less than 500 words per challenge on average | you found the doors, got them open, and got the hell out of that cursed building. Congratulations, you get to write a few more words on the train home. | wrote over 500 words per challenge on average, and did *not* communicate with the Library | You made it back to your writing area, and were even able to get the lights back on! But the library (small ‘l’) is so cool, and it’s probaby safe now that it’s daylight! You stick around to continue the writing retreat, but you’re going to be back in your own room before midnight this time for sure. Wait, didn’t there used to be more people in this group? You can’t remember anyone in specific, but you’re *sure* you’re missing *at least one* person… The thought fades from your mind as you settle in for some *actual* writing before you go and have a nap. This place is *great*. | wrote over 500 words per challenge on average and *did* choose to communicate with the Library | Congratulations, you Passed the Test. You have been filled with all of human knowledge, and more than a little bit of *in*human knowledge. You are One with the Library, and the Library is One with the Universe. There are no more words to *write*, for you *are* the Words. There is no up or down or in or out, there is no us or them or you. There is only… ***The Library***. |
You’ve found a painting which has a night sky! And the right stars! What are the odds? (Pretty unlikely, actually, since you’re beginning to think the library might actually stretch out into infinity…) It also has a gothic mansion, or maybe a castle? It’s not the gothic mansion that you’re in, so it’s worth investigating.
The answer to whether it’s supposed a real vs fictional house is easy because, well, you’re in a library, and the candle near the plaque that says ‘Class 800 – **LITERATURE**’ has flared up like a hacked lighter. A vigorous debate over fictional gothic/haunted houses winds up with two contenders…
[you can let the writing challenge dictate your ‘guess’, or you can let your irl guess dictate which challenge you do. No, you can’t choose one of each 😉 well, okay, you *can*, because this is just for fun and you have free will…]
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| think it might be Hamlet’s ‘Haunted Halls of Elsinore’ | sprint to 271 (822×0.33. Hamlet’s DDC# is 822.33) | think it might be Rebecca’s Manderley | Sprint to 741 (823×0.9 because Rebecca is 823.9) | aren’t sure, because the picture won’t stay in focus | Sprint to 1,012 (271+… yeah, you get it) |
Those of you who have marked down the position of the stars have probably made it up and down the stairs in one piece. Now you just have to find something in the library that matches it. Maybe it’s one of these old paintings? Let’s go look, and hope that they don’t look back.
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| are keen of eye and swift of step, and find it quickly | roll a d700 (https://rolladie.net/) and sprint to that many words | are still feeling a little sluggish from that midnight snack and lag behind | roll a d1400 (https://rolladie.net/) and sprint to that many words | roll a number below triple digits or that’s lower than you want | roll again, or roll the d700 PLUS the d1400 |
It takes an hour, but you work out the gist of the message. Something about gods, words, choices and Libraries-with-a-capital-L. And to escape, you need to… follow the stars? Look at the stars? Find the stars? You should probably go look at some stars…
A line of candles that really shouldn’t be floating around this close to this much paper flare into life, illuminating your way to a door that you didn’t see when you first entered, but has *probably* been there all along. The door swings open to reveal what is, frankly, a stone spiral staircase death trap leading up, up, up…
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| Go up to try and unlock the secrets in the stars (astronomy, 520) | Do a 10 minute word war. Then have a midnight snack, and walk up and down 1 flight of stairs or just move around somehow (if physically possible) | Stay downstairs and try to figure it out with PHYSICS (530), because you don’t believe in all this nonsense about ghosts and libraries with a capital L | do a 15 minute word war, then break out the snacks. Stretch for that book on the high shelf (seriously, do some stretches) | Try to Physics it out, and then give up and go mark down the position of the bloody stars, anything to stop this getting in the way of your precious writing time | Do a 15 minute word war, eat, and then come back and do another 10 minutes at :45. make sure that you HYDRATE. |
You gather at a large table near the main doors, a bay window looking out over the dark grounds, to do a few team-building exercises before you get down to the important business of writing. Trust falls might not be the best idea given how many writers seem to tend towards dyspraxia, but what the hell, you’re going for it.
Just as the first person is about to go, the clock strikes midnight.
The lights go out.
You hear the doors slam shut in the far distance.
Hang on, no, that’s not right! The doors were just over the- Ah. Well. The doors are gone. The windows are gone. That’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?
A whispery breeze seems to wind around you all, and wind definitely isn’t supposed to do that. Each of you hear, from just behind you, “ymyrwyr. tresmaswyr. artistiaid. ceiswyr gwybodaeth. Rhaid gwneud aberth i Dduw Geiriau, ac Ysbryd y Llyfrgell Fawr. Nid yw pawb yn deilwng. Ni fydd pawb yn dewis. Os byddech chi’n gadael y lle hwn heb ei niweidio yna nodwch safleoedd y sêr awr o hyn ymlaen a dilynwch nhw i ryddid. Mae Gwybodaeth Fawr y Llyfrgell ar agor i chi. Dewiswch…”
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| recognise what the language is | sprint to 491 words | don’t recognise the language | sprint to 410 [linguistics] and then to 491 | speak the language | panic and sprint to 491, then 410, and then back to 491 |
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Okay, consulting the literature only made things worse. We clearly need some help with team cohesion if we’re going to get through this retreat. Head to 305 for some Group Dynamics. Don’t pay any attention if you feel like you’re being watched. It’s just that the eyes on some of these old paintings seem to follow you, which is an optical illusion.
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| Go to 305 | do the 3 digit challenge | think that staying in the psychology section will be more help | multiply it by 3.05 | think that’s too easy | pick the highest number and multiply by 3.05 |
Your taxis pull up in front of a beautiful gothic mansion complete with towers, turrets, and trailing ivy. Your host spreads their arms wide as you approach the main doors, beaming in a not at all disconcerting way, and ushers you inside.
“It’s the Annual Brighton WriMos Writing Retreat! Welcome! Come on in, put yout bags down here, and we can head over to the library for our first writing session! Ignore the way the things seem to creak without any particular reason, you know what old houses are like!”
Along the (long, winding) way, one of the slightly odd things that you pass is a display of corvids wearing wire-rimmed glasses and reading, which sparks an argument: Can we really know what it feels like to be a crow? wouldn’t we just be a human in a bats body?
Things grow heated, and by the time we reach the library the first thing everyone decides to do is head into the stacks in order to consult the literature.
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| believe you *could* truly know what it feels like to be a crow if you were put into a crow’s body | do a 15 min word war | believe you would just be a crow-shaped human | do a 30 minute word war (or 15 + 15 for the adhd crowd crows) | Don’t care and just want to get to writing | do a 45 minute word war (or 30 + 15) |
[note: yes, we’re jumping in at the deep end for the truly committed :pundog: (committed? because it’s psychology? Thank you, gentlefolk, Cerys will be here all night)]
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