TL;DR welcome to the Survival Strategies, everyone. Been a while. But I know there are a LOT of you who have absolutely no clue as to what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. #OkayEmily you were just an idol and now you're publishing a book series? The word you're looking for is published, and Dvorak has a LOT more history than you would think. So let's start at the very beginning:
In 2013, my hands were killing me, so I started switching to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which I still use sometimes (I switch on and off). I wanted a way to learn it fast, to get used to it so I could switch over. So I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month's Camp event in April of 2013, writing a 50,000 word novel in Dvorak. And when I realized I had no plot, I quickly figured out this was no problem:
Dvorak is an interactive project.
Everyday during April, I will be making regular quota for (National Novel Writing Month) using Dvorak. That’s 1,667 words per day. No exceptions. If I am away from a Dvorak keyboard, then I will have to wait until I find one. This means no writing on my iOS devices. (I can, however, switch any regular keyboard to Dvorak.)
After making quota, without editing, I will post the day’s excerpt on MemR (...) and then posting a link on my website. Everybody is welcome to read, and then suggest what happens next by leaving a comment on the post (comments can be made anonymously). The next day, using ideas from the posts, I will write the next chapter, until the month is done.
Sound like fun? Of course it does. But it can only work if you ‘read and review.’
-- my old MemorialRainbow blog, March 15, 2013
I gave my friends two characters to start with, and told them it must start in NYC, to give me something to play with. Other than that, it was all up to the plot ideas they gave me. I wrote every single day, and they gave me comments every single day about where the plot should go next. What they gave me was nothing short of a miracle, and the audience and I worked together and created the first Dvorak novel. Of course, back then I figured it was a one-shot, but some of my old characters decided they wanted into the universe and I had too much fun writing the dang thing anyway. So the Dvorak novel quickly became a Dvorak series.
Four whole books, a CD of music inspired by the series, and three conventions later, Dvorak was building momentum. People loved it. And then I shut down. If you turn out three books in a year and a half and get them all to press, with a fourth book serializing during it all, you're going to burn out. On top of that, the source files were thrown out during our bedbug infestation. I was super embarrassed, and I shelved the project for a long time, knowing I'd always come back to it.
That time is now.
Dvorak is actually lots of stupid fun. It covers the day to day workings of QWERTY (yes, of course that's a pun), an organization that exists outside of space and time. Universes merge and separate every single day per the rules of string theory, and it's up to QWERTY to make sure they all go according to plan. In the first Dvorak book, our world goes through a collision (kind of like the Mandela effect). In subsequent books, new QWERTY operatives go on their first missions. It's kind of like Doctor Who meets Scooby Doo -- all of the wibbly wobbly stuff with a ragtag band of kids at the center. (Drama! Romance! Parkour! And LOTS of chai.)
The fun part is that the first four books are literally on the Dvorak website for you to read. It's a little messy, but if you want to go read it, you can! And I'll be writing the fifth book for NaNo this year, and in traditional Dvorak fashion, I want your help. So I opened a suggestion box where you can submit your ideas. It can be literally anything at all -- the more random, the better.
I probably won't post a TON more about it here. But it's fun, and I want to include you. And there are even more things coming in the future. The truth of my most recent adventure is slowly coming to light. It will be slow. Everything will from now on. But that's okay. I'm okay with that. We'll actually get results that way.
After all -- isn't that what it's all about? Shouldn't this be fun?
In 2013, my hands were killing me, so I started switching to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which I still use sometimes (I switch on and off). I wanted a way to learn it fast, to get used to it so I could switch over. So I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month's Camp event in April of 2013, writing a 50,000 word novel in Dvorak. And when I realized I had no plot, I quickly figured out this was no problem:
Dvorak is an interactive project.
Everyday during April, I will be making regular quota for (National Novel Writing Month) using Dvorak. That’s 1,667 words per day. No exceptions. If I am away from a Dvorak keyboard, then I will have to wait until I find one. This means no writing on my iOS devices. (I can, however, switch any regular keyboard to Dvorak.)
After making quota, without editing, I will post the day’s excerpt on MemR (...) and then posting a link on my website. Everybody is welcome to read, and then suggest what happens next by leaving a comment on the post (comments can be made anonymously). The next day, using ideas from the posts, I will write the next chapter, until the month is done.
Sound like fun? Of course it does. But it can only work if you ‘read and review.’
-- my old MemorialRainbow blog, March 15, 2013
I gave my friends two characters to start with, and told them it must start in NYC, to give me something to play with. Other than that, it was all up to the plot ideas they gave me. I wrote every single day, and they gave me comments every single day about where the plot should go next. What they gave me was nothing short of a miracle, and the audience and I worked together and created the first Dvorak novel. Of course, back then I figured it was a one-shot, but some of my old characters decided they wanted into the universe and I had too much fun writing the dang thing anyway. So the Dvorak novel quickly became a Dvorak series.
Four whole books, a CD of music inspired by the series, and three conventions later, Dvorak was building momentum. People loved it. And then I shut down. If you turn out three books in a year and a half and get them all to press, with a fourth book serializing during it all, you're going to burn out. On top of that, the source files were thrown out during our bedbug infestation. I was super embarrassed, and I shelved the project for a long time, knowing I'd always come back to it.
That time is now.
Dvorak is actually lots of stupid fun. It covers the day to day workings of QWERTY (yes, of course that's a pun), an organization that exists outside of space and time. Universes merge and separate every single day per the rules of string theory, and it's up to QWERTY to make sure they all go according to plan. In the first Dvorak book, our world goes through a collision (kind of like the Mandela effect). In subsequent books, new QWERTY operatives go on their first missions. It's kind of like Doctor Who meets Scooby Doo -- all of the wibbly wobbly stuff with a ragtag band of kids at the center. (Drama! Romance! Parkour! And LOTS of chai.)
The fun part is that the first four books are literally on the Dvorak website for you to read. It's a little messy, but if you want to go read it, you can! And I'll be writing the fifth book for NaNo this year, and in traditional Dvorak fashion, I want your help. So I opened a suggestion box where you can submit your ideas. It can be literally anything at all -- the more random, the better.
I probably won't post a TON more about it here. But it's fun, and I want to include you. And there are even more things coming in the future. The truth of my most recent adventure is slowly coming to light. It will be slow. Everything will from now on. But that's okay. I'm okay with that. We'll actually get results that way.
After all -- isn't that what it's all about? Shouldn't this be fun?
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