NaNoWrite-some-Mo

No, I haven't started writing yet on this year's NaNoWriMo work. But I will begin this evening. Another prestigious month of burrowing and hiding out and slaving over a hot laptop and an even hotter bottomless pot of tea.

It's an experience and if you aspire to write and you've never taken the NaNoWriMo challenge, get up off your mousepad and click on over there and sign up! It's fun, free and you'll feel like a person after it's done.

Best of luck to all writers this month.

NaNoWriMo Prize Package!

So, after writing madly for days and days, struggling to keep one's ego from the toilet, wrestling with plot lines and character choices and just managing to write the requisite amount of words before the bell on December 1st, what - you may be asking - do you get as a reward? What is the carrot at the end of this rabbit race? What could possibly make this excruciating ordeal worthwhile?

This icon:








Yep. That's about it.

Or I can put up this one if I like it better:

And Now For My Next Trick

I will now attempt to write 1,500 words in the next hour, send in my final count of 50,000 to the NaNoWriMo bean counters, pick up my token award of achievement a full day and a half ahead of schedule (well, a day and one third ahead of schedule), and then perform a little winner's dance with the fingers pointing in the air and the shimmying around the room because I will prove I am the baddest and I will have achieved my goal.

Drum roll please...

NaNoWriMo Update

I haven't said much this month about my progress on the whole write-your-novel-in-a-month venture that I undertook at the start of November, but allow me to do so now. I have just passed the 37,000 word mark and that leaves me the daunting task of writing 13,000 words between now and close of day Wednesday the 30th. Can I do it, I hear you ask? Well, the answer is "yes, yes I can." I managed to scratch out ten thousand words yesterday by sheer brute force and if that is any indication I think I'll be able to handle this next pile by the deadline given.

At least I intend to. I might have to hole up and space out and be completely useless for the next two and a half days, but I will do it, by gum! (Buy gum! Hmmm. That gives me a plot idea!)

So, if you'll excuse me, I have some heavy-duty novelling to do.

Geek Reading

According to Technology Blog these are the top 20 geek novels. I've read five (the top three, Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land). How many have you read?

(Steve again. Really Steve and Worldgineer are the only two sending me stuff for this November thing. Don't the rest of you have the goods you're just not sending me?)

We Made It...

November is upon us. The leaves will abandon their posts on the branches of the trees and insist on making a rustling sound as we walk on them. (Well, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, that is. You Southern Bunnies are going right into, what, Summer? Crazy kids!)

Yes, soon the cold winds will pour into the cupped valleys and around the sides of unprotected buildings, wrapping us all in frost and sleet and snow and we'll hold our breaths and then release them in little clouds of our own making before rushing to our Christmas shopping or the inevitable family Thanksgiving dinner.

This is winter. And the first order of business is novel writing. For me anyways. I'm not sure whether it will all be my own or someone else's, but novel writing is the soup de jour. So, while I'm out honing my craft and trying to impress the literary community I could use your help. To keep YLSN(a)ED alive during the cool days and nights of November I invite you to write it for me. Any ideas, links, pictures, stories, verbs, recipes, or bedwetting secrets written on postcards that you send to my inbox (ksrasra AT gmail DOT com) I will post to the blog with creds. This month, you are You Learn Something New!

WriAShorStorWe

Can't hack a novel in a month? No problem. Defective Yeti is launching the lazy man's NaNoWriMo! Hop to it, wusses! (smug smile from someone who's never written a novel in a month much less a year and is pretty sure she doesn't even know how, but still insists on being proud of trying.)

NaNoWriMo - Cleveland Style

NaNoWriMo, the site that launched a thousand books, apparently has a bonus feature (that I just noticed) to encourage its aspiring novelists: Regional Affiliations! Pods of novelist wannabes gathering in local pubs and coffe shops and swapping gripes and hopes and time-tested month-long-novel-writing tips! This can only mean one thing: Cleveland NaNo's. I feel them in the air. They are closer than I think. Their bookish brains teaming with off-hand remarks and friendly book-writing ribbery.
In fact they're having a kick off party on the 30th at the Beechwood Library.

Sweet Day in the Morning, this is going to be fun!

Never Novel Not-So-New

Well, the Novel writing deadline has passed. It is now December and I failed to write fifty-thousand words by midnight. Not that this should really surprise anyone. It doesn't surprise me. I tend to make myself offers that I have trouble achieving. It's part of my whole shtick. But besides that, I did write about 15,000 words (more or less) that I kinda like and someday I will write a novel. Or two. Or three. Or whatever. It's good to be a writer. It's good to be young. It's good to have fun. it's good to drink Pepsi. (where'd that come from)

So, hello hello, welcome to a place called vertigo. Or the internet. Or whatever.

Have you ever noticed how predictable the internet is? It's always flat. It's always glowing. It's always pictures, words and or sound. Same same same. Clickety clickety clack.

Still Writing...

I'll be amazed if I hit the fifty thousand mark for the novel writing by next Tuesday night. IN fact, I'll probably consider myself an alien from another planet if I get fifty thousand words written by next Tuesday. But I am still writing, trying to reach that goal. With greater or lesser success.

I've found some ritualistic behaviors that really help me focus: lighting a candle, making a pot of tea, pacing up and down the hall for an hour, rocking in a fetal position for an hour or two longer... then I can write, no problem. About one hundred or two hundred words. Then I have to start the ritual all over again. Man, baseball players have nothing on me when it comes to rituals and superstitious behaviors.

Wednesday as Friday

(Have you ever really looked at the word Wednesday? How weird it is? What a creepy spelling. Who thought that up?)

So, I'm looking down the barrel of a long, stifling, writerly weekend with intermittent exercise and snack breaks. It's Thanksgiving Day tomorrow (for our foreign friends) where we thank the good Lord for letting us take over the continent from the natives and then allowing us to kick out the Brits. Although I think that's technically Independence Day. They all kind of blur together. Good times.

I intend to celebrate by wishing I had a good hot meal and then hunching up and slaving over a hot laptop.

How about the rest of you? What are you doing?

No Luck

My disk locked up this weekend. With four thousand words trapped on it. And of course no back up on the hard drive.
I've decided not to be angry, but to view this as a sign of good luck which will aid me in my novel-writing quest. I'm sure the next time I write the same stories, they'll be even better.
Also, I'd just like to thank the random person from the internet who wrote me an email to say they liked my writing. That meant a lot. Thank you.

At this rate...

...I only have to average 3,548.46 words a day till the end of the month to reach the 50,000 word mark for the NaNoWriMo. I think I can.

Current word count: 4,880

better late than never...

here's what I'm doing for the rest of the month of november. it's only mid month. I only have a 25,000 word deficit, but hey (butt hay), I'm nothing if not ambitious. think of all the monstrous projects I have begun on this blog alone only to pieter (peter?) out and leaf them stranded. Like the one where I promised to sing people's song requests but never sang "Country Girl" for tsuka. Actually, I don't know that song or I'd sing it right now. yes, I'd pick up my phone and sing it right now. but I don't know it. so that's why. or how about the three things photos? I have a cat, an open window and a bag that says swag (got in Staines, yo. it's legit) on it, but I can't seem to get that photo taken. or how about (this one's classic) my 100th post where I say I'm gonna offer 100 pieces of useless information? I still haven't finished that one. (in my own defense though, it's almost done. I have like twenty more to go.)

so, I'm writing a novel this month. it'll be mostly crap and probably not very entertaining. but you are welcome to read along. in fact, you'd get brownie points. whatever that's worth.