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Off the Cuff / My Blog Book
Impromptu writing...whatever comes... |
    I've been blogging all through my days without knowing that it was blogging; although, this isn't necessarily the only thing I do without knowing what I'm doing. Since I write on anything that's available around me, my life has been full of pieces of scribbled paper flying about like confetti. I'm so happy to finally have a permanent place to chew the fat.  So far my chewing the fat is on and off.  Maybe, I lack teeth. Feel free to comment, if you wish.  Thank you very much, Cindy, for this honor and the beautiful graphic. |
| May Day, May Day! Have a Happy May Day! |
| First of May, and I am excited because I started my a-story-a-day journal today. I must be a masochist; if I don’t challenge myself, I don’t feel I am living. Breathing yes, living no. Lol! Most European countries have the first of this month as a holiday. This beginning-of-spring and people-caring-for-each-other day evolved from the Marxist holiday, the Labor Day around the world, and here, the International Workers Day, which is the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when Chicago police fired on workers during a general strike. I don’t care from where a thought-provoking thing comes; if it is about people caring about each other, it is a good thing, IMHO. The celebration for May Day can be leaving a basket of sweets or flowers on a neighbor's doorstep. A May-day basket consists of flowers, granola bars, gum chocolates, candy, cookies, gifts, etc. A friend in UK tells me they are having a wet and sort of miserable kind of day. Where I am, it is hot and we have the air-conditioner on. I am hoping we’ll get a sprinkle or two to ease the heat, probably not though because the sun looks intense outside, Today around the world, for what I have read so far, female students are at the forefront of protest gathering at the University of Tehran for May Day. Sending good vibes their way. In addition, tens of thousands of workers in many cities around the world are marching and holding rallies for better working conditions and higher wages. In the world news, there has been some serious incidents in a few cities in Europe since, at the time of this entry, it is already night to the east of us over the Atlantic. I hope no one gets hurt. Happy May Day, WdC! |
| A Story A Day in May 2010 |
| I first saw a story a day idea, several days ago, in one of the tweets sent my way. I think it came from Writer’s Digest, but I am not too sure. A search in their website didn't give me anything. Anyhow, a Google search gave these links. http://www.inkygirl.com/story-a-day-challenge-for-writers-may-2010/ http://storyaday.org/tag/write/ And this one from a writer who claims to be a relative of Mark Twain. http://mjtwainstories.wordpress.com/about/ Anyhow, I am impressed, and after having written a poem a day in April, I think I’ll try this on my own, sort of like an adventure, with no strings attached. Although I have two books for short stories, I made another one just for this purpose, "A-Story-A-Day in May"  , which means the first entry will be on Saturday. Eeeek! I am scared, yet excited. This is like the joy of having a real hot, peppery kind of meal and worrying it will burn a hole in my stomach, but then I may come out of it with only nausea. |
| On the Web |
This morning, feeling too sleepy to do anything else, I wandered and pondered along the twisted pathways of the web and came across a few things that may be of interest.  Techcrunch.com’s Robin Wauters hates press releases and especially these ten words used and overused in the PR business. Come to think of it, I agree. Here are the ten words: leading/leader; best/most/fastest/biggest and others like these; innovative/innovation; revolutionary;award-winning; disruptive/disruption; cutting edge/bleeding edge; next-generation; strategic partnership; synergy To read this in its entirety: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/01/10-words-i-would-love-to-see-banned-from-pr... As to targeting the wrong markets, all of us have done this at one time or another. Good article on the subject: http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/marketing/general-marketing/targeting-the... If you wish to watch the top ten movies about writers, here’s a list: http://authorscoop.com/category/top-10-lists/ Then a bit of something about avoiding trouble when it comes to the publishing laws. I recommend this because it is about libel, especially if you use the names of identifiable people, companies and other entities. http://www.iuniverse.com/ExpertAdvice/PublishingLaw/AvoidingTrouble.aspx Then, here’s a video showing how Stephen King conceived the idea of Duma Key |
| April, the poetry month |
| April is the poetry month, and a few of us have been writing a poem a day with the Dew Drop Inn, as other WdC writers have been doing on the site or elsewhere. Poetry is magic. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere; other times, you have to sweat for it. In my case, the latter is more common, even when the idea comes out of nowhere. Mostly, I’m careless. I let the poem be; then, at other times, I sweat over every single word or line. I think a good poet would take nothing for granted and would revise repeatedly, but then, being a good poet takes a lot more than just placing words and lines together. Deep within the words of poetry, even the poetry that uses the simplest of words, magical elements are hidden, elements such as: metaphysics, myth, vision, fiction, psychology, culture, journalism, sciences, and poetic trance, even though perspective and common human experience steers the lines. For example, Gary Snyder who studied Zen and Tibetan Buddhism reflects those ideas and impressions. In his poems, one can usually find him listening to something, be it nature or his insides. His Call of the Wild starts with: The heavy old man in his bed at night / hears the Coyote singing / in the back meadow. Most of the good ideas for poems come from everyday life, out of being intensely close to things, situations, and from isolating the mind from all else, which is what true poets usually do. Here is a poetry reading by Jane Hirshfield. In 2004, Jane Hirshfield was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets. Her poems give a new light to everyday experiences. |
| Prius and cosmic rays... |
| I knew it. It was the cosmic rays for any continuous state of motion, like me coming into WdC. Something about the cosmic rays, in some cases they work for you; in other cases, they get you in real trouble. Now, the Toyota acceleration debacle is the result of cosmic rays. No kidding. Next thing we’ll hear will be a car company being abducted by the aliens, or will it be an alien invasion of the worldwide auto industry? Maybe, we should all start biking. I couldn’t help but put this in my blog. Truth is stranger than fiction, and this thing with Prius is stranger than yesterday’s Computers v.s. General Motors joke. And I thought I'd heard it all... See for yourselves:  http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/scratchpad/2010/03/cosmic_rays_an... |
| Computers vs. GM cars |
| A friend sent me this piece in an e-mail. The truth in it is hilarious and very much applies to my dilemma with my deceased, barely alive, and newborn laptops. "At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.' In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day. 2.. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads. 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light. 7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying. 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off. PS - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call 'customer service' in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!! At the moment, I am having a tough time using the touchpad, which in my earlier laptops was a cinch. I don't know if it is Dell's machinery or Windows 7. If my computer was a car, the steering wheel would have a mind of its own. |
| Fox News Poll |
| Our local TV station Fox 29 ran this poll for tonight’s 10:30 Newscast. “Is the Health Care Bill a milestone or a mistake?” Two options were given: 1. Yes 2. No An either or question cannot have a yes or no answer. Our WdC members do much better with their polls. So, I e-mailed them. Probably other people did, too. Maybe they saw the mistake themselves. As of the last twenty minutes or so, after the newscast, they changed the options to: 1. milestone 2. mistake I think the Fox people are so upset with the results that they can’t think straight. Anyone can make duh! mistake, for sure, but doesn’t the media have a self-check system? |
| Wind |
| The wind was strong today. It charged, shifted, and swirled inside my hair. Now that the rains are gone, the lawns look green whichever side one is on. The wind has taken over though. If something scrapes against you, it has to have shape; right? But does it always have a shape? Logically, it should, but then, the shape of the wind must be hidden from the eyes. I felt as if I were caught in the wind’s flow, like a kite. Just a little bit more push, I could fly...and this was only when I walked on the driveway to take the mail from the mailbox. After that, we went to the beach. Now, this was something. Bubbles popped from the waves and were absorbed by the sand. Where waves did not bother to rush to and wet, the sand blew all around us. Rip tide warnings were up, too. I thought the shape of the wind and the shape of the waves had to be related somehow. Both curled and ran, then rose and pitched to attack. The waves and foam attacked the sand, and the wind charged at people, trees, and my hair. A woman lost her scarf in the wind, which ended up at my face. She was lucky; I caught it. We all got a laugh out of it; although no one heard what anyone said. All sound was carried away by the wind, the prima donna singer who silenced everyone else. What does the wind mean? What do the waves mean? These questions came to mind. Could they be foreshadowing something, something about the end, something about the seas rising and hurricanes sweeping this beach in a few months, a few years, or a few decades? Or did they mean something concerning the deep and the high circling each other? Prattling aside, I think today’s wind was what they called a near-gale wind since white foam from breaking waves was getting blown in streaks and the sea was heaping up. Still it had no fury; it was just ecstatically playful. And it did have its own kind of song, as the poet said. Wind Song LONG ago I learned how to sleep, In an old apple orchard where the wind swept by counting its money and throwing it away, In a wind-gaunt orchard where the limbs forked out and listened or never listened at all, In a passel of trees where the branches trapped the wind into whistling, “Who, who are you?” I slept with my head in an elbow on a summer afternoon and there I took a sleep lesson. There I went away saying: I know why they sleep, I know how they trap the tricky winds. Long ago I learned how to listen to the singing wind and how to forget and how to hear the deep whine, Slapping and lapsing under the day blue and the night stars: Who, who are you? Who can ever forget listening to the wind go by counting its money and throwing it away? Carl Sandburg |
| Rain |
| For whom the bell tolls, on whom the rain pours…This was me today, driving my husband to the dentist early in the morning. The roads were turned to rivers crazily rushing under the car’s tires, which I had hoped would soon be soaked into the sandy soil of our state. No way. It is still coming down hard like missives of weather. We do not get lingering rains like the ones up north. Normally…But the weather this year has been anything but normal. This winter we got Northern-ish cold…much too often. Then this rain. This rain came with sullen clouds and dismal sky. This rain doesn’t know of the rains of my childhood that gently leaked through the roof tiles and panicked mothers, and out in the yard, soaked us to the bone, making us cackle and jump in puddles. But then, I’m too old to jump in any puddle. I could probably swim on the road, though. It is now loud and impatient. It screams at me through the hood of my stove top. This rain doesn’t promise rainbows or pots of gold. Only a greener lawn. Just maybe… if it doesn’t drown it. This rain is nothing like Emily Dickinson’s “Pretty Rain.” The Pretty Rain from Those Sweet Eaves by Emily Dickinson The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves Her unintending Eyes -- Took her own Heart, including ours, By innocent Surprise -- The wrestle in her simple Throat To hold the feeling down That vanquished her -- defeated Feat -- Was Fervor's sudden Crown – Then, just maybe, I’m turning into a sour archaic beldam. |
| Writing/Reading: Just for Today (My mind may change later) |
| “Value the process, not the product” must have been said for me. Since my mental age is six, several decades younger than my biological age, I go for instant gratification. I love to write the first draft for anything. A bit of fixing I can take like a multivitamin pill, but more than that makes me cringe. My bad, big time! For the same reason, I don’t like to send anything out for publication, and if and when I do, I feel disgusted with the whole thing. No, it is not the rejection; I can take rejection pretty well. I hate losing so much writing time over stupid stuff. As I said, my mental age is six, and I am like Alice in wonderland, but I don’t want this six year-old, yours truly, to have tea with the queen. The protocol kills me. As Jane Yolen said, “Write the damn story. Nothing else matters.” As to my reading, I finished Anita Shreve’s A Change in Altitude. Well-written book, absorbing, but maybe it is me, I didn’t understand the relationship of the ending to the core of the main conflict in the story. The main character felt responsible for the death of another mountain climber as she angered the woman by acting close to her husband. The jealous woman did something stupid and fell to her death during a climb. Thus, remorse is the theme of the story as remorse ruined the main character’s life for an entire year. Then, at the end, the protagonist climbed the same mountain again and reached the top. This is supposed to be a positive ending to her remorse. But her remorse was causing the other woman’s death; it wasn’t the remorse for not making it to the top. It seemed to me the ending was only a consolation prize that had nothing to do with the core of the story. Maybe not all writing has to make sense, but I really like Anita Shreve. What did I miss? I am back to reading Faulkner again after a writing.com member inspired me with "The Ghost of Rowan Oak" by Morgan Adam Internet Problems!  . As I said, a six year-old mental age is like being in Neverland, and I like jumping about. |
| Gunning the Writers |
| “Bunyan spent a year in prison, Coleridge was a drug addict, Poe was an alcoholic, Marlowe was killed by a man he was trying to stab, Pope took a large sum of money to keep a woman's name out of a vicious satire and then wrote it so that she could be recognized anyway, Chatterton killed himself, Somerset Maugham was so unhappy in his final thirty years that he longed for death... do you still want to be a writer?” Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, said. Omigod! Now I know why I’ll never make it. I am on the happier side of the world. Why do writers get into so much trouble? I am going to try to come up with possible explanations, as far out as they may sound due to my usual far-out reasoning. Some writers do not write as much as the writing art requires. Writing is akin to exercising. If we stop doing it, the energy dips, muscles atrophy, and mind grows cobwebs. We turn into couch potatoes and lazy slobs, and this makes us depressed because we've gotten lazy and we feel useless. This feeling encourages us to do things that are out-of-character and socially unacceptable. Remedy: Have a day job in which you feel useful. Writers, good ones, are perfectionists. They are terrified when they run out of gas. They think that their ambivalence and lack of ideas show and that they have become pathetic writers. So they act out of desperation or from the subconscious belief, which says: If I’m going down, I’ll take a few others with me. Wretched isn’t it? And soooo sick! Remedy: Have a day job in which you feel useful. That quote could be null and Bennett Cerf could have belonged to a cult that worships cynicism. But then, I’ll come up with anything to free writers from the claws of degenerate, self-indulgent publishers. Remedy for me: Stop reading publisher quotes or blogs or anything they say. Remedy for Bennett Cerf: Rest in peace! What is so difficult in writing is that we only have our brain to work with. Although the brain seems like a fantastic organ, it is an inferior one. Superior to other organs in a human body, maybe, but still it is inferior because it is mortal. If it was that superior, we all would live forever. And I think writers discover this fact before other humans, and this drives them to being the writerly losers Bennett Cerf has talked about. Remedy: Discover a better instrument than your brain? Nope, that won't work either. We already have computers and robots. Coming back to me, well, I have a life philosophy that says, do not fight a useless fight. That is why, even though I write (granted, not as good as those authors Bennett Cerf cited), I am on the optimistic side. And oooops! I just looked over this entry to discover my use of the bullets. Recently, I have been thinking in bullets. My NLs have tons of bullets in them. Bullets, guns, crime? Does that mean I am joining the crowd? Heck, no. Not in my wildest dreams… |
| Pet Peeves |
| I don’t know why we call peeves pets. Pets are fun; peeves aren’t. Anyway, today’s pet peeves: People blocking the isles in the supermarket by parking their carts across from the isle and standing on the other side, admiring the boxes, bottles, or whatever as if they are in 1920 watching a movie in the RKO. I just returned from shopping and it wasn’t fun, because I shop from a list and never fool around. My fooling around happens anywhere else but the stores. Games in FB, constantly sending pop-ups while I am there playing. The worst is the one that says send a free gift to friends. I go there, select, and click, and nada. “You have already sent your gifts for today.” If I already did that, why are you bugging me? Another one is, “get more neighbors.” Some people I hesitate to ask because I know their lives are either already full or they are more serious writers than I am. It is as if they want me to get all the 6 billion people on earth, and all the members of my family. I am not acquainted with all the people on earth, and from what I have seen lately, some can get pretty violent. Then, most of the members of my extended family do not like FB, and neither do my kids. I am the only black sheep who likes play more than work. For the same reason, I like writing because I play with it. People who flaunt stuff with vulgar writing on them. Yesterday we were out at lunch. A guy had a cap on with the rim turned from front to back, so the people who sat at the tables around could see the writing on it. On the hat, it was written: "Trojan Condoms" Gross!!! Plus, such a wrong place to wear those. And this is a restaurant in a town with a lot of elderly population. And my chair faced him. Why me! But my worst peeves are not about other people. They are about me. To start with: on both sides of my computer, all the pieces of paper on my desk that are waiting to be sorted and put away. They have been waiting for over two weeks now. The half drunk tea in the teacup that I always forget to finish. The reheated coffee forgotten inside the microwave. Half finished stories. Tons of first drafts I never fix, but I go on and write new ones anyway. The soup I sometimes do not remember to put back in the fridge because of waiting for it to cool down, then forgetting all about it. I better stop here before I really drive me crazy. In comparison to me, FB, people wearing stuff with weird writing, or people blocking supermarket lanes should wear halos. |
| Sestina |
| Sestina I am so awed by WdC poets and writers! No kidding. I just finished sending in the reviews for the sestina contest. Since sestina is a difficult form, probably my expectations were too low. Our poets put my expectations to shame. Now I have a dilemma at hand: choosing who wins. I am so stumped. I think anyone whose item was on the qualified list won. Here is a sestina by Elizabeth Bishop that the entire creative-writing world uses as an example. As far as I can tell, our poets did just as well or almost as well. Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house were both foretold by the almanac, but only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child, It's time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. If anyone is interested, to write a sestina, first you need to choose six words. Since these words will be repeated at the end of the lines, it is a good idea to choose words that can be used both as nouns and verbs and maybe adjectives, too. Then, also, these words have to fit the theme and topic of the poem. Then, if you wish, though it is not required, you might add a certain syllable count, blank verse, etc., but the form is difficult enough as it is. I am a free verse person, so I wouldn't mess with tougher mathematical things. 39 lines altogether. Good luck if you wish to try Here is the grid for the words. Stanza 1: A B C D E F Stanza 2 F A E B D C Stanza 3 C F D A B E Stanza 4 E C B F A D Stanza 5 D E A C F B Stanza 6 B D F E C A Tercet or Envoy Line 1 AB Line 2 CD Line 3 EF |
| Dean Koontz Video Link |
| http://www.facebook.com/audible.com?v=app_127050699172 Just click on the arrow in the middle of the screen. I came across this gem because I got an e-mail announcing that audible.com had started following me on Twitter. I'm glad I clicked on their link. This video is from a chat on December 17, 2009, and I enjoyed it immensely. Watching it takes more than half an hour. Sorry, I didn't time it, because I wasn't expecting it to be long. In it, the author answers reader questions. I found what he says interesting in some ways, as in: Koontz writes 60-80 hours a week. He starts around seven in the morning, skips lunch, goes all the way to dinnertime. He doesn't make any outlines or character sketches, but gets involved in the one book he's working on. He's no multi-tasker, unlike me and most of us here. But then, being involved in only one story does have its benefits. I learned that while doing Nano in November. Coming back Koontz, I hope you enjoy the video. |
| Love Thy Errors --NOT! |
In Writer's Digest November/December 2009 Issue, Craig Silverman has an article titled, Regret the Error? In it the author tells of his errors found by others in his already published book, which was on the topic of errors.  He believes, however, while a writer should try not to make an error, errors are not so bad after all because they teach us how to write better. Then he quotes James Reason: "It is often the best people who make the worst mistakes. Error is not the monopoly of an unfortunate few." As the remedy, he suggests that each writer make a list of his/her most common errors and "create a system for correcting them." Well, this article created a dilemma for me since I always come up with fresh errors. Yes, fresh errors. Don't you think errors are usually fresh? Don't they sass at you, annoy you, and pull you down? Mine do, and then some. A list of my quite common errors: I type the same word twice.I say the same idea twice, be it in different forms.I suffer from typos due to the lack of typing exercises when I first learned to type, but I am not going back to practice the darn thing again. Besides, those wriggling red lines in my word processing program and the internet browser alert me to my transgressions. I mean the typing transgressions. I am too old for the "Transgressions of the heart."Sentence organization: Although, I usually fix this by the second revision, a few booboos may jump off my field of vision.I am a fiction abandoner. I have tons of half-finished stories and three novels. There is no way I can fix this item on the list. I'll need another life, a century long, just to do it, which is a true impossibility.I am sometimes too merciful with my characters. A good writer knows when to be really cruel to his characters.I am a lousy revisionist. Even after I revise up and down and right and left, smart people still find holes. Then, when I look at the work closely, I see those holes to be as large as the black holes in outer space. A list of error possibilities (I have done these in the past but hope not to repeat them. ) Forgetting and misplacing names, dates, and ages: For example, forgetting the name of a character and calling him by another name or making him an eleven year-old, then to say he's twenty.Misplacing a setting: Starting to write a scene at a beach, then forgetting the idea and dragging it to a desert or mountaintop. In other words, the setting shapeshifts.Misplacing the time of day, year or era: Such as, after putting a scene in a certain time of the day, by the end of the scene or exposition, changing the time of the day. For example if two people are talking at breakfast, when they leave the table, they may say goodnight and go to bed. This would be okay, however, if they were working a weird shift.Using the same word in two or three consecutive sentences without meaning to use the emphasis tool.Tense mistakes or shifts within the same paragraph, scene or story.These lists could be miles long, if I had the patience to continue with my chatter. Still, the WD article made me feel better about all this, maybe because misery loves company. . |
| Phew! |
Phew! Done! Actually done a few days ago, but Thanksgiving was another phew, so I now have some time to look back. I don't know if I'll use December for editing. Pros and Cons for December editing: Pros: the story is still fresh in my mind, and it is probably better to get it over with. I may also lose the instinct and desire to finish the thing if I don't do this in December. Cons: One can see the holes and what is missing better if a hiatus is allowed in between the writing time and the fixing time. On the other hand, December is a busy month. In the meanwhile, I took a look at the novel because its beginning has been bugging me all along. I had started it with a prologue since I hadn't decided who the main character would be. Now I got rid of the prologue and incorporated it into the first two chapters. I'm glad I did that since I hate prologues in novels of this kind. Prologues may be okay when they introduce an alien world or something like that, but not in the kind of novel I wrote. Did I say I wasn't sure about any editing in December? Well it seems the editing has already begun. I will probably go over the sections that I have left with a question mark in my mind, like the one that reads like a travelogue of Mexico's west coast. This is somewhere close to the middle. I wrote that because my mind had stopped as to where to take the story, for which I am now glad because that section became a bridge to the rest of the story. It is very possible I'll cut out the travelogue, however. Thanksgiving was great, especially the part where I saw my children -well, my adult children who have homes far away from where I live. All in all, November 2009 has been an experience. |
| NaNo...and then again! |
| 39,628 words. I am hurrying, and not only because I want to finish the novel, or the resemblance of a novel , before Thanksgiving. It is just that the story or the characters have taken over. Funny, how some things from my own life seeped in, plus the really weird stuff I came up with due to the quirky main character, even if she is a tragic one. It always works to choose a primary character with a personality disorder. People with personality disorders or those having borderline personalities always act, get into things, and stir muck. We went to BJ's yesterday. I bought a bunch of fine-point Sharpie pens. When we came home, I didn't like them. They make a sh-sh-sh- sh sound as I write and distract me. I am not writing the novel with pen and paper, but I write other things all the time or take notes on what I'll write later. So the Sharpie pens are in hubby's possession now, and I'll have to get a new set. I should have stuck to Pilot-G or Uni-ball Signo to start with. My husband laughs at me because I'm so picky with pens, and I don't give a hoot about other things. Last week sometime, a woman asked me what I was writing in the waiting room, while I waited for my husband. I first said grocery list, then noticing her looking at my paper, I said I was scribbling some notes for a letter to be written. I was actually writing some kind of a rough draft/outline for a newsletter.  Since nosy people find me all the time, I write a few lines, then start reading a book, or if the waiting room is large enough, I go sit away from everyone. I really like NaNo. I like the obsession and the intensified attention it forces the writer to give to the work. I could live like this forever, but I can't because of real life and because I do want to do other things, too; even if other things have suffered only a little at this time. *Edited to add: I love the photo in Short Shots for November. I'd write for it, if it weren't for Nano. It would've been fun. *sigh* |
| NaNo, once more; what else? |
| I hope this wasn't a Friday the thirteen event, but I couldn't help myself. I went back and made the first chapter second, then added a first chapter as told by the main character. Yes, I know who my main character is now. The first chapter is not as attention grabbing as before, but this is the right way to do it. If I hadn't done this, I couldn't have gone ahead with the story. Now I have a main character and a story that is shaping up around her. Just keeping my fingers crossed. After the 50,000 or the finish, I have to make the first chapter more exciting or interesting in some way to draw better reader-attention. I finished reading Famous Writers School. Clever novel. Entertaining and about what we all like in this site. Even so, I wrote my daily portion of NaNo. I'm also doing other things in real life that I am responsible for; except the house cleaning has suffered a bit, but then, it is the first thing that suffers under any other emergency. I have to write faster after this, since my kids changed their minds and are coming down for Thanksgiving. They had originally said they had too much to do, so they wouldn't be coming. Although I had dared NaNo partly because of that, I am really happy they're coming. Then, I'm glad I doing the NaNo thing because, even if I will be busier after the 22nd, I will probably finish most of the novel. It is going faster than I gave me credit for. Just let's hope so! And another thing, I hadn't blogged this loyally before. |
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