Was this really a good idea?

November 25, 2011 at 5:10 pm (Uncategorized)
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Ah, November.  Or Nanowrimo, as we crazy people like to call it.  Was this really a good idea, trying to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days?  I suspect that it wouldn’t be such a harrowing experience if real life didn’t go on concurrently.  But here we are, day 25, and I am just managing to continue writing.  To what end, I’m not sure.  Can this possibly produce a good book?  Perhaps not, but perhaps a giant messy first draft.  Or even, as I refer to mine, a massive outline.  I understand that Sara Gruen got Water for Elephants out of a Nanowrimo, though not remotely in the state it ended up.  Perhaps there are some nuggets of gold in there somewhere.

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National Novel Writing Month

November 23, 2011 at 1:53 pm (Uncategorized)
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Here we are, almost at the end of National Novel Writing Month once again.  (Nanowrimo.org if you don’t know about it.)  It has been a month of crazy wonderful writing.  There have been days of slogging through, writing nonsense just to keep moving, and there have been days of inspired writing that made me feel like I was flying. 

Newspaper articles have been a great source of inspiration for me, informing the story and getting me moving when I lacked the motivation.  I have taken frustrations from real life and written them in.  (Hopefully no one will recognize themselves in the story by the time I’m done.)   I have quite a cast of characters at this point, and even a couple subplots!

For me, doing Nanowrimo has helped me see how I can find time to write in my crazy schedule of commuting, work and caring for my baby girl.  There are so many writing projects that I would like to make time for but, as everyone who has a life knows, it’s not easy.  By pen, pencil or keyboard, we’ll get there though.

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