NaNoWriMo--your one week warning!

In one week it will be November 1st, and you know what that means! National Novel Writing Month is upon us! For the unlikely people who have not heard of NaNoWriMo, the point is to write 50,000 words of a novel between 12:01 a.m. on November 1st and 11:59 p.m. on November 30th. The point is not to write the next great American (or English or French or Chinese or Finnish) novel--the point is to write the novel you've always said you'll write one day, and to give yourself a deadline to do it in. I know it is entirely possible. The first year I participated I wrote 60,000 words, and I wrote 50,000 in half a month in July one year.

I'm not doing NaNo this year, though I'd like to. I have two reading and writing intensive classes, a lot of German homework, and a job. I don't need to be more stressed, and I would like a tiny bit of a social life. This year is not the year. But please, don't let busyness deter you. Half the point is to be crazy and underslept along with a bunch of other crazy people.

Put your plotting hat on--or don't, and make it up as you go--and get ready to write.

The Novel: Live!

Starting today is The Novel: Live! Thirty-six authors are going to write one novel over the course of six days in order to raise money for literacy programs, and the process will be streamed live online. Visit the website starting at 10 a.m. today and you'll be able to see it.

I suspect this will be a rather awesome event. There's something particularly interesting about writing when it is treated as a process more than a means to an end. Who knows what kind of novel will come out of this, but the end result is barely relevant. This reminds me of NaNoWriMo--a similarly short period of time in which to write a novel. With NaNo, of course, the point is to just get a novel out like ripping off a band-aid, but there's definitely something special about the process, as well. The Novel: Live is even more about the process.

Happy Noveling!

National Novel Writing Month began today at midnight. In case you don't already know, the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel between 12:00 AM November 1st and 11:59 PM November 31st. I've participated for the last two years and also did a novel in July. I won the first year and the July novel, but not last year. Too busy, not enough oomph in my story.

I don't know if I'm going to win this year. My story is extremely vague (but then, so was the July novel when I started it). I might just go to write-ins (meetings, usually in coffee shops, of fellow NaNo participants) and try and write some short stories; we'll see. Maybe I'll come out of the month with a novel. That's the beauty of the thing--you never really know.

Happy writing, novelists, and if you're not participating have fun watching and laughing at those who are!

Hello, procrastination.

I am very much rejoicing in the fact that I have no plans this weekend. Nowhere to go. All sorts of things to do, of course, but no parties, plays, balls, or tests, as I have had the last several weekends. It's very pleasant just to stay home.

I have to admit that NaNoWriMo has fallen entirely by the wayside. I got to 22,000 words a week ago and then stopped entirely. I have too many other things to do this year that are much more important, and the novel was just not holding my attention. I didn't plan it well enough, and so fell back on the default sort of thing I write if I don't think about it. I lacked a theme, and therefore have stopped. There's too much homework to do, and applying to college is far more pressing. Hopefully next year I'll manage to finish. I would do another July novel next summer, but I think I really ought to stop writing them and sit down and edit one. Probably last July's, which is my favourite.

Next semester I'm planning on taking a class on Jane Austen, which I'm looking forward to immensely. I'm supposed to read all her books before the class starts, so I'll be reading the last of those over winter break. The only ones I haven't read are Mansfield Park and Emma, which are the ones that have always appealed to me the least. I've started Mansfield Park, though, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Now I'm rambling, and should go do my homework.

Different kinds of wars.

It's been quite some time since I posted. There's lots to do. November has begun, which means its National Novel Writing Month, and I'm in the throes of a novel.

I'm still only really reading things for school, so I'm in the middle of Storming Heaven, by Denise Giardina, which is mostly about coal miners in West Virginia and Kentucky in the early twentieth century. Its very good, though interestingly in first person (by four different people) and written in very often very heavy dialect. I'm definitely enjoying it, anyway. I wish I had more time to read it.

I'm also reading the Iliad, but I've had even less time to read that since its second on the priority list of reading and very low on the big priority list. I love epic poetry, though, so I really want to finish it.

I have to write an essay for Senior Lit (which is what I'm reading these for), and I have to pick a topic for it soon since the rough draft is due the beginning of December. The theme this semester with all these books seems to be war, so I'm thinking I might contrast the grand widespread wars in the books with the small, domestic sorts of wars. Which ones are more important to the novels? Which ones say more about the characters? That's what I'm thinking, anyway.

I am home from school for Veteran's Day, which is terribly exciting because it means sleep and time to write and do homework. I love my house on quiet rainy days.

Now I really ought to toddle off and write another three thousand words on my novel, and then I'll actually be up to speed with it.

An Accidental Novel

So, I'm writing this novel. I call it my accidental novel, because it was accidentally begun, the main character was accidentally introduced, his sister accidentally died and left her son to him, there is a fair amount of accidental foreshadowing, and a lot of other accidental bits of plot that I didn't plan. Of course, I haven't planned any of this novel. It is a prime example of a story that takes over and begins to write itself.

I always thought that the novel I wrote last November was pretty unplanned, but I realize now that I had a pretty good idea how it was going to turn out. This one not so much. It's harder to write the less planned one, because I have to stop and figure out where I'm going next, but I think it's turning out much better. I think the plot is more successful, and since I didn't set out with a goal of where I wanted to go I can't be disappointed. And with the last novel, I had set out to have a lot of coincidences and incidents of small worldness, but this one has more of that by far.

My working title is Jude, or sometimes Hey, Jude. Jude, Prince of Tempest is tempting, but a little bit too obvious in its allusion to Hamlet. That's what the whole novel is, by the way. An allusion to Hamlet, and the title character is very heavily inspired by the portrayal of Hamlet by Shawn Law that I saw two weeks ago (and again, twice, last weekend).

We'll see how it turns out. The goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of this month, and to finish it by August 13th, exactly a month after I began. We'll see whether that happens. I have no idea how long it will turn out to be.