While getting as many words on the page will be my goal for next month, I came across this link to a Wired story about epics written in six words or less.
Here a few of my favorites:
Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back. - David Brin
He read his obituary with confusion. - Steven Meretzky
Automobile warranty expires. So does engine. - Stan Lee
I am not Lance Armstrong. In fact I can't begin to count the ways that I'm not Lance Armstrong. However, I might have got a glimpse in to his life recently.
As I've noted below we are coming up on NaNoWriMo 2007 This will be my second time for this writing marathon. And like any marathon I've been training for the event; upping my daily word count and tossing around characters ideas to work with. In general working up a literary sweat.
But I've been working with a small handicap over the last several months; a growth on the end of my index finger on my left (dominant) hand. As you might imagine having some thing slightly odd on the end of a finger can be at the very least problematic when it comes to typing a lot. So for someone who not only writes nearly every day but is also on the computer for a large part of their career it had become a real issue. Last Saturday I decided to do something about it.
I'm fortunate that my doctor keeps some weekend hours and I went in last weekend to have him remove the growth. It wasn't big (maybe 4-mm across) but being in such a sensitive spot it sure felt like he was extracting a grapefruit from the end of my finger. He bandaged it up and told me it should heal up in about 10 days and develop a nice little pink scar, but to "stay off it" for about 10 days and then to take it easy for a bit after that.
That's when I joked about having bad timing and told him about my upcoming novel attempt and about having to just play through the pain. He told me it should be all right but to watch myself and to remember that Lance Armstrong went on to win several Tour De France races after beating cancer.
Guess I need to go find a yellow bracelet.
Fall is here indeed. The leaves are turning colors, the kids are getting their Halloween costumes together and plans are being made for just how many pumpkin pies need to be made for Thanksgiving.
And around our house it means one more thing; National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us. For those who don't recall my NaNoWriMo adventure from last year or who are unfamiliar with this event on the whole let me explain. NaNoWriMo is a month long writing frenzy by mostly amateur writers to try and write a novel in just 30 days. A novel is defined in this case as 50,000 words. This 2000 word per day pace is achieved by locking away one's inner critic and just dumping as many words on the page as possible. For more details about the event itself visit their website.
I participated in NaNoWriMo last year and won; that is to say I passed the 50K mark before the end of the month. So when October 1 rolled around this year I signed up to do a second tour of duty in November and this time I've dragged a fellow writer along with me.
I don't want to call them out just yet since I don't know that they've told anyone but me that they're going to participate. Once I see a public admission on their website to signing up for this year's 50,000 word death march I'll give them a mention here.
Since this will be my second pass at trying to write a novel in a month I've had the opportunity to ponder some on lessons learned from last year's experience. I've spent the intervening year doing a lot more writing than I have in the past and while I didn't reach my goal of getting at least one story out for submission I did do plenty to hone my craft some. Namely I've learned to house break my internal editor. Now he mostly sits on his hands in the corner when I write until I release him to clean up the messes I've made on the page. Oh sure, he fidgets, squirms and whimpers while I'm writing; wanting to kibitz but I'll toss him a powerpoint presentation from my day job (no shortage of those) to work on for a while and that usually quiets him down.
I'm still working on what this year's novel is going to be about. Last year I took a short cut and did a retelling of the Book of Ruth (from The Bible). It afforded me with a plot, characters and motive. All I had to do was put it in a new setting, give it some color and throw in some dialog. It's not a bad way to write a book and many authors have made entire careers on doing that. But this year I think I'm going to take a different approach.
I've had a few story ideas I've been chewing on for a while. One it just not neatly enough to last for 50,000 words; it's short story material for sure. Another plot idea I have I've been thinking about too much. That is to say I'm too wed to the story to toss it to the wolves of wild writing in November. I know that in the ned the only way that story is going to make it to the page is for me to just let it go and see what happens what I start typing, but not yet.
One other plot came to me a few weeks ago and I think this is the one I'm gong to use. I've put just enough thought in to it so as to not feel unprepared to turn it in to a novel but not so much that I couldn't stand to see it fail.
More NaNoWriMo updates as they become available.
I'm learning that a big part of being a parent is about discovering who your children are. The other day I learned something new about my youngest. It turns out she likes the music of Pink Floyd.
I was working from home one day this week. Taleena and the two older kids were up in town for a few hours and the baby was asleep in her room, thus allowing me to get a some uninterrupted work done. For a little background music I put on a Pink Floyd concert the TiVo had captured and then got down in to my pile of spreadsheets and project schedules.
About 90 minutes later I heard the telltale babbling from the girl's room that told me Hope was awake from her nap. I went in and got her out of bed, letting her toddle out to the front room. The TV was still playing the concert and she stopped dead in her tracks. The stage lights flickered across the screen and mellow guitars filled the room with sound.
Hope promptly sat down in front of the screen (not something she is want to do) and watched the show for a full 10 minutes, looking away long enough to check over her shoulder and make sure I was still in the room. The magic moment was over when they broke away from the music to show more of the "beggar TV" (a.k.a. pledge week on PBS). She got up and asked me for a banana then ran off to find new ways to keep herself entertained.
Maybe I'll get her a little Dark Side Of The Moon t-shirt for her birthday.
Harris had his first Back To School Night recently. It was proceeded by an ice cream social that Taleena and her mom took the kids to. I got back on the island and up to town just in time to miss the social but make the rest of the proceedings.
When I walked in Harris wanted to show me everything. The Choice Time board, the science station, puppet theater, food toys, et al. While that was going on his sister Helen was busy playing with all the cool toys and chatting up the other kids (older and younger) and just taking in the classroom, surely dreaming about the time when she gets to go to school every day too.
Harris showed me the various projects at his desk that he'd worked on then it was off to see the art room. A quick family craft was waiting for us and then we dashed over to the library. He was showing me how the library system worked with placeholders between the books while you looked for the book you wanted when the librarian came over to comment that she was impressed that Harris had remembered how to do that after only being shown once so far. Next he showed me a little amphitheater in the corner of the library where the kids could sit and someone could read to the students. Over the back of the chair is a small camera that displays the book up on a large flat screen display above the teacher's head.
Connected to the library is the computer lab full of Macs. We didn't spend any time in there as he has not started his computer units yet but I understand that it's not far off. We also made a brief pass by the music lab and the it was off to home and bedtime.