Hip hooray and hallelujah!

For the first time ever, I successfully completed the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) challenge. In the month of November, I wrote 50,000 words that more or less pertained to the same topic. ;) Just kidding! I actually added 12 chapters to LEW (The Light at the End of the World) and will be finishing the entire book tomorrow, if not tonight, provided that none of my characters stages an eleventh-hour jailbreak.

I'm feeling very accomplished and very pleased with myself, and while the book certainly could use some editing love (all books do, but especially those written at ludicrous speed), I think it's turning out pretty well.

Yes, Crickets, I said I'm happy with my writing. That's what you call a red-letter day. Make a note of it - I don't know when this feeling will be coming again. I just know that I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

If I don't chirp at you before then, I hope that your respective cricketdoms have a beautiful holiday season!

So, yeah... I signed up for NaNoWriMo. I'm going to be working on LEW. They say that you have to start from scratch, but I think that LEW will still count if I add the required 50,000 words to the stuff I've already written. I'm nowhere near to finished with this little opus, so I'm certain 50,000 words will be welcome.

I will therefore attempt to write a little every day, a habit that I should have been resurrecting anyway. They say that to reach the 50,000-words-by-midnight-November-30 goal, you need to write 1,999 words a day (or something like that). Let's just say 2000. That's not so bad... that's only a few pages. I can do that.

I will keep you apprised of my progress, my dear Crickets, as things move forward. Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll reach the goal and finish the book, and we'll all live happily after until the next project.

Good afternoon, Crickets! I hope you're all doing well in your respective silent spaces, and that the approach of the holidays on little clawed monster feet isn't giving you conniptions. I've been working on Not Named and trying to avoid being sickly, which if you know me is a fairly constant battle. In the process, I have done a great deal of research, chucked the concept of NaNoWriMo, and learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

The bomb in question is, of course, my Illustrious So-Called Career, which really does deserve those capital letters. I'm going to give it my all, which means that these updates from me might be coming few and far between. Now, now, Crickets, don't chirp... it will be all right. With luck, I'll come out on the other side of the Long Silence (I'm fairly obsessed with capital letters today - curious) with a brand new Something for you to read, if you're so inclined. I'm pleased with the little baby steppies Not Named is taking, so my hopes are high.

Incidentally, a co-worker at my day job informed me that my writing was the equivalent to other people collecting bottles. I was offended, then I was amused, and now I think I shall just refer to the process of writing as "bottle collecting". That approach annoys my friend Big Cat, but sometimes these things can't be helped.

One last comment before I go soft into that good writing corner: Tristan has taken on all of the characteristics of a bad boyfriend. He drives me insane when I'm trying to spend time with him, takes me completely for granted and mistreats me until I throw him out. As soon as my attention is drawn to a nice, cooperative new friend like Not Named, he comes crawling back, armed with pretty words and a promise to make it work out this time, really. Shall I take him back, Crickets?

Nah. Boyfriend has to work for it this time. ;)

Revelations

Revelation the first (and I needed to have this explained): Rejection of my writing is not the same as rejection of me as a person.


I've always felt that my writing = me, and vice versa, and that if people didn't want to read my writing, they were saying through action that they didn't give a good God damn about me as a person. After a long conversation with my friend Big Cat yesterday, I've come to accept that perhaps this is not the case. It's still hard to believe that when people have no interest in supporting my writing career, that doesn't mean that they have no interest in me as a human being. It'll take some time until I accept this to be true... if it ever happens.

Revelation the second: Knight of Sorrows is henceforth to be known as "Book Not Appearing on the Bookshelf," or B-Nab.

This is the most damnable project, and the one I've had the most damnable time with. I cannot seem to coax it into being. It's something I want to write, very much, but for some reason it's harder to do than pulling teeth by way of the left kidney. I have never had this much trouble with anything I've ever tried to write. In the words of Commodus in Gladiator, it vexes me. I'm very vexed.

As a result, B-Nab has been sent to the orphanage for a few more weeks/months/years. We'll see if it shows up again.

Revelation the third: Just because B-Nab is more or less dead to me, that doesn't mean that NaNoWriMo can't happen.

I haven't officially joined up, but it's sort of a personal goal to see if I can get something book-length written in one month. Big Cat indicated that I should focus on something other than B-Nab and vampires, because she doesn't think people want to read about vampires that aren't all teen-angst and sparkly, and because B-Nab is giving me fits. (I just had the mental image of Tristan in full armor rapping in a nightclub. Hee!) I think she's probably right. To that end, I am taking one of the stories in my short story collection, "Tell Me No Lies," and expanding it. We'll see where it goes and whether this can be my NaNoWriMo accomplishment.

And thus endeth this reading from Revelations.

Just because I don't have nearly enough stress in my life, I'm considering assigning Tristan to be my National Novel Writing Month project for 2010. Think I can get all of Knight of Sorrows written by December 1? No, I don't either. But we'll see how far I get.

I guess this is me sort of kind of throwing down the gauntlet and challenging myself. I wonder if the imaginary people in my head will cooperate.

Full disclosure: I've often tried to do the NaNoWriMo thing, but I've never succeeded. In theory, if you write a chapter a day, you can finish a novel in one month (no promises for quality). I've just never been able to do it.

We'll see. Maybe this is the year.