I'm back!!

Hi everyone!

I not only survived NaNoWriMo, but I won!! I never thought I would be able to catch up after starting out nine days in, but it really helped that I was able to sit down and knock out 4,000 words a day for at least five days in a row. I also found that the site Write or Die helped to kick my butt. You set a time limit and a word goal, and hit "write," and you attempt to reach your goal. As long as you keep typing, nothing bad happens, but if you stop for long enough (I think it is at least ten seconds), the site will play "MMM Bop" at full volume until you start up again. Now there is some motivation.

Another site I discovered in my writing toils was Freerice.com; when you answer one multiple choice question correctly on their site, they will donate 100 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program, and you can play as long as you like. There were a few days lately where I managed to donate quite a bit of rice, searching for an interesting vocabulary word to work into my novel.

Finally, I realized at the end of my labors that I actually have a piece with some potential. At least I don't want to burn it or bury it right now. I would like to see if I can scrape the grime off and shine it up enough to show it to other people. So I'll probably be working on that over the next month or three, but I think it is worth it. I would love to get a book published someday, and if this one is it, that would be pretty awesome.

I realize that I used to do Poetry Challenges on Tuesdays, but being that I just wrote 50,000 words in 21 days, I am pretty spent just now. I will pick that up next week. However, I think I have a few haiku in me.

Haiku News

Argentine model

dies after cosmetic butt

surgery went bad.

Baldwin calls movie

career a "complete failure;"

"Complicated" blows.

Though his mom is gone,

baby Moses has always

known a mother's love.

Checking in.

Sorry I haven't been around; again, I am super busy trying to write about 4,000 words a day to catch up on my NaNoWriMo project. It comes in fits and starts, but I am still trying to get the requisite amount of words in a day, so needless to say there is a bit of stringing along/fluff that will probably be heavily edited in the next draft. But on I go. Anyway, I had better get going since I still have most of today's writing to do.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Rolling along.

So, because I am pretty much writing my brains out on my Nano project, I will pretty much just be coming in here a couple times a week to reaffirm that I am surviving. Sorry about that. On a good note, I figured out the other day that if I wrote 4,000 words a day for the final ten days of the challenge, I will come through with some words to spare. The last two days I have met my goal, so hurrah!

In other news, when I ask my son where one of his toys is, he will find it and say "There it is!" He will also say "there you go," when I ask him to give me something. So cute.

I'm alive.

Just writing (or trying to) my NaNoWriMo project. I'm giving in to useless distractions in the name of "thinking" way too often. It makes me sad that I've been up till midnight the last few nights and haven't gotten more written. My husband looked at me a few hours ago and said, "You know you're not going to get that done this month, right?" It's sad but probably true...my basic hope would just be that this would kick my butt and guilt me into writing more of what I had in my head. It has done that. But I do want to get at LEAST halfway to the 50,000 word goal by month's end...I guess we'll see how I can do. I just need to focus.

Also, because of my crazy writing focus, I'll probably just put the poetry challenge and analysis on hiatus until the end of the month. Sorry about that, but I really don't have time to maintain both. I may not post as often either, but I'll try for a few times a week.

Word Count: 7,418/50,000

Writing is hard.

I took a few hours this evening to try and make a dent in my ridiculous NaNoWriMo goal. When you take on the challenge, you're supposed to write 50,000 words by the end of the month of November. Given that I started nine days late, I am already at a bit of a disadvantage. But I am struggling now with how to give coherent form to my "bag of ideas" that I started with. I had a main character with a big idea for him, and a bunch of ideas for incidental characters, but no way to really unite them all. So, I am starting to wing stuff here and there. It's a bit like taking a leap off of a cliff. I'm afraid I'll end up crumpled in a heap somewhere, so my brain starts to try to freeze instead of letting things flow. Plus every little thing starts to distract you. You know, like when you get an assignment for school and you try to find all kinds of things to get out of doing it. Oh, the irony! I'm doing this because I want to, yet I'm procrastinating when I'm already behind?? Ugh. I am going to try and work more on it during the day starting tomorrow. I'm afraid my blog will have to come second for the rest of the month; I am not doing haiku news today to attempt to get enough sleep tonight, and I'm postponing the poem analysis until at least next week. Sorry, folks!!

Word Count: 5,123/50,000 (1/10th of the way!!)

Embarrassment.

So, I can't believe I almost forgot again. The month of November, at least for the last few years, is known to nerdy parts of the blogosphere as "NaNoWriMo," or National Novel Writing Month. There is a whole website devoted to the challenge of trying to write a 175 page (roughly 50,000-word) novel in that 30 day period. They focus more on quantity than quality to produce such volume in such a short time, but that practice can get a writer out of the vicious cycle of write a couple pages, then tweak and pick at them forever (or, as I have done, ignore them while percolating ideas in my head). I think I'm going to do something crazy here and try to complete it this month, not waiting for next year. I mean, if I have my way, I will have two children by this time next year, and one will be very small, noisy and demanding at this point, so I really had better get cracking before that if I want to have a real chance at it. Right? Is anyone going to do this with me? They even have sections for ideas if you don't have a plot! Seriously, check it out, especially if you've ever wanted to write a novel but just didn't have the motivation/self-confidence/etc. To keep myself accountable I will keep a running tally of my page count at the bottom of my blog each day so people can see my (hopefully not lack of) progress.

Also, if no one ventures to try the five-part poem that I did last week for Poetry Challenge, I will extend it by one week. I think it is too valuable an exercise to abandon, so please, someone, try it out. I promise it's fun!! Check my finished product out, as well, if you have a chance.

Word count: 2,301/50,000

Haiku News

We can all learn from

residents of Charlotte Street:

slum became a home.

I would like to know

just what Hasan will say when

asked why he went nuts.