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Friday, October 29, 2010

The Last Free Weekend

To My Fellow NANO-ers:

What shall ye being doing on your last free weekend for one whole month? Let's face it, weekends are a big deal for NANO, especially those of us who have day jobs. Those precious few days are vital in hitting word count goals!

This is the last weekend before that little NANO voice will be whispering over your shoulder every time you turn on the TV and try to chill....

GET WRITING! USE THIS TIME!

This weekend I shall be watching Roller Derby! And playing computer games! And watching horror movies! And passing out candy! And cleaning! Okay. That last one didn't sound so exciting. But cleaning takes a back seat to NANO. Must get in a good scrub now. And then, on November 1, I shall dive into my new, shiny story. I'm all stocked up on Coke, tea, marsh mellows (yes, you read that right), comfy socks, comfy pajama pants, and ideas! Let the good times roll.

I'm thinking about blogging every day about my NANO experience, complete with photos of my bashing my head into the computer. Maybe that wouldn't be such a wise idea. The posting and the bashing head...Sometimes I get ideas and ambitions that are too big for me. I think: I'll do this and this and this! And then I basically don't do any of it. I am the queen of not doing things I say I will! Hence, the fact that I have yet to finish the next edit on Moon Dog. Almost there. Uh. I think. I work on it every day. But some days I quite literally only write one sentence. Go me!

Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Chomping at the Bit!

First of all - If anyone received a SPAM e-mail from me, I am very sorry. I do not know what the heck happened there but something got my g-mail account and sent a weird e-mail out to everyone. Including, well, agents I've queried before. I think...Crap. Way to go me. I just hope I'm not blacklisted from the publishing world now. I think I fixed it but if it happens again, I'm changing my e-mail. Hate that. So sorry!

Anyway, today I donated an arm full of books to a nonprofit agency here providing counseling, safe shelter, and education for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other life crises. They were collecting at work and asked for new and used books for adult and children. I had both!

I know it's not much. But I hope someone gets some escape from those books. I gave away some good ones, ones I enjoyed, but I knew I wouldn't read them again. Maybe someone else could get a little bit of happiness from those pages, those characters.

Is it November yet? I'm so chomping at the bit, ready to get started! I love the beginning of NANO. Oh, the possibilities. I'm going to try and finish by the 24th, before Thanksgiving. I've got a business trip on the 29th so I definitely need to be done by then. In the past, I used to try and crank out 2,000 words a day, all in one sitting to "get it over with", and I'm not sure this was the best method. The writing suffered for it, although I know GOOD writing isn't the goal. But I know I can write 50,000 words in a month. I've done it before (although I failed last year. DOH!) But this year, I'm going to spread it out, weave it throughout the day, try to get a somewhat decent first draft. This sounds impossible, right? But that's the goal! Maybe 500 in the morning, 500 at lunch, and 1,000 at night. And I'll sort of outline as I go along.

Trying a new approach!

We'll see how this goes...

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Word Riot and Monkeybicycle

Hey!

I got two more flash pieces published. Yippee! It's funny. I got the acceptance for the Venice story a day before I received a rejection for it. Oh, how they balance each other out! What an odd thing this writing thing is...

Check them out. They are short and sweet, well, mostly sweet. =)

The Dangerous and Heart Breaking Effects of Paper Cup Champagne on a Girl in Venice

The Waltz

Happy Monday!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Gearing Up for Nano...

I don't know why...but I am MEGA excited about Nano this year. I think I'm ready to just set aside all of these writing projects and concentrate on one, new thing.

I've already got a T-shirt picked out for my MC:



I know, I know. He's not a bad guy, I swear. It's a shirt from a comedy show...and doesn't really tell the whole joke. Anyway, my MC is pretty mortified that--in the situation that he is in--he's wearing this offensive T-shirt, the T-shirt his uncle bought him one drunken night, the T-shirt he is wearing because nothing else is clean.

Me so ready to start FRESH! Sort of the theme of October for me: clean, clean, clean everything out! Start new!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

THE NOVEL: LIVE!

You guys gotta check this out...and spread the word!

Basically, watch some amazing writers write a novel in 6 days...LIVE! Here's the summary describing the event:

About

In a stunning, never-before-attempted marathon of literary wonder, 36 Northwest authors write a complete novel in just six days under the watchful eyes of Fairy God-author Nancy Pearl. Come watch and cheer on your favorite authors as the likes of Garth Stein, Susan Wiggs, Jamie Ford, Kevin O'Brien, Jennie Shortridge, Erik Larson (and more) take their turns at the keyboard in Hugo House's Cabaret. Happy hour and drink specials Monday-Thursday from 5:00-7:00 p.m. and 8:00-10:00 p.m. Go to www.thenovellive.org for a more information and to watch the novel progress as it streams live! Brought to you by Seattle7Writers.org, Hugo House, and Amazon.com.

And here's the link to the live web cast:

http://www.thenovellive.org/novel/live/

How awesome is that to see how other writers do it? They use the backspace key A LOT!

ENJOY!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

milk a cow and you get milk

I found the most perfect, perfect poem that captures how I feel about writing! It's called milk a cow and you get milk by Charles Bukowski, which can be found in his collection The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps.

I, however, still worship writers. But I understand that writers are normal people doing a very, very difficult job!

*Warning: Some language at the end...
ENJOY!

milk a cow and you get milk


I've mostly stopped worshipping
other writers now
past or present
but I was a writer junkie for
a long time.
I think I read every
book about D.H.
Lawrence, and those great
photos:
there was D.H.
actually milking a
cow.
and there was
Frieda and there was A.
Huxley
and all
the others.

I once thought
writing was magic
something that
magic people
did.
I didn't think it would
be like this.

I thought it would be
natural
simple
like
making toast or
skiing down hill.

it all looked so fucking
easy from that
distance.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Welcome to One of THOSE Days...

I want to completely start over. I want to wipe away everything that I have ever written--but keep everything I learned--and start completely fresh. I want to stop trying so hard because trying so hard is getting me no where. I want to stop caring. I want to let go. I want to be better. I want to be the same. I want to know what kind of writer I am. I want to have something to say, something meaningful, something important, something fun, something funny. I want to be seen. I want to be invisible. I want to grip a reader like a vice. I want to know what I am doing. I want to have purpose. I want to show you something new.

The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon arrived in my mail box yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to see it as a paperback. I like that. I think all books should be paperbacks. Books should be folded up and stuffed into the back pocket of your baby blue jeans, ready to guide you with a flick of your hand. Books should be highlighted, shared, passed around like a stale cigarette. Books should be worn--not from carelessness or vandalism--but from use. All of those eyes, skimming the words that have been skimmed before, that melted into someone, the same words, melting into you...

Books should be scattered, left on a park bench or buried in the sand like a treasure map for anyone to find. Books should be quoted. The words fly from lip to lip. Books open doors that otherwise remain locked and sealed. Books are keys. Books are a business. And a passion. And a life preserver. Books are transportation units. Books are time travel machines. Books are coloring books, color in the blanks, stay inside the lines...

Books are mirrors, sometimes cracked, sometimes shiny, sometimes covered in an old paint cloth. Books are jolts of electricity that bring us back to life. Books are havens. Books are caves. Books are flash lights poking through a storm...

Books are trouble-makers.

Hope you all had a great Banned Books Week!

Happy Friday!

P.S. If you can't tell, I'm in a super weird place about my writing these days...I'm in limbo or something...can't wait for November so I can use that to get pumped up again. This writing this is hard...but is it supposed to be THIS hard? Le sigh.