Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2008

1001....

The infamous 1001....the 1001 (fill in the blank) before you die-- stemming back to Scheherazade's 1001 tales that postponed her death, one story a night in exchange for one more day of life. There are the 1001 places to see, 1001 albums to hear and 1001 movies to see....but for me, I choose the 1001 books to read before you die. Will I succeed? There is no way of ever knowing... I turn 30 in 3 months and hope to begin this daunting task at that point. I call it daunting because of the time needed to complete this undertaking. If I average one book a week (some books won't take me that long, others might take longer) then it will take me exactly 19 years and 3 months to finish the list-- a lifelong endeavor. Some of the books in the list I have already read, but for the purposes of this project, I intend to reread them. Some of the books may prove difficult, if not impossible to find (specifically the ones dated pre-1700s), for these books, I may have to substitute a compar

NaNo Novel 2008 --- Club Haunt --- a different style, a different approach, but a better novel??

Introducing: Digby Wilkins Jeremiah Bickles (known only as Bickles) Granville Isaacson Club Haunt Credo: Scientific Investigation of all things Paranormal This year's NaNo Novel wound up being something entirely different than I set out to do. Originally, I had planned a sequel to last year's novel 'Lost in the In-Between', but when it came time to start this year's NaNo Novel, I found that I wasn't interested in returning to the In-Between...at least not yet. I do have some ideas for Daniel Quinn's further adventures in the In-Between, but this year was not to be the year to write them. Before NaNoWriMo 2008, I already had the names of my characters and the club's credo, but until the month-long frenzy began, I had no idea what was going to happen in the story. I had no plot, no general outline, not even a not-so-general outline. All I had were three names and a short insert about how the three names came to be on the same club's roster.

Sometimes it's less about Mind-Over-Matter and more about Insanity-Over-Mind ...

So, my second attempt at NaNoWriMo ended with me squeaking out a win at the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour. In fact, I cut it so close that I was sure the word count validator was going to shut off for the year 2008, declaring me a failure for the year. My final day of NaNoWriMo was my most frenzied writing escapade of my life thus far. After a full day's work at my day job--- in retail, mind you, during the holiday season---I came home ready to finish my 50,000 words and ready to be declared a winner. But, then the full reality of the task before me sunk in. I got home at 6pm and realized I was only at 40,000 words. I had until 11:59:59pm to write a full 10,000 words or face a year of personal defeat and humiliation. I was determined not to fail...especially after my pathetic attempt at Script Frenzy in April, but I don't want to mention that episode again. Well, I did the only thing that I knew how to do...I wrote my ass off. The adrenaline st