November is (almost) upon us

Its October 31, some of us are exited, some are scared, and some won’t say.

It’s a night we have waited for, prepared for, a night we wish would end. 

We watch the clock and wait. Just a few hours left now we think. It’s almost time.

At midnight our journey begins. 

Are you ready to write? Is your story ready to be told? I hope for your sake that the answer is yes because you are almost out of time. 

NaNoWriMo is about to begin.

On a less dramatic note:

My desk is clean and all ready to acquire a lovely clutter in the next few weeks.

It's Clean! I'm definitely scared now.

I’ve got Scrivener all set up and mostly organized. I had hoped to do a little more prep work but I think I’ll make out alright.

My Pandora stations are ready; I go for instrumentals when I’m writing so it’ll be a lot of ‘Piano Guys’ and sound tracks for me.

And lastly I’ve got the first week’s worth of pep-talks and NaNo tips scheduled to post so I don’t have to worry about them. I’ve nearly got enough for the whole month and plan on writing the rest sometime soon.

In short I’m as ready as I can be for November, how about you?

~Rita

Rita, Meet NaNoWriMo

Its Sunday, November 4th, 2012 and there’s an email waiting for me. Its from my sister; dated November 2nd. The subject line reads: National Novel Writing Month. I don’t have a clue what that means and the enclosed link address, http://nanowrimo.org/  means even less. I click it and a few hours later I’m signed up for the craziest journey of my life.

The next day I started working on a Redwall fanfiction ‘novel’ that I’d brainstormed a few months before as an exercise. I wrote like crazy and made up for my late start just past the mid month mark. I finished out with 50,111 words: more then I’d ever written on one project before.

It was one of the best things I’ve ever done and I learned so much that month. The most important thing I learned was that I could write, even when I didn’t feel like it, and that even when I was uninspired my writing could still surprise me.

Even with winning NaNo I still didn’t get close to finishing my story and this year I’m picking it up again and hoping to make it through to the climax by the end of next month. I have a lot of original story ideas and I had thought of doing one of them but this story really needs to get told first. That makes me a NaNoRebel I guess. They say that continuing a story is harder then starting new for NaNo and but I’m going to go for it any way.

About my upcoming  November posts

Am I a Writer?

This question has plagued me for a long time. I have doubted being a writer so many times. Why? Because I don’t always write. I can go days or weeks without writing. Sometimes I have gone longer, at least without writing fiction, something I really want to do.

The reality is that I have never written a book. I have never finished a short story even. I have written poetry and I have begun many things, and had ideas for more. But finishing? No I can’t say that I have finished very many stories.

Does this mean that I’m not a writer? Everyone says ‘writers write,’ I have said as much myself. So if writing isn’t the one thing I can’t go a day without doing does that mean that I should be looking else where for my future?

Sometimes I think so. But then I remember the thing I can’t go without.

No Dollar Sign

Are you planing on writing a novel next month? We’ve only got a few weeks left before the start of NaNoWriMo and if your like me you’ve been doing some research and reading up on writing advice to get ready. If you are writing your first novel, or one of your firsts, then this post is to you.

As I’ve been doing a bit of web surfing lately, for writing advise and such, I’ve found that quite a few of the posts and articles I’ve come across have been along these lines: ‘how to write a novel that sells’ ‘how to plot a best seller’ ‘know your audience, write what they want to read.’ Now I have nothing against writing for money, in fact I would love to do just that for the rest of my life, but I am a little concerned.

Louis L'Amour Author Highlight

About Louis L’Amour (1908-1988)

Louis L'Amour at the typwriter

I grew up around Louis L’Amour books. We have a number of book shelves in our house and I’ll bet you’d find a Louis L’Amour book on every one of them, I’ll also bet you that we have at least one copy of every one of his books. (Or at least if we’ve missed any I don’t know about it.)

The first one  I read was “Down the Long Hills” the story of a seven year old boy and a three year old girl who, together with a big red horse, are the only survivors of an Indian attack. I love going back to re-follow their journey through the wilderness pursued by Indians and horse thieves.  Soon after that I started in on his Sackett series and the rest of his hundred or so books followed those.

A Writer's Rainfall

I love the sound of rain falling on a roof and dripping down from the eves. Sometimes the wind blows so hard that he can’t hardly hear the rain unless you listen very hard.

photo by Ed Yourdon

I once likened the taping of a keyboard to rain drops. Its I an idea I rather like because rain has no trouble falling and I would love for my fingers to keep such a rhythm.

There is another parallel I’d like to draw between writing and rain though. I would say that rain drops are like ideas or even words. They fall on your head as easily as anything but if you’re not ready to catch them they are just as likely to drip off the end of your nose and sink into the grass or gather in puddles for children to jump in.

An Interruption

…with interesting results 

Yesterday I was hard at work typing away and getting a lot done. Well, I was until I got interrupted. And then interrupted again. And again. 

Sometimes it feels like every time I start getting stuff done I get interrupted. When I’m not getting much of anything done then I’m left alone but once I get going everyone needs to see me. 

Okay so it doesn't happen every time but it does happen often enough to be a problem. Sometimes I can tell them to wait until I finish my thought but not all the time. So what can I do when a 'do not disturb' sign isn't enough?