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Posts Tagged ‘NaNoWriMo’

The Countdown Begins

Posted in Everyday, tagged , on November 1, 2013| 7 Comments »

NaNoWriMo began nearly twelve hours ago.  I’m pumped.  Of course if I’m writing a novel my other writing venues (this blog) might have to suffer, but I can’t say for sure.  If it does suffer it will be a martyr sacrificing itself for a grand piece of literature.  My little blog understands, and I hope its readers do too.

nano-postcard

For the next thirty days I’ll be developing a story that has been in my head for a while.  I don’t really know how it will turn out, but the end will become clearer with every hour I spend writing it.  If you’re interested in my progress I’ll have a word-count thingy on my sidebar.  The goal is to complete a 50,000-word novel with a beginning, middle and end, in thirty days.

Can she do it?  Will she have a severe case of writer’s block that drives her to ingest massive quanities of chocolate?  Will she become the next J. K. Rowling?  Stay tuned and find out!

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A Productive Weekend

Posted in Everyday, tagged , , , on October 28, 2013| 5 Comments »

I worked my patootie off this weekend.  Seriously, I haven’t done this much domestic work in one weekend for a really long time.  As much as I like doing craft shows (and spending lots of time getting ready for them) I was craving some time with my dust cloth and vacuum cleaner.  I even cleaned the oven!  Okay, so it’s a self-cleaner, but still, I had to be on guard in case the whole thing caught fire.  Yes, it was that bad.

The house is once again in order under control.  I feel free!  One thing I concentrated on was picking up and cleaning up my special writing room.  I call it the East Wing.  With NaNoWriMo coming soon (starts Friday!) I wanted a comfortable place to sit and write.  And write and write.  Away from any distractions.

My lovely East Wing.

There’s one more craft show in store for me in Taylors Falls, MN.  It’s not until the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, so I have a little bit of time for crafty and writey projects.  This weekend got me motivated and off to a good start.

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NaWhat?

Posted in Everyday, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2012| 6 Comments »

It’s nearly mid-November.  You know what that means?  We’re halfway through NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo.  Don’t know what those are?  NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel(la) in the thirty days of November.  NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month, a challenge to post one blog entry every day of November.  Guess what?  I’ve done neither.

I’ve had a problem with writing posts and also listing items in my Etsy shop.  I’m completely blocked.  Even with the two challenges of NaNoWriMo (something I’ve done in the past, but the story was pretty lame) and NaBloPoMo (never attempted) in front of me I’ve remained stuck.  That either means I’m really stuck, or the fact that a challenge is right in front of my face is just another reason for me to rebel and say NO!

Writing a novel in thirty days seems much less daunting to me.  One idea and run with it.  Coming up with a blog post every single day for thirty days means coming up with thirty different ideas.  Or else coming up with pretty pathetic posts.  For me, that is.  Lots of people do it successfully and keep the interest of their audience.  Also, I’m not one of those people who have blog posts banked up in my draft folder in their entirety or even partially written.  Plus, the acronym NaBloPoMo sounds kind of…dirty.  For any of you who know who my father-in-law was you’ll know why.  It’s embarrassing.

I’m going to try to do better by you, and most of all myself.  In the meantime be assured that I am being productive in other areas of my life.  Really.  I have.  You’ll have to trust me on this one.

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Fail

Posted in Dive Night, Everyday, tagged , on November 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s kind of a bad thing to start the week off with talk of failure, but I have to get it out of my system so the rest of the week can go smoothly and with much success.  Can’t let failure stew inside you know.

First of all I’m trashing the whole NaNoWriMo thing.  I’m taking the little badge off my sidebar and accepting the fact that I completely botched it up except for the 507 words I wrote on the first day.  But in my defense there was this thing going on in my life where I had to support Husby.  Frankly, being available in times of strokes and broken hips and overall aging parent issues are much more important than writing a novel.  Besides guess what?  If I want to write a novel I can do that any time throughout the year!  NaNoWriMo is a great program to help with motivation though.

Second of all I failed to report on the latest Dive Night adventure.  Why?  Because I am so utterly ashamed of the pictures I took.  Really.  That’s the only reason.  We went to The Groveland Tap and the food was excellent.

The appetizers of deep fried pickle spears and deep fried mac-and-cheese balls were exceptional.  I can’t even remember what the others in the group had for burgers, but I’ll never forget the fish burger I had, made from talapia, walleye, and shrimp.  Yum!  Please forgive me for the sorry Dive Night report.  Also please visit The Groveland Tap for some really good food.

So, whew.  Now that my failures are out in the open I feel free to go on to better things.  Thanks for listening, and have a nice day.

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It’s That Time Again

Posted in Blogging, Everyday, tagged on October 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s not that hard to get a book published these days.  With self-publishing you don’t even need those pesky editors and publishers, not to mention agents.  I won’t go so far as to say this is a good thing because I’m one of those people who wants to read good books.  I have a little predjudice in that I figure if someone has to go through all the red tape of getting a book published (those pesky editors, publishers, and agents) the book must be good.  Not necessarily so.  It’s also not necessarily so that a self-published book is a bad one.

The bottom line isn’t about who publishes a book though, it’s about who writes it.  The hard part isn’t getting it published, it’s getting it written, or at least that’s what I believe.  I would bet a great majority of people have at least once in their lives fantasized about writing a book.  Picture it, sitting at an isolated mountain retreat with your laptop and a never-ending pot of coffee, typing away at The Great American Novel.  You can totally see yourself doing it.  The thing is, you need a plot, characters, and a beginning, middle, and end of a story.  That’s hard.

The people over at NaNoWriMo are here to help.  November is National Novel Writing Month and dozens (if not hundreds, nay thousands) of people join the challenge to write a 50,000-word novella in the span of thirty days.  It’s a blast, and if you register at NaNoWriMo you can commiserate and celebrate with your fellow novelists.  You don’t even need to be at a mountain retreat to do it!

I’m going to give it a shot again this year.  I completed a “novel” a couple of years ago and it stunk.  But I did it and I’m proud of the discipline I had.  Don’t try to find me on the NaNoWriMo site because like most good novelists I’m going to have a pseudonym.  Probably something like John Smith.  I’m even going to open up a new (and private) blog for storage of my literary work of art.

I know a couple of you out there who could whip out 50,000 words without a problem.  Quit making excuses ~ it requires less than 1700 words a day.  This post alone has over 350 words and it took me less than 20 minutes to write them.

Join me this coming Tuesday for the big kick-off.  NaNoWriMo will be glad to have you, and the world will be glad to have your novel.  NaNoWriMo begins November 1st.  As Nike says, “just do it!”

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