I am so relieved. I did it. It isn't very good but it is 50,000 words and that is more than I have every written and that was my challenge. That's two challenges down one to go. The first was to write a short story in 24 hours (for an on line contest) did that!
Second was to do NaNoWriMo. Done! The third and last is to prepare and submit a piece somewhere, anywhere and get that first rejection letter. That is next!!! I think I intended to do it all in a year but I can't remember when I set these challenges for myself, will have to go back and look, but realistically I know I will NOT get no. 3 done before Jan 1. I think I will have to set a date in say Feb. or March for that!!!
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
A bad day
Very blocked today for some reason. I wrote only half of what I hoped to and I don't know where to go next. Need some real inspiration for tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Half time
Whooohoo. Half way point. I just have to do the same again and I know I can do that right?
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Back on track
Managed to get going again today and get the words down. I am actually ahead of the quota by a few words. Whew. And I had choir practice tonight too! Quantity not quality-that's the ticket to get this done.
Faltering
Today was the first day I have not met my word quota. Not a good sign. It may have had to do with spending 3 hours helping out at a church tea but I think that is just as excuse. I just didn't know where to go next in the story. Perhaps sleeping on it will help.
Monday, November 07, 2005
23 days to go
I'm past the 10,000 mark but my inner child is already saying, "Mommy are we there yet?"
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Day Five is past, Day Six begins
Well,it is after midnight and I managed to squeeze out my daily quota of words again but am struggling. Each day it gets harder. I need to bring my plot into focus. Right now it is a fuzzy blur. I feel like a blind man feeling my way around the story and I'm tripping over the furniture!
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
First day done
Yesterday I wrote 1866 words, not quite my goal of 2,000 but over the 1667 necessary, so I felt enough ahead to go to bed at midnight. Can I keep this up? The first part is the easy part when you still have ideas to get down and images to include. But what happens when those run out? I have written another 323 words this morning. I am aiming for at least a 3,500 total by midnight- only 1311 words to go. No reading until the end of November!!! Oh dear. How will I read Rockbound for the next book circle meeting?
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
I'm off and running
I did 433 words after midnight, before I went to bed last night. I figure that was a "leg on". I kept to my normal schedule today. It was a glorious day...warm and sunny, like a summer day really and I went out to the Botanical gardens at the university with my art group to sketch. Yes, the novel was in the back of my mind but I held it off and then this evening I got back at it again. And I did pretty well... I only have about 400 words left to do to meet my quota. But I am taking a break to update my stats and think about where to go next. And to brew a pot of tea...tea solves everything.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Knitting my thoughts
I have started knitting. Something very straight forward. It is exactly the kind of activity that Dorothea Brande noted as a release for thoughts. Very helpful. I have an idea now of how this novel might go. And I might get this knitted item finished too! But I am still sweating.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Word meter
I have a meter now to count my words: That number one represents my working title. I haven't started writing yet! That would be cheating. I don't even have a plot.
Update..I've changed the number to 0 to see if it is working! 'Tis
Update..I've changed the number to 0 to see if it is working! 'Tis
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Counting down
Nov. 1 looms. I have a working title "Footprints" I don't know what this means exactly except it has something to do with ancestors leaving their mark on present generations.
Carl Hiassen and Flush
Random House has a contest inspired by Carl Hiaasen's book Flush ( a children's book) I've read some of his books and like some of them ( although not the last one I read) but unfortunately the contest is only open to people between the ages of 8 and 25! Maybe I could get my daughter to write something. She could win a trip to Florida. And the contest doesn't end til 31 Dec. so she'd have lots of time.
Monday, October 24, 2005
A matter of taste
As with tea-so books.
Our book circle considered McCall Smith's The Full Cupboard of Life and several found it wanting. They thought it too light hearted "considering the terrible situation" of Aids in Africa. They thought the author's "tongue in cheek style" was somewhat disrespectful to Africans. Most, however, appreciated the simple, humourous style with the buried complexity and the great respect and dignity the author gave his characters. These were people he knew, having spent much time with people like them in Botswana and South Africa.
I had some beaded pins which were made by ladies in Zimbabwe which I had bought on spec. The money goes to help Aids victims in Africa. One of the ladies bought one off me. They were able to take a look at some video clips of Pete's Pond (unfortunately the live wildcam was down again that day). Some of them were brave enough to try the bush tea. That too was a matter of taste and not universally approved. I like it though and won't have any trouble gettting through the packet.
Our book circle considered McCall Smith's The Full Cupboard of Life and several found it wanting. They thought it too light hearted "considering the terrible situation" of Aids in Africa. They thought the author's "tongue in cheek style" was somewhat disrespectful to Africans. Most, however, appreciated the simple, humourous style with the buried complexity and the great respect and dignity the author gave his characters. These were people he knew, having spent much time with people like them in Botswana and South Africa.
I had some beaded pins which were made by ladies in Zimbabwe which I had bought on spec. The money goes to help Aids victims in Africa. One of the ladies bought one off me. They were able to take a look at some video clips of Pete's Pond (unfortunately the live wildcam was down again that day). Some of them were brave enough to try the bush tea. That too was a matter of taste and not universally approved. I like it though and won't have any trouble gettting through the packet.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Offline
Oh dear. Pete's Pond's livecam is offline again. Oh well we will just have to look at the video clips when my book group comes in this afternoon. We are having red bush tea to contemplate Mma Ramwotse.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Pete's Pond Botswana
The Wild cam I referred to in my last post was down but now is back and the site says it will be extended into December. Take a look. And a hat-tip again to JAR for the ref.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Botswana
Our next book for our book circle discussion is The Full Cupboard of Life set in Botswana. Thanks to a reference by my blogging friend (we exchange comments! Thank you JAR!) I have found this wonderful, wonderful website where one can eavesdrop on animals in Botswana.
The first time I went to the site to look, it was dark there, about 7pm Botswana time, and there was a storm-you could hear the thunder rolling in the background. I thought, how marvelous. The sounds alone take you there. Then wonder of wonder a small elephant came strolling into view. Absolutely thrilling.
It should be a great source of discussion for the group if some of our members can look in on it first and for those that can't ( because they aren't on line or haven't the right plug ins) I can have the site up and they can take a look at it when we meet.
At Pete's Pond webcam in Botswana
UPDATE_ Since I wrote this but before I posted it unfortunately the camera has gone off line. That storm I think did it as it was the same day. Anyway..it does still show some video from the archives.
The first time I went to the site to look, it was dark there, about 7pm Botswana time, and there was a storm-you could hear the thunder rolling in the background. I thought, how marvelous. The sounds alone take you there. Then wonder of wonder a small elephant came strolling into view. Absolutely thrilling.
It should be a great source of discussion for the group if some of our members can look in on it first and for those that can't ( because they aren't on line or haven't the right plug ins) I can have the site up and they can take a look at it when we meet.
At Pete's Pond webcam in Botswana
UPDATE_ Since I wrote this but before I posted it unfortunately the camera has gone off line. That storm I think did it as it was the same day. Anyway..it does still show some video from the archives.
NaNoWriMo
Okay, I've done it. Signed as a participant in National Novel Writing Month at Nanowrimo
So I have to write 50,000 words in the month of November starting, like, midnight of Oct. 31! Can I do it? Well, my last challenge was to write a short story in 24 hours and I did that so I am hoping I will succeed at this challenge too.
I'm excited , I'm nervous and I haven't a crazy clue in my head about even what genre this novel will be but, well, it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to even make sense. Since my main problem is writing anything over about 2-3 K words I am hoping this will break the length barrier for me.
Wish me luck won't you?
Friday, September 30, 2005
I love this book
The one I am reading that is -Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I think it is not for everyone but it is definitely my kind of book. The humour is subtle, almost hidden, so light you might miss it. I find it hard to describe. It is like a shadow that flits in and out of the narrative. I find the writing to be similar to books written in the 1800's and I expect the author meant to have this effect. She succeeds very well. Mr Norell is revivng magic in England but he is very jealous of his position. Jonathan Strange is another magician of talent who becomes his protege but it appears that the student might outdo the teacher (they eventually they have a falling out). A synopsis, however lengthy, couldn't give you as much of the flavour of the book as can an excerpt. So I will copy a segment -abridged slightly- from about the middle of the book at a point in the story where Jonathan Strange is helping Wellington fight Napoleon.
Strange was in some anxiety lest Mr,. Norrell get to hear of the magic he had done at the ruined church at Flores de Avila . He made no comment of it in his own letters and he begged Lord Wellington to leave it out of his dispatches.
Oh, very well” said his lordship. Lord Wellington was not in any case particularly fond of writing about magic. He disliked having to deal with anything he did not understand extremely well. “But it will do very little good,” he pointed out. “Every man that has written a letter home in the last five days will have given his friends a very full account of it.”
“I know, “ said Strange, uncomfortably, “but the men always exaggerate what I do and perhaps by the time people in England have made allowances for the usual embellishments it will not appear so very remarkable. They will merely imagine that I healed some Neapolitans that were wounded or something of that sort.”
The raising of the seventeen dead Neapolitans was a good example of the sort of problem faced by Strange in the latter half of the war. Like the Ministers before him, Lord Wellington was becoming more accustomed to using magic to achieve his ends and he demanded increasingly elaborate spells from his magician. However, unlike the Ministers, Wellington had very little time or inclination for listening to long explanations of why a thing was not possible. After all he regularly demanded the impossible of his engineers, his generals and his officers and he saw no reason to make an exception of his magician.....
In the early summer of 1813 Strange again performed a sort of magic that had not been done since the days of the Raven King: he moved a river...The new position of the river so baffled the French that several French companies when ordered to march north, went in entirely the wrong direction so convinced were they that the direction away from the river must be north....Lord Wellington later remarked cheerfully to General Picton that there was nothing so wearing for troops and horses as constant marching about and that in future he thought it would be better to keep them all standing still while Mr. Strange moved Spain about like a carpet beneath them. Meanwhile the Spanish Regency Council in Cadiz became rather alarmed at this development and began to wonder whether, when they regained their country from the French, they would recognize it.They complained to the Foreign Secretary ( which many people thought ungrateful). The Foreign Secretary persuaded Strange to write the Regency Council a letter promising that after the war he would replace the river in its original position...
pp 334 335
Strange was in some anxiety lest Mr,. Norrell get to hear of the magic he had done at the ruined church at Flores de Avila . He made no comment of it in his own letters and he begged Lord Wellington to leave it out of his dispatches.
Oh, very well” said his lordship. Lord Wellington was not in any case particularly fond of writing about magic. He disliked having to deal with anything he did not understand extremely well. “But it will do very little good,” he pointed out. “Every man that has written a letter home in the last five days will have given his friends a very full account of it.”
“I know, “ said Strange, uncomfortably, “but the men always exaggerate what I do and perhaps by the time people in England have made allowances for the usual embellishments it will not appear so very remarkable. They will merely imagine that I healed some Neapolitans that were wounded or something of that sort.”
The raising of the seventeen dead Neapolitans was a good example of the sort of problem faced by Strange in the latter half of the war. Like the Ministers before him, Lord Wellington was becoming more accustomed to using magic to achieve his ends and he demanded increasingly elaborate spells from his magician. However, unlike the Ministers, Wellington had very little time or inclination for listening to long explanations of why a thing was not possible. After all he regularly demanded the impossible of his engineers, his generals and his officers and he saw no reason to make an exception of his magician.....
In the early summer of 1813 Strange again performed a sort of magic that had not been done since the days of the Raven King: he moved a river...The new position of the river so baffled the French that several French companies when ordered to march north, went in entirely the wrong direction so convinced were they that the direction away from the river must be north....Lord Wellington later remarked cheerfully to General Picton that there was nothing so wearing for troops and horses as constant marching about and that in future he thought it would be better to keep them all standing still while Mr. Strange moved Spain about like a carpet beneath them. Meanwhile the Spanish Regency Council in Cadiz became rather alarmed at this development and began to wonder whether, when they regained their country from the French, they would recognize it.They complained to the Foreign Secretary ( which many people thought ungrateful). The Foreign Secretary persuaded Strange to write the Regency Council a letter promising that after the war he would replace the river in its original position...
pp 334 335
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