Just becuase I don't upadte there (or anywhere) very often and some of you may only look at this blog, I wanted to let you know there's a revision up at Storm Wyvern Press of the first part of my first story. Now with 30% less suck, roughly.
Real updates here when I feel like it.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Something Else
StormWyvern Press is now up and running. This is going to be where I house all of my writing unless otherwise noted. I got it set up yesterday, but I wanted to wait until I had something resembling part of a story to show before I announced it. Feel free to go have a look. Use either the link in this entry or the one with the links on the right.
Monday, October 10, 2005
NaNoWriMo? No. But Maybe Something Else
One of the other blogs I read regularly mentioned something called NaNoWriMo. Intrigued by the acronym, I googled it and found the aforelinked website. For those of you who don't like clicking on links, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The month in question is November. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel starting on November 1 and finishing November 30. For those of us who are comics types, it's kind of like 24-Hour Comic Day but without the pictures and a lot longer.
What do you get for accomplishing this feat? You get a nice certificate, a little web graphic, your name on the winners' list, and a 50,000 word novel complete with all the sense of accomplishment that comes with that. No publishing deal, no free lunch with an agent, no promises of fame and fortune. So why do it? Well, it probably has a lot to do with that shiny sense of accomplishment. You'll have positive proof that you can write a 50,000 word novel, that you can meet a pretty tight deadline, and that it is possible to just sit down and get these things out of your system. How many us have an idea for a novel in some stage of development right now, whether it's just a hint of an idea, a notebook full of concepts, or a big text file of disconnected paragraphs? How many of us just keep picking it up and putting it aside because of some section that isn't coming together, some story problem that's too har to solve, some sentence that isn't quite perfect? That's the kind of thing NaNoWriMo can help with. The point is not to write the perfect version of your novel. The point is to get 50,000 words down in thirty days. Some of it is likely to suck, but when you're done, you will have a completed version of your novel. And hopefully, there will be some little spark of of something wonderful that can be nurtured and cultivated, but that likely wouldn't have come about if you hadn't pressed on and written those 50,000 words and all of that crappy stuff. You can always go back and refine and edit and add and cut anything you want. But now you have a framework. You're not just looking at a blank page and holding the whole story up until that perfect word arrives.
So you're probably wondering if I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo. Or maybe you've already guessed based on the title of this entry. I'm not going to do it. I think it's a creat idea and anyone with an in progress novel should think about trying it. (I'm looking at two people who may be reading this who really should consider it.) But I think I have a pretty good reason for bowing out. I don't have a novel. In fact, I don't know that I've ever had a real solid idea for a novel in my life. There have been ideas that I thought were novels in the works, but really I think I just wanted them to be a series of novels because that seemed cool. They didn't have enough to them to be actual novels.
What I do have is a bunch of short story ideas. And as a matter of fact, I was just reminded of one of them this morning. So I was thinking tha maybe I could use this idea to get me working on at least one of them. Sort of a LoShoStoWriMo, if you will. I may not even wait for November. In fact, I may set up a second blog for that purpose and start writing in the very near future. I may even let you see it if my first drafts don't suck too much.
I'll keep you posted.
What do you get for accomplishing this feat? You get a nice certificate, a little web graphic, your name on the winners' list, and a 50,000 word novel complete with all the sense of accomplishment that comes with that. No publishing deal, no free lunch with an agent, no promises of fame and fortune. So why do it? Well, it probably has a lot to do with that shiny sense of accomplishment. You'll have positive proof that you can write a 50,000 word novel, that you can meet a pretty tight deadline, and that it is possible to just sit down and get these things out of your system. How many us have an idea for a novel in some stage of development right now, whether it's just a hint of an idea, a notebook full of concepts, or a big text file of disconnected paragraphs? How many of us just keep picking it up and putting it aside because of some section that isn't coming together, some story problem that's too har to solve, some sentence that isn't quite perfect? That's the kind of thing NaNoWriMo can help with. The point is not to write the perfect version of your novel. The point is to get 50,000 words down in thirty days. Some of it is likely to suck, but when you're done, you will have a completed version of your novel. And hopefully, there will be some little spark of of something wonderful that can be nurtured and cultivated, but that likely wouldn't have come about if you hadn't pressed on and written those 50,000 words and all of that crappy stuff. You can always go back and refine and edit and add and cut anything you want. But now you have a framework. You're not just looking at a blank page and holding the whole story up until that perfect word arrives.
So you're probably wondering if I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo. Or maybe you've already guessed based on the title of this entry. I'm not going to do it. I think it's a creat idea and anyone with an in progress novel should think about trying it. (I'm looking at two people who may be reading this who really should consider it.) But I think I have a pretty good reason for bowing out. I don't have a novel. In fact, I don't know that I've ever had a real solid idea for a novel in my life. There have been ideas that I thought were novels in the works, but really I think I just wanted them to be a series of novels because that seemed cool. They didn't have enough to them to be actual novels.
What I do have is a bunch of short story ideas. And as a matter of fact, I was just reminded of one of them this morning. So I was thinking tha maybe I could use this idea to get me working on at least one of them. Sort of a LoShoStoWriMo, if you will. I may not even wait for November. In fact, I may set up a second blog for that purpose and start writing in the very near future. I may even let you see it if my first drafts don't suck too much.
I'll keep you posted.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Everything
As usual, I've fallen behind on the blog. So a lot of things that I meant to be in separate posts are now going to all fall under this one big post. I think there's more chance of me getting it done that way. I'm not going to go in chronological order. It's going to be good news, bad news good news, because that's what I prefer.
The first good news is that I had my birthday. It was nice, though fairly sedate. The one person who still lives nearby who I thought of inviting over to celebrate was out of town, so we had a rather quiet celebration. I got some nice gifts from family and friends and several well-wishes. We went to visit may parents, but it ended up being just my mom because of events leading up to the bad news. Thanks to everyone who remembered and took the time to wish me a happy day or bring a gift. I really appreciate it.
The bad news is that my grandfather died. He had been doing progressively worse after a couple of strokes, and the past couple of weeks were especially bad. Andrew and my Mom and I drove out to western Massachusetts for the funeral. (Mom still can't drive because of her eye operation.) Grandpa was 82 years old. He was a writer for his local newspaper and my uncle read several of his colmns at the service. Before that, he was a high school teacher. The success of his work was clear from his former students, some of whom came to pay their respects and one of whom wrote an excellent letter to the editor about him. (She didn't show up at the service and we're still trying to find her.) I learned a lot that I didn't know about him, but I wish I did, like the fact that he carried the ticket from his first date with my grandmother in his wallet for the rest of his life. He was smart and funny and clearly had a big influence on who my family is today. We miss him.
I was happy that the other good news came about just as my grandfather was taking a turn for the worse and my family could use some good news. I was also just plain happy that it happened at all. After almost nine years of being together, Andrew and I decided to get engaged. I think only one of you who reads my blog regularly doesn't know this already. I'm sorry I didn't get to tell you more privately; I've been having a tough time getting a hold of you. It happened on my birthday in a fairly casual manner. No big buildup, no getting down on one knee. It just felt pretty natural at this point. The ring came a little less than a week later (photos available upon request). After that, we started telling family and friends. There's a lot going on with many of the people we want at our wedding right now, so we're not thinking about a date yet. We do know we want it to be fairly small and intimate, so don't start anticipating a cake that costs more than my car.
So that's the news from me. I'll try t keep you updated as more things happen, but I doubt I'll have anything quite as big as this to report.
The first good news is that I had my birthday. It was nice, though fairly sedate. The one person who still lives nearby who I thought of inviting over to celebrate was out of town, so we had a rather quiet celebration. I got some nice gifts from family and friends and several well-wishes. We went to visit may parents, but it ended up being just my mom because of events leading up to the bad news. Thanks to everyone who remembered and took the time to wish me a happy day or bring a gift. I really appreciate it.
The bad news is that my grandfather died. He had been doing progressively worse after a couple of strokes, and the past couple of weeks were especially bad. Andrew and my Mom and I drove out to western Massachusetts for the funeral. (Mom still can't drive because of her eye operation.) Grandpa was 82 years old. He was a writer for his local newspaper and my uncle read several of his colmns at the service. Before that, he was a high school teacher. The success of his work was clear from his former students, some of whom came to pay their respects and one of whom wrote an excellent letter to the editor about him. (She didn't show up at the service and we're still trying to find her.) I learned a lot that I didn't know about him, but I wish I did, like the fact that he carried the ticket from his first date with my grandmother in his wallet for the rest of his life. He was smart and funny and clearly had a big influence on who my family is today. We miss him.
I was happy that the other good news came about just as my grandfather was taking a turn for the worse and my family could use some good news. I was also just plain happy that it happened at all. After almost nine years of being together, Andrew and I decided to get engaged. I think only one of you who reads my blog regularly doesn't know this already. I'm sorry I didn't get to tell you more privately; I've been having a tough time getting a hold of you. It happened on my birthday in a fairly casual manner. No big buildup, no getting down on one knee. It just felt pretty natural at this point. The ring came a little less than a week later (photos available upon request). After that, we started telling family and friends. There's a lot going on with many of the people we want at our wedding right now, so we're not thinking about a date yet. We do know we want it to be fairly small and intimate, so don't start anticipating a cake that costs more than my car.
So that's the news from me. I'll try t keep you updated as more things happen, but I doubt I'll have anything quite as big as this to report.
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