Only a little under eight hours to go before NaNoWriMo officially kicks off for 2008, and if you can’t tell, I’m incredibly excited about it (for anyone who may have me on their buddy list on Gmail… I’ve only been counting down all week).

Anyway, in celebration, here are some tips that I have found work to get me to 50,000 words each year the last 6 years!

• Start as soon as you can. The earlier, the better. Just to begin at all is great. Start out strong and you’ll have a better chance of keeping up the habit throughout the rest of the long, grueling month. I start at midnight and write my first 2,000 words. Conveniently, when I wake up Saturday, I can write the next 2,000 words (but be 2k words ahead) as though it’s my first day. I begin again feeling like I’m already ahead of the game!
• Think about your month beforehand. Decide how important this is to you. It irritates me when people write long posts in the forums about how this is their third or fourth year and they’ve never finished because life gets in the way. Well, tough. Life gets in the way of everything. And so does work, and reading, and driving, and all the other things you want to do that aren’t writing. NaNo is kind of like going to the gym. A lot of people promise themselves they’re going to do it. So they do, for the first week, and then it gets hard and they stop. Then the gym membership goes to waste and they beat themselves up over how they once again didn’t finish something they started. So think about your month in advance. If you can set aside time each day to write, you may be able to finish 50,000 after all. If not–if you’re traveling, or work three jobs, or just can’t afford an hour a day every single day–then maybe this isn’t for you.
• DO NOT EDIT WHAT YOU WRITE. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry about continuity, transitions, nothing. DO NOT EDIT. Worrying about how much your opening sucks, or how much that entire paragraph just didn’t work will only stifle the creative process. And NaNoWriMo is about writing, not editing. The worst thing you can do is start second-guessing yourself the first week. If you decide to go back and alter your opening, for example, you’ll probably be unhappy with everything else you write. And if you focus on getting this 50,000 novel perfect the first time… well, you probably won’t finish. Hell, you may not even begin. This isn’t to say… don’t edit spelling mistakes. Obviously, you can fix those. Just don’t go back when you’re 10,000 words in and change everything at the beginning because it’s not 100% wonderful. Just…let it go.
• If you work well with music, then plan a playlist. I find this fun and relaxing when I’m stressed about characters and plot. I typically pick instrumental, moody music, because it can help set the tone of a certain scene. If you like quiet, that’s all right too (but that probably means you won’t work well at one of the Write-Ins or at a coffee shop).
• Back up your novel in several places. Sometimes I write at work, so I carry my novel around on a flash drive. Depending on how liberal your employer is (or how much down time  you have), you may consider this. Instead of writing at the crack of dawn, for example, or late at night when you’re tired from work, you can work a bit during lunch. This’ll take some of the stress off when you’re worried about setting time aside each day.
• Set a word goal for yourself every day, and meet it! I can’t stress this enough. Writing willy-nilly just doesn’t seem to work. I aim for 2,000. The recommended word count on the NaNo site is 1,667, and that allows you to finish in 30 days. At 2,000 words a day–just a few paragraphs more–you finish in 25 days, or with 5 days to spare, or 5 days “off.” Not bad, eh? Some days it’s absolutely grueling getting to 2,000, but most days it’s not. And on those terrible days you don’t meet goal, make sure to make it up the next day. You will see lots of progress in your word count meter, and feel better about reaching goal if you can do 2,000 a day.
• Describe things in vast detail. This pads your word count, and will probably make for anchored scenes. Since I typically loathe rendering the surroundings, this is a good exercise for me. And hey, if it sucks… just wait until you edit your finished novel to cut out some of the garbage.
• DO NOT EDIT WHAT YOU WRITE. Huh. Did I say this already? Silence your inner critic. I don’t care what it takes. Ignore that voice. IGNORE IT. Probably the most important thing to remember, hence why I repeated it.
• Write with buddies. It’s just fun, and you can support each other. And it’s nice to know that you’re not alone in your month-long torture session.
• Try not to think too much about your plot. I find that when I outline everything, I limit myself. It becomes boring. I like much more when the characters surprise me. About halfway through, just like getting a second wind when running, they begin to take on lives of their own. When I start, I have a general idea in mind. Maybe some vague direction. But I do not write it down and say, “Well, I’m starting _____ and then ___, then ____, and then it will end like _____.” You may suffocate your characters that way and exclude other fabulous ideas that may occur to you while writing. Just let it flow! And finally…
• Just write. Writing anything at all is great. And even if you don’t finish… there’s next year. Or December, if you’re motivated.

Weird day.

First, that dream.

Then running. I’m never compelled to run anymore, mostly because it is such a long-past habit that I’ve broken for health reasons. Not my cardiovascular health, obviously, but because of my knees. I haven’t run regularly for about two years, and since moving to Atlanta, hardly at all. There just aren’t many great places to run when you live in a city whose public transportation is lacking, and where the nearest large, safe park is ten miles away. Well, now, of course, I live maybe three-quarters of a mile away from the golf course, and so I can walk to it and then run around it. About 2.5 miles long, it’s a great course. But walking there is sketchy, and the days have been growing shorter.

But I did it today. And I ran the entire way–something I haven’t been able to do for several years, thanks to my knees and ebbing training regimen. Step and swimming have taken the place of running, but I’m glad to know that I’m still fit enough to run when I want to. Painful, though.

And then dinner at Flying Biscuit, where I felt strangely not myself, but better. Both at ease yet more dynamic than usual. I got the Flying Biscuit Breakfast, which was good, and then walked to the car. On the way back there a guy asked if I was lost, because apparently my fumbling around for the pedestrian walk signal button made me look clueless. I laughed about it, and then drove back home on Moreland.

After getting off I-20 at my exit, I turned east to go back to my neighborhood. Noting that the first light immediately in front of me was red but the second was green, I came to a stop, only half-paying attention.  The car in front of me did not stop.

There was screeching tires, cracking plastic, and the tinkle of breaking glass everywhere. And of course the loud crunch of metal on metal as two cars collided and one spun then flipped over on its roof.

The onlookers ran over to the van and pulled the guy out, who seemed unharmed, albeit a little dazed. Somehow, the cops got there rather quickly, although I had taken out my cellphone to report it as well.

Interestingly, 911 was busy. Busy. Twice, for five minutes a piece. I would have expected Fulton County’s 911 operators to put you on hold and fuck up, but Dekalb? Really?

Guess if that zombie apocalpyse hits and I try to dial 911… it won’t make a bit of difference anyway! They probably won’t pick up!

So I was being a little whiny yesterday. Sorry.

What made me feel better was the frank talk that a coworker and I had (and he and I rarely see eye-to-eye on things outside of the workplace) at the end, when everyone had left, and then the knowledge that I was going to go to a fun class at the gym.

I went, and it was indeed fun like I had thought. At least, it got me smiling despite how awkward I am trying to dance.

Generally, my lack of improvisation is a theme in my life. Take for example, my musicianship. I cannot improvise on any instrument to save my life. Can’t make up songs, can’t make up tunes, can’t even string a few notes together without having a pre-determined melody in mind. Likewise, I have problems driving to areas I don’t know or attending events where something physical must be done–running, hiking, throwing or catching a ball. Maybe it’s a control issue. Anyway, why would I, in this case, be able to dance?

Give me a routine to learn, however, and I’ll learn it backwards and forwards and be able to replicate it later. Just don’t ask me to improvise with it, because I’ll fail. Miserably. But this is how I learned step, and this is how I learned most of the music I can play on piano, on flute, and how I got through school. Memorization.

So with last night’s class, I was amazed to learn that I have indeed mastered ‘the pimp walk.’ It was a personal triumph for me, having looked at the move for a week or two now, and doing it once in a while in the privacy of my office or room or wherever; finally, last night when she threw the move into the choreography, it clicked! Considering it took me about a month to figure out how to correctly ‘body roll’ in Julie’s class… I would say that’s pretty good. Plus a friend I spoke to on the phone last night said at first, “Hip hop class? What’s that?” which allowed me to explain that yes, I am taking amateur hip hop dance classes because it’s fun and a different way to exercise than murdering my knees on pavement or during step. Then he said, “Oh, so wow. You’ll really be able to dance,” with the implication that next time we are ever in the same state and go out that yes, perhaps I will be able to bust a move. Unlikely that I will, but at least I can say that I can body roll and now pimp walk one or two steps if the music ever called to do that. Hah.

And of course, I walk in to share my accomplishment with someone who’d asked in the office today, and was apprehended with, “Good for you, learning a move that is named after someone who takes advantage of women. Good. For. You.”

I suppose they just don’t realize how proud I was of it then. Whatever. Later we talked about video games, and I was pleased to be able to keep up in the conversation about 3D elements, animation, computer capabilities and such.

Oh, and last night I made amends to a certain friend I felt I offended by finding him links for map sites for our game (user-created maps). And amazingly, we found a good one that has, for now, reinvigorated my interest in playing tandem with them. Shucks. We stayed up til about 1:00 AM playing and couldn’t get enough.

That is all.

I’ve been in a sour mood the last few days. The weather has been entirely opposite that, but it’s just so tough to enjoy the fall weather when you feel a little behind on everything. Not even yesterday’s zombie walk could make me feel very good for long.

Is it just sleep deprivation? The boring circumstances at work? The impending second job (not that I’ll get it because of my lack of availability, but still)? The self-imposed restrictions on recreation, especially in light of NaNo coming up? Lack of funds? Hormones (it could very well be this)?

I don’t have anything really useful to say right now because it’s Thursday and I’m very tired. For some reason I haven’t been sleeping well. I think it’s the caffeine I’ve been drinking after 3 PM. Anyway, I haven’t slept nearly long enough the last five nights and to top it off, I refuse to turn on the heat in my house because a) I’m poor, and b) it’s warmer during the day than it is at night… and since I’m not at the house during the day I should be able to get by with my two down comforters. Right? Right?

Anyway, tonight is a girl’s night in (which makes Danielle laugh, for some unfathomable reason) and so I have to hurry home in a bit and chop up some veggies, then go to Publix and get beer and hummus. Then tomorrow and Saturday I have no real official plans. I take that back; Friday the gym has a new hip hop class that I would love to go to. Don’t think I’ll be able to though. Oh well.

The list below is what’s sort of been floating around my mind. It is not constructive and is probably not very interesting, but that’s all right.

• John Lennon: The Life by Phillip Norman is out this coming Tuesday in hardback. I want this, not only because I have a profound respect for Lennon, but because I also had to read Shout! for Beatles class way back in college. Dr. Morin assigned it to us. We had the option of getting the book online, or we could read it from the gigantic packet he handed out to us (I believe something like… 120 pages worth) over the weekend. Or was it in PDF format? I can’t remember. Either way, I read it in one shot. It helps if you like the Beatles, but I went into it having only cursory knowledge of the group. Norman has such compassion in his narrative style that I fell in love with the entire group from the very beginning and felt compelled to read more. Of course, don’t take Shout! as 100% truth, but enjoy the tone and let it sweep you up. If The Life is written anything like that book, then I’m sure it’ll be worth having.
• Fallout 3 is out on the 28th as well. Third installment in the Fallout series, but this one was made by Bethesda (creators of Oblivion and Morrowind and the rest of the series), which is why it caught my eye. I’ve recently been playing some Bioshock, getting myself pumped up for the release of this game. It’s an action rpg, so there are elements of the freeform rpg style of Oblivion, which I love, and first-person shooter style gameplay like Bioshock. I have to admit I haven’t played fps games for a long time (not since Doom or Duke Nukem, sadly), but I’m psyched for this game. It’s not fantasy so much as a romp through a post-apocalyptic D.C. a few hundred years in the future. Looks a little more violent in the trailer from Bethesda than I’d like, but I think if I play it in small doses it will still be an enjoyable experience.
• The Canon EOS 400D or Digital Rebel XTi. I want it, I want it, I want it. Not the best camera in the world, but I think it is a slightly older model than the newer ones out (came out in ‘06, I believe). I have been seriously tempted by the Nikon 40D, available widely (and at Target, and stuff), but was warned not to waste money on an SLR camera that doesn’t have at least 8 or 10 megapixels, since most point-and-shoot digital cameras have at least 8 megapixels now. That is a valid point, definitely. Anyway, I’m ready to learn! And to take my photography hobby (if you can call it that) to another level. If anyone would like to gift me about $500 or their slightly-used 400D, I would be forever grateful. Kthx.
• The new Keane CD, Perfect Symmetry. (Yes, I did get it). Oh Keane, why did you release this album? I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m resistant to change–that is not at all true. I enjoy hearing my favorite groups evolve over time, like Coldplay on their latest album, Viva la Vida. True, while at first I didn’t really care for what I heard, I finally saw the light in what my friend Matt had said about it–that it was probably an album that rewarded repeat listeners. Well yes, he was right, and I listened and listened and now I love it. I don’t think the same thing can be said about Keane’s new album, which seems to be at odds with itself, as thoughit can’t figure out what it wants to be. Frankly, the album felt disjointed to me. Right around track 5 (the title track), the highly annoying, shrill synthesizer started to disappear, and then the album seemed to morph into more familiar territory, sounding much more like the slower parts of Under the Iron Sea. Even the slow ballads seemed annoyingly melodramatic and, well, plain. The vocals sounded sloppy and erratic, and again. The first four songs were throwbacks to the 80’s, and you all know I hate 80’s music with a passion. So the fact that one of my favorite groups has adopted a similar sound breaks me. Keane, please keep practicing, stay out of rehab, and please don’t release any more music like this.
• This weekend, Atlanta will be joining tons of other cities in World Zombie Day by holding the Zombie Walk as part of Horrorfest! I hope there will be tons of people shambling for world hunger (so goes their motto). I’m so excited! I don’t have tickets to Horrorfest though (lack of funds and bad timing), but I was mostly excited to go out and see the walk. It’s on Sunday the 26th, and starts at the Masquerade Music Complex and goes through Little 5 Points. Can’t wait!!! Hopefully, lots of pictures will be forthcoming.
• I cannot wait to see this.
• The fact that it is girl’s night, and that I ran into Sara two days ago at Target makes me happy. It is probably a well-known fact by now that I do not have many friends in general, and I especially have next to no friends in this city. But I suppose that means I am finally getting close to feeling comfortable calling Atlanta home. When you start running into random people you know in unexpected places… I think that’s a good sign

1. Summer of Light – W. Dale Cramer
2. Duma Key - Stephen King
3. Next – Michael Crichton
4. Bel Canto – Ann Pratchett
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
6. Lisey’s Story – Stephen King

Over the weekend I flew home, so that meant I had a good amount of time to read on the plane rides. I didn’t quite plan to have that much time, but the number of books I got out from the library worked out nicely in terms of their due dates.

Anyway, I finished Bel Canto on the way to Maryland, and A Thousand Splendid Suns in one shot on the way back.  Bel Canto was intriguing, totally unlike what I was expecting. It was gorgeously written and panned between the characters but was never confusing. About a group of people come together to hear a famous opera singer (and for one of the characters’ birthday), and who are taken hostage. I’d put off reading it for so long, but I’m glad to have distanced myself from all of the buzz I’d heard about it when it came out. Grateful to have finally read it though.

I started Hosseini’s book when I went back to the airport on Sunday. Judging from his last one (The Kite Runner), I knew it would probably be difficult. I do have to say that I think he can be a bit melodramatic at times, really digging between the ribs for all of the feeling you have, but oh well. Secretly, I’m a sap too. It’s fine. I did tear up a little bit (since I could kind of guess what direction the book was going in…) during some parts. It was about the intersecting lives of several women during the last fifty years in Kabul, and the way their lives progress through the onset of war. Sad and touching. Made me angry for the injustices done to women.

I teared a bit on the plane and had trouble finishing it in such a public place (don’t like to let the random people on the train see me cry). The woman next to me on the plane, before I got off it, asked if it was worth reading. Definitely, I said.

Well, two more down. One more left. It’s due back on Monday, so I have the rest of this week to start it.

After that it’s NaNo, and then The Hobbit!

Just 11 days left to NaNoWriMo, my seventh eighth year participating.

While I’m excited this year, I’m also a little concerned. The first few years I had lots of ideas of what to write about, but the last two or three, I haven’t. Last year’s novel was a complete and total disaster, and I say that while using ‘disaster’ in the NaNo sense. All NaNo novels are probably disasters, but this one was so utterly and completely horrid that I haven’t even bothered to reread it.

But last year’s was one of my first years attempting a more ’serious’ tone in my NaNos. Some people say you should just stick to your strengths in order to get the thing done, and sometimes I truly believe that I should just do that. 50,000 words takes forever to write if you’re just a plain, average writer like I am. It takes a whole month (haha), even steaming ahead at a steady 2,000-words-a-day pace, which is still a hell of a lot of words to write regularly. It’s even worse when your idea is crap, won’t go anywhere, and therefore forces you to resort to old tricks and themes you’ve written about before. What I did two years ago, after almost quitting from sheer boredom and annoyance, was reintroduce some sci-fi elements back into it. And what I got from doing that was a horrible, confusing mess.

That’s not to say I haven’t done that in years past. In my second or third NaNo novel, there were spots you could see where I completely murdered a main character so that I could introduce a new one and go in a different direction and still keep the 16,000 words I had accumulated. It’s not cheating, but it sure does make you feel like crap.

So this year, I’m stuck between two ideas. A friend mentioned that I should do this because it’s fun. Write to my strengths–and those would be generally sci-fi elements. Aliens, zombies, or monsters, with some sort of comedic or parody element attached.

But what if I want to do this to learn? Can I write a ’serious’ novel and maintain it for an entire month? Do I want to really buckle down this fall and get a move on writing my first literary novel (that doesn’t suck so completely that I would rather just pretend like I didn’t write for NaNo last year at all than talk about or reread it)?

I had also thought of splitting the project in two, but now my conscience is forbidding that. It has to be a novel, not a group of short stories that I am going to write. I don’t think I’m going to let myself almost cheat and do that instead of writting a fully fleshed out (albeit short, clocking in around 50k words, which is around 80 pages depending on the font used) novel. I’m putting my foot down.

As I write about this now, suddenly the idea I had for a ’serious’ novel is looking less and less likely. It plays out in my head more like a short story than a gripping novel.

So maybe the idea given to me about zombies and space travel will work after all.

Anyway, to lighten the mood a little, here are some behaviors I find myself succumbing to during the month of NaNo, behaviors that I wouldn’t normally indulge in except that for the last seven or so years, I have done NaNoWriMo.

To get through NaNoWriMo, I…
• stay up as long as it takes me to finish my 2,000 words for the night, yes, despite the fact that I always refuse other times to stay up any day of the week no matter what the reason… I think the record was 3:45 AM, on a work night
• turn down offers to be social, since after work and the gym it’s NaNo writing time!
• turn the porch light off on Halloween night early, so I can sit in front of my computer with a blank page open, ready to begin at exactly as midnight strikes
• secretly work on NaNo at the office, or during breaks, which explains the sudden consistent appearance of my flash drive in the computer
• indulge in super-caffeinated beverages on the weekends to help me write (although I haven’t had to resort to Red Bull or anything like that yet… Plain coffee and soda for me!)
• listen to Mozart’s Requiem on repeat, because it provides 80 minutes of structured music as a background to my writing. Other favorites are Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and most of what Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard produce (words or songs with lyrics tend to throw me off and distract me)
• get up around 6 AM to fit in writing
• catch up on weekends, or write more than I need to so that I can have a day off during the week but still stay on track (record is 4000 words extra over a weekend… two days off during the week!)
• fantasize about what my characters will do next, obsessively, the entire month
• become nasty and short-tempered to the outside world when my novel isn’t going well
• want to read long passages to who unfortunate callers on the phone when my novel is going well
• check my word count on everything I write, at work and elsewhere, during November
• play with font face and size on the novel to make more or less pages (depending on how accomplished I want to feel)
• choose names at random out of the phone book
• use you, your life, and anything you’ve ever said to me as inspiration for novel fodder, characters (villains, most certainly, if you’ve ever crossed me for any reason), and events
• write on Thanksgiving, even with family there, if I haven’t finished my novel yet (this probably won’t happen this month)
• am strapped with guilt the day after NaNo ends, because I’ve gotten in the habit of writing every day for so long that there is suddenly a void when I stop

11 days!!!

Things I want but probably shouldn’t buy:

• the new Indiana Jones movie on DVD. I know it wasn’t that good, but I already have the Indiana Jones trilogy, and this seems to complete the set.
• MixMeister Fusion. It’s the most expensive one, but has the features I was looking for to create my own mixes. I should probably download the free trial version first, when I get some free time to start mixing songs. Sigh.
• the new Keane CD. Did I even get the last one? Did they release one between the newest and Under the Iron Sea? I don’t know. But I am suddenly struck with the urge to buy this new one.
• some transitional fall clothes. I’m not exactly sure what I wore last fall. But now it’s too chilly in the mornings and evenings to wear just short sleeves and jeans, and too warm to wear sweaters and long sleeves. First, it’s probably time to purge some of the clothes I’ve worn only once in the last year. Goodwill? Salvation Army?

I’ve been so good the last couple months with buying crap that I don’t need.  I think since I started sitting in front of the TV again some evenings, it’s gotten worse. That and boredom. When I sit around for too long I get to wanting things again. I do have to say though, it was nice this weekend feeling unscripted, not busy every hour of every day. Also bad though, since I was out and about enough so that I started to feel sucked into consumerism again. Grr.

Going home this weekend. Probably to Renn Fest on Saturday. That is all

It was generally a good couple of days, except for a small hitch last night.

Sunday, I played games until late. During the day we went to the gym and then met up with the roommates and his sister and girlfriend. The Taste of Atlanta festival was still going on, but we got a seat inside CPK and chatted for a while. Outside, it was windy and cloudy, but generally a good night. I watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, mostly for Barry Pepper,  and fell asleep.

Yesterday was the same as Sunday, except that cousin and I went to the Farmer’s Market to get some vegetables (and ended up walking away with $30 worth of food, including a ridiculously fresh cut of salmon, which I butchered and then overcookd, and pumpkin butter). We stopped by the library and later went to see Quarantine, which just came out. After the gym, I overcooked dinner and went to bed.

Again, generally a pretty good couple of days.

As far as Quarantine goes, don’t waste your money.  (Spoilers!)
Read the rest of this entry »»

1. Summer of Light – W. Dale Cramer
2. Duma Key - Stephen King
3. Next – Michael Crichton
4. Bel Canto – Ann Pratchett
5. Lisey’s Story – Stephen King
6. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Well, I finished Next this weekend.

Frankly, I found it difficult to follow and haphazardly thrown together. Each chapter rotates points of view from a plethora of characters, none of whom particularly inspire any sympathy in me. A lot of the events I found too fantastical to want to keep reading more, and while there were interesting asides about the pitfalls of gene therapy and greedy corporations licensing this research and what not… it only seemed to skim the surface of these issues. Maybe if he’d focused on two or three of his characters instead of fifteen, I would have grown to care about them.

There was too much going on in this novel. As a cautionary tale, it definitely highlighted some of the issues… but once more, I was too confused to think about it in depth. Overall, I was disappointed.

Next, onto Bel Canto, which I’ve heard nothing but good things about. It has a slow opening so far, but then again I haven’t taken a lot of time to get into the book, so maybe for lunch today I’ll spend some time outside reading. Sounds nice.