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Category: fiction
#232: Friday I’m in Love: with writing, insanity, & #nanowrimo
You do know by now that all of my posts this time of year revolve around fiction writing, novels, writers I adore, and the mother-ship – NaNoWriMo – right? Well, if you didn’t by now, let this serve as your warning.
This year I’m trying something a little bit different and keeping my NaNo tweets to my blog twitter (@theluckiestnet) – this way I’ll save my normal twitter followers (@atlimbo) from the onslaught. Thoughts? Suggestions? I’ve never split tweets before (that sounds very strange), so I’d love advice!
And now, inspired by the countdown – we start on Tuesday! – and this post over at Julie Writes, I’m using this week’s Friday I’m in Love to tell you ten reasons I’m in love with National Novel Writing Month!
- You have full permission to live off of Twizzlers/pizza/coffee/the caffeine of your choice for 30 days.
- The forums are full of also-insane, possibly-multiple-personality-disorder having creatives, just like you!
- No plot? No problem!
- Junk food & microwave burritos become a main food group.
- Write ins, parties, and 24-hour marathons are great places to meet new friends.
- The Office of Letters & Light goes out and gets awesome authors to write us email pep talks throughout the month!
- It’s the only novel writing experience I’ve ever had that comes with cheerleaders.
- Anything goes, but you’d better include pirates, ninjas, dragons, and Starbucks.
- Inside jokes become their own language, no matter how many months or how many miles separate you from your fellow NaNo-ers.
- There is nothing like crossing that finish line.
#230; wait, what? It’s October?
How is it already nearly that glorious time of year known as NaNoWriMo?
I’ve struggled in recent jaunts, including Camp NaNo this summer, but I’m feeling excited and motivated, and most importantly, inspired!
The official site has just been relaunched, I’ve got my super-loose premise set (see the summary under the jump, I’d love you’re thoughts!), and we’re less than four weeks away!
So, do you NaNo?
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#226; Monday morning in a fog of words
I’m planning a short vacation down to NYC and it’s gotten me thinking: I haven’t been writing. Not really. Not like I normally do in the summer and fall. Normally, the heat and the humidity have always fueled me creatively. Nothing feels better than sitting outside, sweating desperately, with a fedora for shade and a notebook. It seems that without that heat, without the oppressiveness of a Southern August (and yes, I consider DC part of the South – I’m a New Englander by birth after all), my writing doesn’t flow nearly as easily.
As a matter of fact, writing fiction has felt like pulling my own teeth out all summer. But I’ve been plugging away at a piece (most likely novel length; best described as ‘creative non-fiction’ or ‘very fast and loose memoir’) and slowly but surely it’s (almost) taking shape. I like the quick tone, the acidic attitude of it. It comes off as almost bitter, almost sad, almost angry – but in the end it’s just fact. It’s seen it all, and it knows the truth, and you need to sit down and listen to it tell you how it is. Does that make sense? The piece has it’s own voice, one that feels like a person in your head, one you can argue with (and it argues back). It flutters at times, falters, but the story calls for it. This piece is something I really feel, in my bones, and I want to keep working on it. So here goes, one of my favorite lines to inspire me to get writing tonight:
I met a boy once: you would have thought it was orchestrated how well this first meeting went, all mishaps and delightful coincidences and perfectly timed innuendo.
#218; out with the old
It’s summer time, and what’s better this time of year than a beach and a book? This year we see the end of some of the best, worst, most epic, least deserving, too-much-fun-to-handle series out there – Harry Potter‘s last stand opens tonight at midnight, Breaking Dawn arrives in November, last year’s I Am Number Four seems to have been turned down for a sequal, and after the release of the Gossip Girl prequal capping off that book series, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have any more gossip to get lost in. Yes, I love YA fiction,
particularly of the fantasy and science fiction varieties (though YA isn’t all I’m planning to read next, it’s just a delightful destraction from the real world of campaigns, office politics, and dishes to be washed). And so this summer I’m letting go of my old favorites (I admit to devouring the Twilight series when it came out. I also admit to laughing out loud at most of it, which feels incredibly good) and embracing some brand new (to me, at least) beach reading. With vacation next week, I thought it a good chance to look over what I’m hoping to read - leave me your favorites, guilty pleasures, and To Read piles in the comments!
First and foremost, I cannot wait to finish reading The Mortal Instruments series, including the just-released fourth installment. I’m nearly half way through the third (City of Glass) and despite its schmaltzy language, slightly twisted love triangle, and eye-roll inducing plot devises, I love it. Maybe I’ll look past just about anything if I like a story enough. Cassandra Clare comes from a writing background of Harry Potter fanfiction, so the lady certainly knows what fans want – pretty people, angst, intense, quick action, and the occassional swoon-worthy kiss. She even through in a clumsy, totally-doesn’t-think-she’s-pretty main character and a brooding, bad boy with a heart of gold love interest. It’s pure cheese. It’s morally questionable. It’s terribly written most of the time. But it’s fun, too, it’s captivating and full of bright colors and well-handled characters, and that’s what I look for in entertainment, so this is just my cup of tea (or maybe more my tall glass of strawberry daiquiri). Find more romance, history, and suspense below the jump!
#213; healing power of words
I’ve done it! I’ve tackled my writers block and come out on top. At least, so far. Thanks to a great start at my very first Camp Nanowrimo novel, Bipolar In Order.
I wrote 6,500+ words in two days, staying in line with the NaNoWriMo schedule despite starting two days late. I haven’t written in a burst like that in months, not once since I moved to Boston, and I can tell you it feels amazing. It feels like stress relief, emotional release. It’s physically tiring, even! I sleep better when I’m a writer, I breath more easily, I feel like myself.
The novel/short story collection is something different for me. I’m writing it as nearly 100% autobiography. This makes it more difficult than other pieces of prose or poetry to share (it’s so much easier when you change the names and claim fiction!), though I find it also makes it easier to write. Dealing with emotional scarred tissue is sluggish, even dreadful, but you also never have want for material. And so, I’ll be bringing you slightly censored excerpts and quotes throughuot the month (there will be even more at my tumblr, my dumping ground for all things shiny and interesting).
…with lips so full you wanted to chew on them and drink up their juice like you do with a plum, and they were nearly, naturally, that delicious dark red of plums…
It’s interesting to find yourself stopping in the middle of a thought – a story line – to remember the way a friend’s mouth curved the first time you saw them smile. Or how someone’s voice sounded when you were half asleep, smushed up against the ceiling of your dorm because you’re in a loft bed and the angle changes how you hear things. I love remembering quiet moments, personal moments, lonely moments, and I love writing about the crazier ones, too, the nights you can’t hardly remember and raging debates that leave your voice hoarse from shouting and laughter.
What do you think? The challenge of (completely) honest writing is difficult, and is draining, but it feels so worth the turmoil just be churning out words again. How do you bust the block? Are any of you out there hitting up July’s session of Camp Nanowrimo? (There’s another in August if you want to wait a couple more weeks!) Let’s get a real discussion going this month, all about writing, emotional literacy, intimacy with your audience, and of course, absolutely ridiculous online challenges that take over our brains and lives.
