Only two days ago, I carried wine to my car in the snow. The cold air here is whistling down the neck of still-musty coats retrieved from storage boxes, leaves skitter in the wind, and a pumpkin late graces my writing time instead of coffee. Yes, NaNoWriMo is nearly here. No matter how prepared or … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Step Away
So wow. Hi to all you NaNoWriMo people! There are…. Quite a lot of you. Enough to make me feel like I'm in one of those dreams where you've forgotten your clothing and are back in high school, only where the high school is a virtual auditorium, and it's filled with people you very much … More Big News, A Warm Welcome, and other tales.
It doesn't matter what our reasons are. We could be writing a novel in a month just to know if we can, to see if we want to be writers, because we are bored, because we want an excuse to not talk to anyone at Thanksgiving. Maybe we want to try that novel idea we've … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Know Why
Choose your priorities. Seriously, choose them now. Because whatever you don't choose will fall by the wayside in November. Sleep, nutrition, diets, housework, and laundry are always the first to go. Then comes the little things, like email and responding to comments on our blogs, if we manage to blog at all. Facebook becomes a … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Choose What Balls To Drop
We will not try to write 50,000 words in a month. We will write 50,000 words in a month. This is NaNo, the battle of mind and fingers against the word count and time. This is a time for silly tricks and rule breaking and letting go of obligations. This is the time for us … More NaNoWriMo Prep: We Won’t “Try”
Every now and then, I go to a local park and write at one of the picnic tables closest to the playground, especially on a weekend when the place will be packed. I will sit there and write for at least an hour before retreating to somewhere else. I don't do this because I like … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Train For Unideal Conditions
Note: I want to apologize in advance for the anemia of this entry, I have had a very long and exciting day. Make sure to go get a full meal from yesterday's post written by my lovely irowboat about discovering characters. His perspective is unique and astute. NaNoWriMo is a marathon, and no one goes … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Establish a Writing Practice
No, not literally. This summer, we had a massive heat wave here in Salt Lake, and a curious thing happened after driving around in 102° F heat for a week solid. My speedometer stopped working. But it didn't stop dead, laying at the bottom of the dial like a sunken boat. Instead, it hovered at … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Disconnect Your Speedometer
Choosing what to write for NaNoWriMo is a challenge. It has been a challenge every month this year for me, and sometimes I lose a few days at the beginning of the month to just trying to find that thread of plot I feel has the energy to carry me through. There are a lot … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Write Something You Want to Read, with pep talk
As we all know, it's that time of year again. NaNoWriMo. Thirty days of literary abandon, the chance to cast aside our normal lives for a time and to finally write a novel. I have done some seven NaNos before this year, some much more successful than the others. Some years my schedule was fairly … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Clear the Decks
Concerning History in the Atlantic World, 1680-1740
The long haul of the spectrum
one woman's thoughts about life on the spectrum
Japanese pop culture through a feminist lens
The official blog of Michelle Tuckett, word ninja. 