cymonie

It's official--For the fourth time, I have won the National Novel Writing contest with this year's entry, Wolfgang Did. It was not the exhilarating joy of last year's novel; for this one I had to fight for every word. I was seriously ill the first week of NaNo 2008, and still the writing made me happy. But it was a comedy about architects--what could be better?

This year was different. I struggled from the start, fell behind and griped a lot, as Greg and Jenn know only too well. Thanks to you two, and your constant check-ins, concern and encouragement, I got this done. I almost gave up this year. You are why I didn't.

There's good work in this book. The characters are enigmatic but alive, their predicament existentially unusual in the extreme. Part of the fun for me with NaNo is that you never see what's coming, just pure, raw creativity splashed across the keyboard. Today, I was energized all day, giddy as I saw the word tallies climb, and I'm really proud right now.

Thanks, all of you, for all your good words and thoughts. It makes a difference. It did for Wolfgang.

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


After struggling all day to catch up a 3000 word deficit on my NaNo novel--and succeeding!--I ran into this quote. So it's all good, isn't it?

Word Count Goal:  6668
Actual:                      7061

So far, this has not been my ordinary NaNo experience, if there is such a thing. In previous years, I've been pretty strong out of the gate, with ideas coming thick and fast. Not this year. I fell into quicksand on Day Two and have been trying everything to get out of it since then. What seems to be shaping up now is a sort of Post-Modern Deconstructivist hodgepodge full of multi-dimensional characters, by which I do not mean that they are complex, well-crafted individuals, but rather that they operate on several planes of existence simultaneously.

Um, yeah.

Am I out of my mind?

Very definitely.

NaNo always has the potential to take you beyond the pale. And, baby, this one's out there...

 
NaNo starts in one week...50,000 words in 30 days. The Marathon for novel writers. This will be my fourth year and I've won every time I entered. I can't wait to get started. I know I'll be seeing some of you out there.

I should still be available to beta, but give me a little advanced notice if you can.

"It is, after all, an extraordinary thing to take wishing seriously." --Adam Phillips, On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored

From one of the books I'm currently reading...a different take on psychoanalysis than I am used to seeing.

Yesterday was a weird day, but I'm back--now the real work begins.

How to revise a novel...

Incommunicado tomorrow--reading my novel after a two-month hiatus to see if it deserves to live.

Even if you don’t care about participial phrases or the flexibility of a well-placed gerund, if you like to write, you will find much to enjoy in Virginia Tufte’s Artful Sentences. The book  is packed with quotes from every type of book, essay and article, famous and not so, sentences that illustrate the strengths of certain constructions, and many that are simply perfections of language.

"Whereas the truth was, as he alone knew, that the heavens were a glorious blazing golden limitless cathedral of unending and eternal light..." --John Knowles, Indian Summer, 27

No commas, stacked adjectives tumbling over each other, the rush of words that lift...rapturous! Or--

"At a distance he can see the tall line of a dozen or more aqueduct arches, commencing suddenly, suddenly ending; coming now from nowhere, now going nowhere."--James Gould Cozzens, Morning Noon and Night, last page

I can see those arches, feel what they mean.

At my best, I consider myself workmanly with words, not especially inspired, rarely rising to the artisanal, never to the realm of masterworks. But, nonetheless, I find comfort and aspiration in exquisite language. Thought, structure, wisdom, insight into the human condition, metaphor, symbol, humor, emotion, imagination, all of these drive me to write, hook me in reading a story. Yet it all begins in the infant's babble, the bricks and mortar,  the words themselves, wrapped, woven, strung together, the medium, the message. Les mots justes.

It's the Happy Birth-Day!

A very good year gone, another one ahead. Hope to see you all in it. Thanks for everything, all of you I care so much about.

Yeah, I've begun to beta for HP fanfics. I know, it's seriously weird to like proofing and editing as much as I do, but maybe that's because I like writing myself. On the other hand, it might just be an ideal way to make use of the way my brain works. I was good at script continuity, too, back in the day.

Just beta'd a really cool Harry/Draco story for a talented writer. Hope we can work together again, Denise! Looking forward to meeting more fellow HP-junkies/writers.

I am learning to write humor, a very new thing for me, and I'm loving it. The pleasure is due at least in part to stepping beyond the way I have always defined myself, and it requires an acceptance of failure to progress at all. What's amazing is that I really can do it, can find the voice of another, and embrace the difference. Must be a little of what actors feel, though I don't really know. Nice for a change to get outside the little wrapper of my skull and see through other eyes.

Here's to finding the bigger perspective and accepting the freedom in laughter.

The wait is over...Damn, I timed this well.



The Ask and the Answer, part two of the trilogy I've just become addicted to, will be published on September 8, 2009.

Happy Birthday to me!