Stop the presses
I'm back and better than ever. Or so I'd like to think.
In pulling my third-ever major livejournal overhaul, my entries will now be dedicated completely to writing and children's literature. Yeehaw!
I'd like to start by introducing some links, but since I am woefully technologically incompetent, I don't know how to format them. If anyone would like to tip me off on how exactly to do this, it would be much appreciated. Also, I don't know how to make other LJ users' handles bolded, underlined, and blue as links. For example, if I type princessnarr (being myself), I believe it does not link to my journal (even though, if reading this, you're already AT the journal... too complicated).
So, in lieu of the missing links (heh heh heh), I'll remark that I'm fired up for NaNoWriMo to start this evening and that I think everyone should join in, because it's never too late to become one of Chris Baty's cultish group of writing fanatics. This will be my fourth NaNo, and by now I'm hooked: I couldn't NOT do it, even if I wanted to.
Some people, usually people who are very serious about writing, refuse to take part in NaNoWriMo because of its slapdash nature. In a way, it IS stupid; it's like driving to the airport and getting on the next plane to Fiji carrying only a bowler hat and a handful of walnuts.
That, in fact, is the very reason why I laughed in the face of NaNoWriMo when the lovely gelishan (another LJ name... hopefully it's linking) first introduced it to me in the fall of 2003. Write a novel in a month? The very thought was an insult to the craft of writing. I was not about to lower myself to such standards... no, no, no, I would write my novels the upright way and allow myself to take exactly as much time as they needed. Years, if necessary.
But the more I studied the NaNo website, and the more I read about the NaNo founder, Chris Baty, the more interested I became. NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty promised, was a godsend for people who wanted to write. It was for those who had always dreamed of being novelists, but who had just never had the time to follow through. It was for people who would tragically grow old and shriveled and senile with no novel-writing credits to speak of, not because they couldn't have done it, but because no one gave them a deadline.
All I needed was a few pages of Chris Baty's fun-loving attitude before I was hooked. He was right, I realized. When was I ever going to get around to writing a novel if not NOW? What better time, really, than the present?
And so I was in. That first year, 2003, I wrote a book called The Adventures of Annabell, about an eleven-year-old girl who travels to her secret, otherworldly homeland via enchanted socks. My next book, in 2004, was called Cannie and Addie (since revised to be Cannie vs. Addie: Skullduggery at the Science Fair). And last year, in 2005, I wrote an abomination entitled Bastian and the Zombies Rock Out, which, while definitely reaching 50,000 words in a marathon writing session during the last two days of November, never quite acquired anything that could accurately be deemed a "conclusion."
All three of those novels were middle-grade. This year I'll be tackling a young adult book, something I'm very excited about. I had a minor panic session yesterday and was tempted to just run back and huddle in the safe and loving arms of my middle-grade roots, but it will be good for me to branch out. Plus, if the novel turns out to suck, as it inevitably will (all NaNo first drafts do), it will only have been a month of wasted time, tears, and chocolate.
And for the naysayers who maintain that you can't write a good novel in a month, and that NaNo is therefore utter idiocy.... they're right. BUT you CAN write a solid first draft in a month, no matter how many typos and messy passages and plot holes it may have. And a solid first draft is the first step on the pathway to a successful, polished, well-written manuscript, if you're willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make it there. I wrote Cannie and Addie in a month, but then put it aside for a year and finally spent 2-3 months revising and editing and restructuring and revisioning and deleting portions of it. If it sucked completely, then I wouldn't have ever mustered up the gusto necessary to query agents and publishers about it. Even if my judgment was horrible, and the book actually WAS awful despite me thinking it was okay, I wouldn't have gotten the few requests for partials and fulls that I've gotten on the manuscript so far. Those make all the work worth it, and they're just a bonus on top of the overwhelming feeling of personal satisfaction I got (and still have) in knowing that I had finally created a book-length work that was, I felt, the best I could make it.
Enough rambling (read: only an hour and a half until NaNoWriMo begins, and I have to think about my 'plot' some more). Stay tuned for my next entry, which I plan to spend discussing how deeply in love I am with Michael Stearns and M.T. Anderson. It will be a real treat.
In pulling my third-ever major livejournal overhaul, my entries will now be dedicated completely to writing and children's literature. Yeehaw!
I'd like to start by introducing some links, but since I am woefully technologically incompetent, I don't know how to format them. If anyone would like to tip me off on how exactly to do this, it would be much appreciated. Also, I don't know how to make other LJ users' handles bolded, underlined, and blue as links. For example, if I type princessnarr (being myself), I believe it does not link to my journal (even though, if reading this, you're already AT the journal... too complicated).
So, in lieu of the missing links (heh heh heh), I'll remark that I'm fired up for NaNoWriMo to start this evening and that I think everyone should join in, because it's never too late to become one of Chris Baty's cultish group of writing fanatics. This will be my fourth NaNo, and by now I'm hooked: I couldn't NOT do it, even if I wanted to.
Some people, usually people who are very serious about writing, refuse to take part in NaNoWriMo because of its slapdash nature. In a way, it IS stupid; it's like driving to the airport and getting on the next plane to Fiji carrying only a bowler hat and a handful of walnuts.
That, in fact, is the very reason why I laughed in the face of NaNoWriMo when the lovely gelishan (another LJ name... hopefully it's linking) first introduced it to me in the fall of 2003. Write a novel in a month? The very thought was an insult to the craft of writing. I was not about to lower myself to such standards... no, no, no, I would write my novels the upright way and allow myself to take exactly as much time as they needed. Years, if necessary.
But the more I studied the NaNo website, and the more I read about the NaNo founder, Chris Baty, the more interested I became. NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty promised, was a godsend for people who wanted to write. It was for those who had always dreamed of being novelists, but who had just never had the time to follow through. It was for people who would tragically grow old and shriveled and senile with no novel-writing credits to speak of, not because they couldn't have done it, but because no one gave them a deadline.
All I needed was a few pages of Chris Baty's fun-loving attitude before I was hooked. He was right, I realized. When was I ever going to get around to writing a novel if not NOW? What better time, really, than the present?
And so I was in. That first year, 2003, I wrote a book called The Adventures of Annabell, about an eleven-year-old girl who travels to her secret, otherworldly homeland via enchanted socks. My next book, in 2004, was called Cannie and Addie (since revised to be Cannie vs. Addie: Skullduggery at the Science Fair). And last year, in 2005, I wrote an abomination entitled Bastian and the Zombies Rock Out, which, while definitely reaching 50,000 words in a marathon writing session during the last two days of November, never quite acquired anything that could accurately be deemed a "conclusion."
All three of those novels were middle-grade. This year I'll be tackling a young adult book, something I'm very excited about. I had a minor panic session yesterday and was tempted to just run back and huddle in the safe and loving arms of my middle-grade roots, but it will be good for me to branch out. Plus, if the novel turns out to suck, as it inevitably will (all NaNo first drafts do), it will only have been a month of wasted time, tears, and chocolate.
And for the naysayers who maintain that you can't write a good novel in a month, and that NaNo is therefore utter idiocy.... they're right. BUT you CAN write a solid first draft in a month, no matter how many typos and messy passages and plot holes it may have. And a solid first draft is the first step on the pathway to a successful, polished, well-written manuscript, if you're willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make it there. I wrote Cannie and Addie in a month, but then put it aside for a year and finally spent 2-3 months revising and editing and restructuring and revisioning and deleting portions of it. If it sucked completely, then I wouldn't have ever mustered up the gusto necessary to query agents and publishers about it. Even if my judgment was horrible, and the book actually WAS awful despite me thinking it was okay, I wouldn't have gotten the few requests for partials and fulls that I've gotten on the manuscript so far. Those make all the work worth it, and they're just a bonus on top of the overwhelming feeling of personal satisfaction I got (and still have) in knowing that I had finally created a book-length work that was, I felt, the best I could make it.
Enough rambling (read: only an hour and a half until NaNoWriMo begins, and I have to think about my 'plot' some more). Stay tuned for my next entry, which I plan to spend discussing how deeply in love I am with Michael Stearns and M.T. Anderson. It will be a real treat.