Posted on

Nano – day 1

Project: Untitled Alternate World Novel
New Words: 4,136 (Yay! A damn fine start, if I say so myself.)
Current Total Word Count: 4,136
Goal: 50,000 words

Random Sentence: As the sky began to lighten, Jahine felt a sense of purpose grow within him and the doubt that had cajoled him the dark early hours fled.

Notes: A lot of this came out in backstory. This is just fine, because while I know that much of this will be cut in edits, it is helping me get a better sense of this world and how it all works. Though I do keep trying to bring what I’m writing back to the immediate action of the story, since that makes it all feel more alive to me.

I’m feeling rather good about this start to the novel, since it feels to be the most coherent of all the Nano novels that I worked on over the years. Of course, this could just be the excitement of starting out a new story, but I have a feeling deep in my gut that this one, for once, just might work. Here’s hoping.

[X-posted to my livejournal]
Posted on

the muse mosquito is tickling my ear

Well, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month once again this year. For those who may be staring at me funny, Nanowrimo is that wonderful time of year when novelists  come together to each write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. It’s a great challenge that shoves away the inner critic for a while. I’ve participated for many years, completing the challenge sometimes and failing others. Always it’s a good experience, though this is a challenging year for me to be attempting such a thing. Ah, well.

In the mean time, I am itching to start Nano. Right now my novel idea is almost constantly in my mind, and it’s driving me a little nuts that I have to wait until tomorrow midnight to begin. I have most of the opening scenes mapped out. Some of the middle scenes are there, too, and I have some general ideas of where I want it all to end up, which is nice. And although I don’t really have names yet, my characters are starting to blossom with wants and desires and motivations, which will help keep the main force of the story going.

All of which is very exciting. I would love to have a novel readable enough that I would feel comfortable sending out to family and friends for critique. I would then dance and sing and be merry.

[X-posted to my livejournal.]
Posted on

The Writing Life: Long Term Goals

Today I thought it would be good to follow the writing prompt set by young adult author Laurie Halse Anderson .

The prompt? “Write down where you want your writing life to be in 2010, in 2024, and in 2026.”

Goals are excellent things to have. They help keep a clear purpose in mind. I know I’ve been writing small weekly goals (some I meet, some I don’t), but I have a feeling that now is a good time to get some of my larger goals anchored down. It’s also fun to look back at goals you set years in the past and compare them to where your currently at.

2010: One of my main goals for next year is to have a chapbook or full collection of poetry published. I’m getting to where I have enough poetry that’s completed, that I like, and that has the same sort of tone that such a thing is possible. I’m going to be submitting to a couple of poetry chapbook contests in the next couple of months and we’ll see what happens with that.

I would also like to have several completed and published short stories, more single poems published in journals, and my really big goal: to have a novel completed that is manuscript ready. By which I mean that the novel is edited to point that I could consider sending it out and shopping for agents (slightly scary).

2014: Five years from now? My goal is to have several book-length collections of poetry published. By then, I would love to have many novels written, two to three of which would be published with another on its way. (Idealism and high hope are good. Really.)

Somewhere in there, I would like to have had at least one feature film script written and hopeful produced into a film. I really enjoy the filmmaking process, how so many ideas from so many people can come together into something that (hopefully) works.

On a personal note, I would like to have done some more extensive traveling. I especially would like to spend some serious time in South America as well as hit various points in India and Europe.

2026: I’m not really one to reach that far into the future, and while I do think setting goals is important, I also think it’s important to live in the moment. Besides a lot can happen in seventeen years. I would hope that my career would continue exponentially, with all the good spiraling into more and more good. More books and poetry and scripts written and ultimately published. And if there’s award or two in there, all the better (Though just getting published is joy enough for me, hell, just completing something to where I’m happy with it is joy enough, or better yet, just writing is in many ways joy enough.)

I think these goals are entirely realistic and possible. Accomplishing all of this, however, means that I will need to have a higher productivity rate than my current level. Again, do-able. It is a simple requirement of making choices. Watch TV or write 500 more words? Hmm, let me think about that.

[x-posted to my blog]
Posted on

Train Tracks

Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.

~From the movie  Under The Tuscan Sun ( book by Frances Mayes)

I’m rather fond of that story, and in my own way, I am presenting this site as a similar foundation for myself. I have not yet published a novel (have not even finished writing one), however, as I build my career as a writer, this site will serve as a portal, for not just my noveling adventures, but all my creative endeavors.

I will use this homepage to point out projects I’m working on, when my work gets published, events or readings I will be attending or participating in, and any other such announcements. Please also visit my blog for posts about my daily writing progress and challenges, book and movie reviews, and other meanderings.

If you are an aspirant (“a hoper, a dreamer, a magic bean buyer”), please leave me a comment or write me an email about your own tracks. Pursuing our passions doesn’t have to be a lonely affair after all.