Sorry for the lack of participation...

Life has other plans sometimes. They're not always bad.

Go here for more info.

Then go here to vote.

A Challenge...

Okay, everyone's been way too down-in-the-mouth around here lately, and I too have been feeling the November blues from the weather, so this is my challenge to you, if your writing is not flowing:

Take something or someone in your life that's bothering you, if it's an inanimate object personify it, and write a brief creative piece--poetry, fiction, take your pick--in which that person or thing is the villain who becomes contrite and/or a piece in which that character is a blip on the screen. Or something that pokes fun at the whole situation. Something that makes you feel better.

You don't have to share it with anyone, but it will likely make you feel better. (Or so my recent reading of L. M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon reminded me--she did that all the time, and it was terribly cathartic.)

Just a thought. I'm thinking about doing something that helps me laugh at this stupid weather.

Sigh

I surrender.

For reasons that are many and varied, and some which are just too personal to discuss, I give up. This is, apparently, not the right time of the year for me to do this.

After the thrill of the 3-Day Novel Contest, I had no no doubt at all that I would be able to do NaNoWriMo. I suspect i may have gotten a little cocky. At this point though, I know that my book isn't ready to write. With the many and varied stresses I'm currently trying to deal with I may as well just pack it in, feel a little bad about it, and let go of the grief of admitting I failed.

I will try, instead, in February, to perform the same feat of 50000 words in 28 days. By then I'll be employed...one way or the other...and my life should be both more settled and less stressful.

I'm sorry to punk out on you all, but the added guilt and stress of having fallen so far behind was weighing on me more than I liked. I'm still here to cheerlead for you who are swinging at it either directly or in some altered form.

And if nothing else, I like to think we persuaded G to do this, and now look, she's the one who is actually making it happen. Yay!

So that's that. Sorry.

HA! It worked!

So after all that writing I plowed out last week and all the sleeping I plowed out over the weekend, I awoke this morning from one of those half-waking dream states in which I figured out roughly how the forward to this back-burner novel project should be written. I've been researching this project off and on, but hadn't realized how my recent experiences had been coalescing, including some things in my academic research and writing, to help me write this section.

So the upshot of it is that I've started on the more creative, actually novel-writing, part of my PseudoNaNoWriMo. I can't guarantee that I'll progress from the forward into the story quite yet, and of course I have other academic writing to do, but it's beautiful when one is able to break new novel-writing ground.

It also feels good that I'm getting to know myself better, as well as how to motivate myself and get through the blocks. I guessed that if academic words counted, I'd inevitably clear a space in my head and my schedule for the creative words to flow as well. Even if I only end up with a few new novel manuscripts words jotted down, this will all be worth it.

And there was much rejoicing. Yeah!

Okay...

So I wrote some more stuff today, and my word deficit is 4094 now. I am starting to think I may catch up.

I don't want to get cocky.

Poetry Update

A Caveat: You'll notice that my number of poems written during NaNoWriMo is actually increasing at a steady pace, and for the sake of transparency, I feel like I should clarify a few things.

These are all rough. Very rough. Due to the emotional nature of my project, they're also not likely going to make it into anything good for the moment. They're raw and accusatory and self-deprecating and not fit for publication. But, I hope that after a few more days of getting through my gut reactions, I'll move onto something beautiful and really good. If I don't, this could turn into a bust, but I want to give it a shot anyway. Additionally, these raw poems may turn into something on their own after I get a few days of distance from them. I hope that I can find the gold nugget of each poem I've written and make it into something better than it is now.

So, don't look at my poem count and be amazed... yet.

The announcement

Well first things first, the logjam broke. I'm writing. Now if I can just write 6937 words Friday, I'll be caught up. Ha! It's possible, I suppose that I'll get caught up. We'll see.

Anyhow the announcement is this: We are having a special contest starting tomorrow and ending on December 2.

One of the things we want to to do here is increase the size of our community, and broaden the scope of it a little. For example, I will be doing book reviews here pretty soon, and hope others will join in.

Another thing is that I hope to have some guest judges come around, and to be able to offer some more excellent prizes.

To do this, I'm going to send out some New Year's cards to some of the hipper publishers and writers out there right now to encourage them to come by and see us, and participate.

And so, I challenge you to come up with a New Year's card that can be sent by standard lettermail. The goal is to grab attention and make them curious enough to drop by and/or drop us a line.

I will be prevailing on a friend with graphic design skills to help lay out the final version, and our friend Jill has offered to assist me in printing and mailing the cards out to people.

It's possible that these cards will need to, instead, be mailed in the spring, so you can feel free to entirely avoid mention of the holiday season.

I know that we have some great minds here at the site, and I am confident that we can come up with something awesome. This contest has a prize in the form of my gratitude, and something else TBD.

I want textFIGHT to grow and flourish. Help me, won't you.

By the way, folks, can I just say way to go on the way you've been handling each other with NaNoWriMo? I know we pretend this site is a pit of savage vipers, but you have embraced the spirit of this particular contest as a great big warm hug of support and I'm actually kind of moved at how readily you've stepped in to encourage alternatives, just so long as we keep at it.

I'm feeling surprising warm and fuzzy today, considering I'm a vile and hate-flled person.

Coincidence? I think not.

At about 3:30 I got a call from a gentleman in Toronto, who wants to speak with me about a job here in Edmonton. Almost immediately thereafter, I began to feel my logjam break. I don't know if I can catch up, but I feel writing coming on. The last step of this break came during a brief chat with the Cenobyte about the future of textFIGHT.

We have something I think is sort of exciting to announce. Look for a full explanation tomorrow, once I nail down a few details.

Also, look for some progress on my damned book.

Withdrawing

Well, as my nonexistent word count suggests, I haven't really been involved with the fun and excitement of NaNoWriMo. So, I'm taking my hat from the ring. Full explanations are at my blog. I'm going to be working on a poetry project of self-discovery and healing for the rest of the month and I'll make sure to update here regularly regarding my progress.

I'm cheering all of you on, though. And, if any of you want someone to bounce ideas off of, I'm available... what with still being an unemployed bum.

Honestly, I'm bummed about not participating, but I am not in the right headspace for a project of this scope and speed.

Not Going Well.

Not at all. I'm having a lot of trouble writing, and I don't know why.

But hey, look at G go!

Taking a day off for planning

Happy as I am with Tom's foreword to the book, I've come to realize that what's tripping me up right now is that I need, if not a formal outline, a list of important dates on a timeline.

So I'm doing that right now. I will take advantage of my status as a job seeker to catch up on the writing. I think I need to do this if I'm gonna be able to write at all. When you're doing mock documentary, you need to be able to drop facts in easily. Right now I don't have all my made up facts at hand. So, yeah, working on that.

After all my smack talk...

OK so I was talking big and now my word count is ZERO!!

I hang my head in shame. It seems the idea I had for my NaNoWriMo novel, while brilliant, was a bit too disturbed and dark for me to keep up with all the other stuff I have going on right now. Ooops. But fear not! I have a new idea, one that I can keep in my head without going insaner, one that will be amazing!! I'll see what my word count is tomorrow after my night shift, maybe I can catch up before I get too far behind.

-Gordon

First day, retrospective

Okay...so I'm at 1620 words as of 11:17. I will probably write some more, but this is a good place to stop and look back.

I'm not doing too badly, considering I scrapped the first 2500 words or so that I wrote and started over. The beginning part of this book is the hardest. I have the plot in mind firmly, and the character arc, but setting the tone of the book is hard.

Fake non-fiction is something I've not done for hugely extended periods of time. I think I'll get there.

Anyway, over on The Rook's Nest, I've posted the first discrete chunk of the book. It forms, happily, a good starting point and has a beginning, middle, and end. People familiar with my work will enjoy it more than those who aren't, I suspect. We'll see.

Anyway, please do take a look if you've the time. Feedback, even simple feedback, stokes my engine.

I'm also adding the word counts at the side. Those with moderate canniness in html should be able to handle updating their own. If you need help, let me know. This isn't a race, it's jut a way to help us all see where we're at to provide encouragement.

Gordon.

More tomorrow. Enjoy the extra sleep, if you are among those who fall back tonight.

In Like a Really Lazy and Unprepared Rhyme of Some Kind

Yes, I'm in. I'm down with the NaNoWriMo.

PROBLEM THE FIRST: I don't know what I will write about.
PROBLEM THE SECOND: I am not feeling too confident about this writing business lately.
PROBLEM THE THIRD: I fully intend to be employed soon which will really limit the "writing time" I usually have.

But, I realize most people in NaNoWriMo's face are employed, so the third problem really has no bearing on the competition.

As for the other two problems, I'm hoping I will get over them. See what I can pull out of my hat and run with it.

Day 1

I spent a lovely morning cuddling with the dogs as Gayleen headed to Calgary to do her panel at World Fantasy 2008. Then I went to see the new Kevin Smith movie, which I loved.

Now I'm back home, and having Chicken Caesar Salad and watching a short horror film.

As soon as the salad is done I am setting out underway with the book. Updates forthcoming.