A Post Of Things...

I was keeping this one under wraps for a few days because I didn't know if it was really going to happen, but it looks like it will now. You've heard me rave about Brandon Mull's Fablehaven books on my site before. If you haven't read them yet, I can't recommend enough that you go out and pick up copies of his first two books in the series. They're written for children/young adults, but can certainly be enjoyed by readers of all ages. They're a couple of my favorite young adult books to be written in a long time. It's fantasy/fairy folk/mythical creature story telling adventure delight all told with a complete air of pure fun. Well about a month ago, I got an email from Brandon Mull's publisher asking me if I would be interested in reviewing the third book which is due out on April 8th. It's called Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague. Now it looks like not only am I going to get to review it, but I'm getting an interview with Brandon Mull! Needless to say, I'm thrilled. So I'm letting everyone know in case you have any questions you'd like to ask. The interview is going to focus mostly on the third book in the series, but if you have any questions for him (I already have a couple from Deslily) I'll be more than happy to try to fit them in and see if I can get some answers ;)

I'm also back to trying to do a little bit of editing on my own book, A Sunset in Nowhere, that I wrote for NaNoWriMo and I'm really excited about it now! Why, you might ask? It's become a collaboration with Megan! I want to do a Stardust type of thing with it...the Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess version of Stardust that is. Megan is an amazing artist and she's done a comic in the past with a friend of ours as well as quite a few of her own creation. It's one of the many things that first attracted me to her. So she has my book now (in it's god-awful first draft) and she's going to start drawing some scenes that will be interlaced throughout the book. I can't wait to actually see some of my characters!! I have a few examples here of some of the pieces that she's given me, but none of her characters. I wish I had them to show you! The first two are a series of "hand drawings" that she's done for me...the first for our 1 year anniversary and the second for another anniversary. The third is a little Buddha that she drew me for Christmas this year. My photos don't do any of these justice.

And finally, I had to go download "Oh, you pretty thing" by David Bowie today and put it on my iPod because I couldn't stop singing it after I got my copy of Coraline in the mail from Subterranean Press! It's by far the most beautiful edition I've ever bought from Subterranean. I'm just blown away by it. The new McKean art is gorgeous, the Irish puppet production photos are incredible and it's signed by Gaiman and McKean :D And I got a really early copy...number 174 of 1000. There are still some copies left for sale on the website...go get it!!!

I Did It!!

I wrote a frickin' book! I officially finished NaNoWriMo today and if you go to my profile, my word count will proudly display that I am a "winner" and that my final word count is 51,315 words. And that's where it's staying. I'm done! I thought that I might finish today but the bigger chance was that I would finish on Friday. But I started writing and the ending just took off. This is what I've been waiting for! I actually knew how I wanted to end the book, so I was excited about writing again.

It's a relief to be done, but at the same time, I'm going to miss it. I don't know what I'm going to do now when I'm bored at work :p Overall, I think I'm happy with my story, but it's going to need some serious editing before it's readable to anyone and I'm sure it'll jump to about 75,000 words by the time I finish expanding it. But I'm leaving it alone for now. I don't think I'm touching it again until next year...maybe in January sometime. I've had enough of that story for now!

Biggest surprise of the whole experience was today as I was writing one of the final scenes. I got real emotional with one part and I was not expecting that at all! It's funny how characters that you create become so real and our minds play tricks on us. Here I am making up the story, it's coming from my brain, but at the same time, I'm processing it like I'm reading this touching story that's already written. Very weird.

But anyway, it's done! One of my biggest goals in life has always been to write a novel. It was one of those things that I always thought I'd say but never do. Or I pictured myself writing in a park sometime after I retired, but never now. So it's a great feeling to have accomplished that goal. And thanks everyone for your encouragement along the way and a special thank you to Deslily who stopped by my blog nearly every day after checking my progress to cheer me on.

Now I have to go find some real work to do....

Thoughts On A Friday Night

First let me introduce you to my new favorite shirt:
Now that you've made his acquaintance...I decided that after a loooong day at work I'd go get some coffee and then come home and work on my NaNo book. I stepped outside and was greeted by this cold, crisp night air and it suddenly felt like Christmas time. It could be Nymeth's Blogger Christmas Exchange or it could be Kailana's Advent Calendar, but I'm in the mood early this year. I love Christmas, but there's a bit of melancholy that goes along with it. I went and looked up the word "melancholy" on dictionary.com and found this as one of it's definitions, which I like best:

"sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness."

It's not so much that this time of the year is depressing, because it's not at all for me...it's a very odd feeling, hard to describe. A mixture of warm feelings, yet a yearning for something missing. I think of Megan a lot when holidays come around. Especially Christmas. This year should be good though because it's looking like she's flying in for Christmas and then I'm driving her back up to Texas and staying for New Years. I'm sure everyone has someone that they're reminded of around the holidays who's either no longer with us or is miles away, yet it's still a happy time to be celebrated with those who are with us. A conflict of emotions. Which leads me to Christmas music...yes this is a very schizophrenic post...

So I got in my car and wanted to listen to Christmas music because of the weather, but of course I didn't have any Christmas CDs in my car yet...so it was between Norah Jones or The Fray...so you might ask, "why Norah Jones or The Fray?" Both artists' music remind me of Christmas music. Norah Jones has an inherent quality to her music that induces a sense of happiness, peace, warmth, yet it's very nostalgic in a way. Listening to Norah Jones album can take you back to times that happened way before her albums were ever released and every time I make a Christmas mix CD I want to put one of her songs on it even though she doesn't have a Christmas album (not that I know of at least). Now The Fray is a slightly different story. First of all, I'm embarrassed to admit that I own a Fray CD, but it is indeed what I chose to listen to tonight. When The Fray writes their songs, I think they aim for this quality to their music. I think they studied what makes a Christmas song a Christmas song and the feelings that go along with it and tried to put it in every song they wrote which is why EVERY SINGLE TV DRAMA uses their music. As an aside, I think the lead singer of the band would do a much better job of being the voice of Kermit the Frog than the jackass that does it now. So The Fray actually worked very well as Christmas music tonight accompanied by a nice chill in the air and a hot mocha from the coffee shop. I'm happy and a little nostalgic and wishing I could talk to Megan.

I've also had a long day and obviously need sleep otherwise I wouldn't have written such a ridiculous post that probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me. But instead of going to sleep, I'm pumping my veins with caffeine and writing a book! This is what the rest of my night looks like:

Wahoo! Wednesday, Blogger Christmas Exchange, And NaNo Day 14

Lots of stuff in this post today! To start off with, CJ had a wonderful idea. As many of you know, our beloved blogger, Bookfool is going through some rough times right now and had to step away from blogland for a little while. She's in my thoughts and I know she's in the thoughts of so many other bloggers out there. One thing that I'm certainly missing and CJ was missing too was Bookfool's Wahoo! Wednesdays :) Bookfool takes the time every Wednesday to find something to say "Wahoo" about in life. That can be hard at times, but you would be amazed at the simple things that she finds in life that are truly beautiful. These are often accompanied with her beautiful photographs. CJ suggested that we all Wahoo about something today and let Bookfool know we're thinking of her. My favorite photographs of hers are always her nature photographs, particularly her bird photos! So the one I'm sharing and saying Wahoo! about is one of three hawks that have been living in our backyard! They've become like family, but I'm afraid that they've moved on for the winter :( I took this about 3 weeks ago...hopefully they'll come back next year.

The next Wahoo is for Nymeth :) She's putting together something that I am so excited about! The Blogger Christmas Exchange. It's a secret santa thing for the book blogging community and you can read all about it and get the details on her blog. She's amazing for organizing this. I'm sure it's no small task. I'm definitely in and I've already signed up and hope that everyone else will too. Like she said, the bigger it is, the more fun it will be. I think it'll be so much fun to shop for another book blogger :D

And the last Wahoo of the day is for NaNo day 14. A Wahoo is due for today because I crossed the halfway mark! Just barely though at 25,020 words. So it's all downhill from here. Another week or so and I can start bringing the story to a close. I can't wait to do that. I have so many plans that I'm looking forward to for the end of this story. But if the rest of the story is any measure of how the ending will go, all my plans will be thrown out the window because the characters just don't like where I'm taking them! They seem to have a mind of their own...

NaNo Day 13

Just a quick NaNo update. Today was odd, a scary day actually. I opened my computer, opened the book file and felt uninspired. I just didn't know where to go with my story. I feel like I'm reaching sort of a plateau with it. I know where I want to go with my ending, but it's too early to start going there. So I don't know what to do in the meantime. But I knew I had to go somewhere.

So I just started writing some stuff. I ended up finishing Chapter 11 and then went on to write Chapters 12 & 13 which may be my favorite chapters that I've written so far. It's strange how that worked out. I went from being uninspired to writing my favorite stuff. Now my concern is that these 2 chapters don't fit in with the rest of the book. They fit in with the story line, but they're told from a totally different point of view than the rest of the book so far. This may make no sense to anyone but me, so just excuse this entry if that's the case :p But I really like them, so I'm keeping them in. I think they add a nice touch to the book and most importantly (in NaNo terms at least) they add 4,000 words bringing my count up to 23,115 words! Almost to that halfway point.

My big worry is that this lack of inspiration is going to become a pattern. I'm hoping some inspiration comes tomorrow. It was rough to get into that groove today. I hadn't had any problems until today. I know that in his book, Chris Baty talks about the second week of NaNo being the hardest for most people and that if you can get past that point you'll make it...maybe I'm just getting my "second week blues" now. But I'll get through it...Luckily, it's another slow week at work, so I have the time to write ;)

Oh! And my copy of Marked came in the mail today! That made me happy :) Thanks Eva!!!

Trying To Stay With It & NaNo Day er...8

Do you ever pick up a book and just want to put it back on the shelf so bad or just give it away but feel guilty for not reading it? That's how I am with The Age of Innocence right now. This is the second time I've tried to read this one and this book is so not my thing. I'm on my third day of reading it and I'm only 28 pages into it and it's been 28 pages of real effort, let me tell you. Normally, I'd just call it a "did not finish" and give it away to someone, but I feel like I have to see this one out. Someone tell me it gets better...please.

The reason I feel like I have to read this one is two fold. Number 1, it's for the classics challenge. Now I just read Rebecca, so I could substitute that one for this one, but it's also (number 2) for The Pulitzer Project and that would just drive me crazy if I read all of the Pulitzer winners and then didn't finish just this one. So I'm going to have to read it eventually to complete the Pulitzer list so I might as well finish it now, right?

These high society books are just not my thing. There are just too many names and too many families and no action at all. They go to an opera, they have dinner, they have a party. Mr. so and so talks to Mrs. so and so who's daughter is betrothed to Mrs. so and so's son...you know how it goes. And the funny thing is, I enjoy the period piece films and mini-series that the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre produce, but I can't get into this type of literature for some reason. It just doesn't hold my interest. Who knows. I know lots of people love this book, so maybe if I get further than page 30 I'll start enjoying it.

On the NaNo front, today was excellent! I had a rush of ideas and exceeded the word goal of the day which was somewhere in the 13,000 range and went up to 14,497 words. Then the coolest thing happened. As I was writing dialogue for one of my characters, this one line came out of his mouth and I suddenly knew the ending of my book! Until he said what he said, I had no idea where I was going with this story. Now I do. And I jotted it all down with all of the twists and turns of where I want it to go so that I don't forget any of it. Now I just have to figure out how to get this story to that point. That's the next challenge.

Tomorrow's Friday, yay!

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier & NaNo Day 6

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Rebecca was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year for me so far. I had always thought Rebecca to be a romance novel, mostly due to a horribly misleading cover which I wouldn't look twice at (luckily it's out in a new trade paperback version with a great cover that I picked up which is pictured in this post!). The misleading cover is bright red with "Rebecca" written in gold slanting letters...I'm sure you've seen it. I've always known of Hitchcock's movie, Rebecca, but didn't know that it was a production of Daphne Du Maurier's novel! When I saw that people were reading Rebecca for the RIP Challenge, I put two and two together and came out of the experience with what will most definitely make the top ten list of 2007!

At it's heart, Rebecca is a ghost story, though there is no true ghost in the novel as far as what we traditionally think of as a ghost. It's the story of walking in the shoes of someone that you've never known, of taking over the life of someone you've never known. It's the story of a past that continually haunts the present. The narrator of the novel meets a man by the name of Maxim DeWinter, who's wife, Rebecca, has recently drowned. To make a long story short, the narrator and Maxim marry and she is brought to Manderley, a grand and well-known house where she lives a life in a part of society that she has never known. But she is no Rebecca. She knows nothing of this type of society and she fears that Maxim will never love her like he loved Rebecca. The second Mrs. DeWinter slowly uncovers who Rebecca was and the secrets surrounding her life.

This books was just amazing and took twists and turns that I never suspected. It was just an incredibly classic story and I never wanted it to end. I haven't been so disappointed by reaching a books end in ages. And it wasn't the ending that I was disappointed in, it was just the fact that it had ended. This book reminded me so much of The Thirteenth Tale and The Historian. If you liked the atmosphere of those books, I think you'd enjoy this one. Like those two, this one does a wonderful job of telling it's reader a riveting story. There will definitely be more Daphne Du Maurier in my future!

In other news, I broke the 10,000 word mark today in NaNoWriMo! And a wonderful character emerged. Deslily made a joke in a comment awhile back asking if there was a part for her in my book. So I said, sure, why not?! lol...So she became a queen and was introduced today in Chapter 5 and I really like her character! I've posted the beginning of chapter 5 in my "excerpt" section of my NaNo profile if anyone's interested. It's under the beginning of chapter 2 so just scroll down until you get to chapter 5. You can get to my profile by clicking the NaNo link in my sidebar. Please excuse any typos or grammatical mistakes...I haven't proofread anything! I just copied and pasted. Add me as a friend if you're doing NaNo! I'd love to get a little group of NaNo buddies over there :)

NaNo Day 5 aka The Little Engine That Could

So here's day 5 and I still have ideas! To anyone who thinks that they can't do NaNoWriMo, you can! I promise you, you can! If I can do this, anyone can, trust me. I sat at my computer today knowing that I was behind and knowing that I somehow had to reach 8,335 words today. And sadly I had no plot ideas when I walked into work this morning (yes I'm still writing at work :p). I literally opened my computer and typed a couple of words and thought "uh-oh! No more ideas". And then one hit me and I ran with it and I loved it! I finished the day with 8,482 words and I now have plenty of ideas for where I'm going next with my story.

I am starting to realize that the editing process is going to take quite a long time once I'm done with this puppy. I'm afraid that this is only going to be readable to me in its current form and will most probably make no sense to anyone else in its first draft. I'm going to have to go back and rearrange scenes and add scenes and develop scenes more, but for right now, I'm just going forward as the NaNo team suggests and leaving editing for later. I genuinely like my story though and that's something that I never thought would happen! Yeah, told you, I'm my own worst critic! I really expected crap to come out, but the story is there...it's just hard to get it to come out on paper how it looks in my head sometimes. But we're getting there!

I was so proud of my near 8500 words today and I started clicking on friends' friends' pages and started finding people who have already gone well over the 50,000 word mark! How the hell do you do that?! One girl went over 50K on the first day! She wrote for 24 hours straight on November 1st and blogged each hour on her progress. Kinda like Dewey's read-a-thon. Now that's impressive!

My reading has suffered as a result of NaNo, I'm afraid (I haven't forgotten about you Pat ;) But I'm still reading Rebecca and I'm REALLY enjoying it now with only about 80 pages left. And then I have to tackle this giant pile sitting next to my bed. I have another ARC heading my way too from Carole McDonnell. She's a really sweet woman who's sending me a copy of her book Wind Follower which sounds incredible and has an awesome cover! So look for that review in probably about a month. As for now...back to NaNo...

NaNo Day 3 And Last Call

I'm very whiny right now because the NaNoWriMo site is so frickin' slow! And now it's just completely gone down. All I want to do is update my word count :( It's amazing how much you actually strive for that word count by the way once you do this. It's fun to see that little blue bar rise a little bit higher :) I've officially gone up to 6,433 words on my third day. I'm happy with that. I've completed the prologue and 3 chapters so far, so tomorrow should see chapter 4.

For anyone who's considering doing this next year, I have to say...DO IT! It's so much more fun than what I thought it would be and I'm so glad that I stuck with it. I had envisioned this super stressful thing that I would end up dreading every day (and that may indeed happen), but as of now I'm loving this and I find myself craving my own story which is such a neat feeling. It's like my characters and story have taken over and I'm along for the ride. Every day, I sit at my computer thinking "ok, now what the hell am I going to write" and the story just goes. I love it! Now it's not great writing by any means, but the process is fascinating. I'm enjoying it.

I'm also finding where my weaknesses are which is great because I know where I can focus my energies on improving. For instance, I'm HORRIBLE at writing action scenes. I can't write suspense. I just can't do it as hard as I try. Now Bookfool can write suspense! She posted an excerpt on her profile which you can find by clicking on my writing buddies and I was blown away! I wish I could write a scene like that! But it's neat to see where you need improvement and now that I know I'll try to put a little more effort into that area.

In other news, there's only about 12 more hours until the drawing for the 3 books I'm giving away! So here's last call. You have until 12:00 noon Central time on 11/4 to get your comment in if you want to be in the draw for any of the books I'm giving away in the sticky post!

NaNoWriMo Day 2 And Reading Decisions

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo has come and gone for me. I think I'm putting away my typing fingers for the afternoon after reaching 4,071 words today. I'm happy with what I've got done so far, so I'm taking the rest of the night off. 16 pages: a prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 complete...all rough drafts of course...VERY rough! I posted the first part of chapter 2 on my nano profile if anyone's interested, though keep in mind that serious revisions will have to be made!! But revision time is in December, right now we are supposed to just aim at getting 50,000 words typed by November 30th. For some reason the site took out all of the indentations from my paragraphs and the site is way too slow for me to be bothered with going back to fix it, so excuse that. I've put a link to my NaNo profile in my sidebar, so you can follow my progress there if you so desire :)

So on to reading decisions. I've got my reading all mapped out for the month of November and probably the beginning of December. I'll be finishing up the Classics challenge, 2nds challenge, and Four-Legged Friends challenge this month and into next. Here's what November looks like:

-Finish Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
-The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
-Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
-Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
-The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason (yay! I won an ARC :)
-A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
-Watership Down by Richard Adams
-Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo

After that, I devised a system for all of these challenges, lol. Ok, so I wrote down all of the books that I've signed up for to read in 2008 and I've already commited myself to 50 books next year!! I made myself feel better by reminding myself that I didn't sign up for the 888 challenge which would've been a 64 book commitment in itself. So, how on earth would I ever choose which book to read next with 50 books to choose from with all of these challenges?? I went with the obvious answer and put all of the titles in a hat and that's how I'll choose what I'm reading in 2008...I'll pick each book out one at a time from the hat! That way it adds a little excitement to me when it comes to what I get to read next. Ok, it's getting bad, huh?

Now I'll go look forward to a great weekend of football with LSU playing Alabama and the Saints against Jacksonville! Both games should be great!

New Challenges And First Day Of NaNo!

There are a couple of new challenges that are catching my eye out there, so I'm signing up for 2 more! I'm calling 2008 "clean off the the TBR Bookshelf year". So I'm going to go ahead and admit that I've officially lost it by signing up for all these challenges, but it's all in good cause, because I own all of these books. And if I don't succeed in completing all of them, I won't be too hard on myself because at least I got some of the stuff cleared off the shelf.

The first challenge is really cool! It's being hosted by Annie and it's the What's in a Name? Challenge! This one runs all the way from January til December and you pick 1 book from each of the 6 following categories:

1. A Book with a color in it's title: The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
2. A Book with an animal in it's title: Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
3. A Book with a first name in it's title: Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser
4. A Book with a place in it's tile: Baltimore by Mike Mignola (kinda cheating here as Baltimore is actually the name of a character :p)
5. A Book with a weather event in it's title: Storm Front by Jim Butcher
6. A Book with a plant in it's title: Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

The second challenge is Joy's Young Adult Challenge! This one is to read 12 young adult books in 12 months! Sign me up!

1. The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
2. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
3. Tamsin by Peter Beagle
4. Tithe by Holly Black
5. The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
6. The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
7. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
8. Freaks by Annette Curtis Klause
9. The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull
10. Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague by Brandon Mull
11. Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen
12. Marked by PC and Kristin Cast

More exciting challenge news! Bellezza has plans to host a Japanese reading challenge which I'm really excited and in preparation has a month of NaBloPoMo (national blog posting month) posts all about Japanese literature for us. So stay tuned to her blog for more news on that.

Today was my first day of NaNoWriMo and I got 2,039 words written. I did most of this while at work :p So, basically I'm making myself a paid author. Today was fun...it started out sort of stressful, but once I got into my own story it started taking me away and I can see that this will be a fun...but very stressful month! Only 48,000 words to go....oh Jesus....

And The Days Roll On....

God I hope work picks up...So far I have no referrals...zero, zilch, nada. Today was my second day at the school and I literally spent the entire 7 hour day checking my email over and over and over again. Oh wait, I went to Wendy's for a half an hour for lunch. Now keep in mind, I'm at an alternative school, so all of these kids most certainly have behavioral problems...I'm just not getting the referrals. If they haven't come by tomorrow morning, I'm going to ask my supervisor if I can send a memo out to all the teachers letting them know what I do instead of just waiting for referrals from the social worker. That way, if the teachers notice kids who are struggling, they can make referrals to me themselves. Until I get referrals, I have nothing to do and no clients to see.

One good thing that came out of today was that I started brainstorming for NaNoWriMo and I now have a plot, characters, and even a title!! So I started outlining a little bit and I'm really excited about my story now. Looking forward to starting it. It's a fantasy and the title will be A Sunrise in Nowhere. The story was inspired by a quote I read while I was bored and, well...reading quotes online. Here it is:

"No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." -Sigmund Freud (From Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, 1905.)

Update: Look who arrived at their new home today!!!

Sticking With It

It is such a beautiful day in New Orleans today. This cool front is finally coming through and it's knocked all humidity out of the city...thank God! According to ForecastFox, it's 77 degrees and Sunny right now and it's just perfect. The whole weekend is supposed to be pretty. Then Monday morning we're supposed to get lots of rain and the highs are only supposed to be in the low 70's! Yay, Autumn's finally here :)

So, Sticking with it...the title of the post. Refers to NaNoWriMo. I was considering dropping out of participating. First of all, I had assumed that the new job would consume all of my time, which it will, but I'll make time. Second of all, I don't know if I'm liking my original plot and story line, but I may go with it anyway. But last night I stared and stared at my reminder email from NaNo and thought of how great of a feeling it would be to write a novel and decided to go ahead and register...and I did. Plus, Dark Orpheus is putting the pressure on, so I have to join her :p Is anyone else joining in? If so, here's my profile, add me as a friend!

I also think that I'm going to do my own little read-a-thon today. Everyone's participating in Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon and it sounds like so much fun! I'm not up for a full 24 hours since Saturday has become "catch up on sleep day", but it would be nice to knock out some of these challenge books that have been stressing me out. So I think I'm going to sit outside and enjoy this weather and read my 2 DiCamillo's for the Four-Legged Friends Challenge, my last Newbery Challenge book, and if there's time, one of my Classics Challenge books. Of course this all has to be done before the 8:00 LSU vs. Auburn game tonight!!! We're also electing a new governor here in Louisiana today so I most certainly have to vote. We've never needed a new governor like we do now!

Surprise Day Off

Well I was supposed to be at work for 8:00 this morning and what do you know! I woke up to my phone ringing at 8:43 with my boss asking if I just wanted the day off. She's a very cool woman. At first I apologized profusely then realized that I finish all of my work by 9:00 and then sit on my butt until 1:00...so I'm enjoying my day off.

I haven't overslept in so long and that's always been a very anxiety provoking issue for me. When I was an undergrad in college I used to "oversleep" through class all the time. But that was mostly because I just didn't want to go to class. Now I worry all the time that when I get a "real job" I'm going to oversleep. So when the real job comes about, I think I'll start trying the old "put the alarm clock across the room so you have to out of bed to turn it off" trick. I'm afraid that's the only thing that will work for this guy.

Part of the reason I overslept is because I just can't make myself go to bed at night! It could have something to do with drinking coffee all day right up until 10 p.m. I just can't get to bed before midnight. Last night I laid in bed thinking of all sorts of stuff. Mostly of what I want to write about when NaNoWriMo comes around and I've ditched the old story line and I've finally come up with one that I really like and can't wait to write! Unfortunately it kept me up til 2 in the morning, but I have high hopes for it. It will be a modern fantasy...an urban fantasy I guess you could say and will involve faerie folk, a young boy, pods and will no doubt be depressing at times as my writing is....but my writing also tends to have an uplifting tone when everything works out, so hopefully it won't end in leaving everyone depressed. We'll see where it takes me.

No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

Chris Baty is the founder of National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo, which I've decided to try out this year. In preparation for doing so, I decided to read his book, No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. That's exactly what NaNoWriMo is for those who are wondering: It's 30 days of non-stop novel writing madness. It starts on November 1st and ends on midnight, November 30th, with a goal of 50,000 words.

This book is excellent! I've been looking for a great book on writing and this one is superb. Though it's superb for a 30 day writing process...don't know if it's the right book for your typical novel writer, though it does have some great universal tips. This book is basically a guide for NaNoWriMo from someone who's obviously been through the process since he invented it. The first section of the book focuses on what you should expect, what you need to prepare yourself, selecting the right notebooks, selecting the right locations to write, selecting the right time to write, plot, characters, and basically how to survive during the process. The second section of the book is a week by week account of the writing process and you are supposed to read each chapter at the beginning of each week of the writing process (I obviously jumped ahead). The final section deals with what to do when the process is over and gives tips on rewrites, possibilities of publishing, etc.

I really enjoyed this book. Not only was it informative, but it was a fun read. Baty has a great writing style and totally entertained me. The book was right around 50,000 words so that the reader gets an idea of what a 50,000 word book looks like. Throughout the book there are quotes from past "winners" of NaNoWriMo so you're constantly getting input from others who have gone through the process and it sounds like a great experience.

Baty's main point here is that anyone can do NaNoWriMo and anyone can write a book. It just takes determination. The thing he stressed over and over again was "quantity not quality." Remember that the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days and that you're writing a rough draft. So just focus on getting to 50,000 words and rewrite later. There were 2 quotes that I loved referring to that idea. The first comes from Ernest Hemingway: "The first draft of anything is shit." The second came from the author, Chris Baty: "you should lower the bar from 'best seller' to 'would not make someone vomit.'" See guys, the expectations really aren't that high.

Great book for anyone looking for a little bit of motivation in the area of writing. I was considering participating in NaNoWriMo before, and I think that this book just about sealed the deal for me. Warning: you guys will be needed for support in November...clear the calendar ;)