The wind blew all the lovely yellow leaves off the maples trees and dumped them all over the yard. They’re piled up against the stone wall, the play house, the sandbox. Once they dry–if they dry–they’ll be lots of fun to throw up, kick around, jump into.
Last night we went trick or treating in a snowfall. Soft delicate flakes perched in hair, on cloaks and tiaras and winter jackets. Kids clutched handles in cold-numbed fingers, hid their costumes under coats. Jack o’ lanterns booed and grinned and winked, and one haunted house was declared too “spookery” by Miss M. to go up to.
And, today its November. The year may be dying, but November roars in with a crackle of mad energy. It’s NaNoWriMo, dontchaknow! My blog reader is abuzz with NaNo-related posts. I’m afraid to go to my writing forums in case all that fervor causes a wildfire. And NaNo’s not the only thing going on–there are also NaNoJouMo and Art Every Day for those of us who are more into visual arts (via daisy yellow).
And there’s Sir I’s birthday (six! he’s going to be six!), Thanksgiving, and Christmas winking at me from the end of December (got THREE Christmas catalogs in the mail today).
AND the Best Writing Buddy Ever (TM) got back to me with comments on Quartz (she liked it! she really liked it! BUT…). Personal goal for the month? Do a last pass on Quartz (that’ll be version 3) and get a submission package together before Thanksgiving. No more drifting, floating, lazing.
Ready or not, November’s here!
Rabia, Thx for mentioning the artsy nano-challenges; I enjoyed your related post on whether or not to nano this year. I like that your habits are entrenched and solid and you feel confidence in your writing process. I hesitated to do the artsy challenges; I already create every day because love to! But it really is a great adrenalin rush to create and be in the action of it all. So I’m in for year two. ~ Tammy
I’m very tempted by the Art Everyday Challenge. Revision comes first, though, so November is a buckle-down-get-to-work month. Let’s see how good I am at deadlines. 😀
How exciting! Once Quartz is done any chance you’re going to let any of us nonindustry folks take a peek? I’m like seriously wanting to read this book.
I admit to modifying NaNoWriMo to my own purposes this month. My November WRITING goals:
• write 10 short stories (aiming for 5000 words each, but knowing me, most won’t be that long)
• finish 1st pass on revision plan for In This Wood
• sketch out script for possible documentary
In that priority order. I don’t think I’m talented enough at art to go for one of those, but I’ll have plenty to do with just this. 😀
So NaNoRevisMo for you and NaShoStMo for me. So excited! Keep us updsted on how it’s going! (and any tips… :grins: )
Thanks, Megs!
Once Quartz is done, I’m sending it out to agents and/or publishers. I’d be happy to let you take a peek at it after that process is over, if that’s okay. I’m trying to minimize feedback at this point. That sounds weird, but I have this “too many cooks spoil the broth” approach to my work. It’s too easy to get stuck in a cycle of endless revisions because everyone has some kind of constructive criticism to make and then I’d feel obligated to change things… and never get the ms out!
It’s nice to have a modified-NaNo buddy, though! Will you be posting updates on your site? We can compare notes every week or so.
Yay! Glad to have you back!
What if I like vow to silence and am forbidden to say ANYthing more descriptive than “I liked it”? (I won’t take it personal if you still say no [have to keep my sis’s fingers out of my stories all the time])
I’ll try to make my status updates a little more descriptive. I weighted my days in the tracker your hubby made, so yesterday I wrote 1230 words and that was 30 words over my goal. 😀
Hee. I’ll take your promise into consideration. I’ll email you my final FINAL truly-FINAL version sometime after November.
Glad you’re finding David’s tracker useful. He’s planning on coding it to handle individual challenges (where you set the goal and time frame). So, stay tuned for that feature. 😀