NanoWriMo Ho, Ho, Ho!
Published November 27th, 2009 | 
So I did it.
I hit my 50000+ words.
I got a messy and incomplete first draft of a novel. A tangled mess of words that will need a lot of my sweat to get it even close to the neighborhood of publishable. (Truly, when I say it needs a lot of work, I’m admitting outright that there are parts of this thing I read once I passed the 50000 words that are so bad I almost puked on the ceramic tiles — seriously!) But I did it. I am as of November 26 2009, NanoWriMo "winner".
Most of the sweat that I’m yet to pour into this manuscript will have to wait at least a couple of months as I’ve got other things to do. I’m still somewhat stunned my own fortitude. Prior to this, I think the longest manuscript I’d written was around 24500 words. After I finally crossed the 35000 word barrier, I made up my mind to spend the next two or three days writing at the expense of everything else. I had no desire to work on this thing over the weekend and Monday was definitely out of the question. So, aside from the time it took me to eat my turkey dinner and a couple of bathroom breaks, I wrote, wrote, wrote. I didn’t watch any of the Macy’s parade. I didn’t watch football. I just rocked the keyboard for several hours.
I was surprised to discover that I’d crossed the finish line. I glanced down at the bottom of the page and noticed the page number and thought, Jeez, I must be getting close. So I checked the word count and sure enough, I’d not only gotten close, I’d passed the mark. I figured I had at least another 24 hours of work ahead of me.
Anyway, I may participate next year. That’s yet to be determined. But, I’m patting myself on the back for just a few moments before turning in for the night. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. See you on the flipside.
Health, Safety and Your Messy Office
Published November 25th, 2009 | If you’re like me, you don’t keep a very neat workspace. I like to have the things I need (dictionaries, highlighters, file folder, etc.) within arms-length of me. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of clutter as I find I need so many resources during the course of my day. I also don’t have a lot of room for bookshelves, so I have more books than space to keep them, and this inevitably leads me to stack them on the floor. Adding to the fact that I am a slob is that my writing space is my bedroom, so I also have things like dumbbells on the floor, shoes and such laying around. In other words, my writing space is a cluttered firetrap. A horrible death scene waiting to happen. Yes, this uncomfortable thought came to me early this morning — 3 a.m. and I was still up working on my NanoWriMo novel. I got out of my chair and stretched and headed towards the bathroom to take a leak and tripped on a pair of walking shoes. Luckily, the wall was there to break my fall or I’d have surely broken my neck.
It was right then that I started to think about safety. Little things I could do to improve my working environment. It doesn’t even require expensive safety products, just some common sense.
1. Don’t put things in the middle of the floor. Likewise don’t obstruct heating vents.
2. Return books to shelves if you have shelves. If not at least stack them neatly and out of the way (preferably not in front of heating vents and radiators.
3. Have a working smoke detector and fire extinguisher handy.
4. Use surge protectors.
And finally,
5. Take out the trash at regular intervals and shower while you’re at it. Yeah, I know, when you’re hard at work, sometimes you live at your desk, but if you’ve been chained there for 40 days and 40 nights and have accumulated a nasty collection of whiskey bottles, Starbucks cups and started to grow mold around your ears, it’s time to clean house.
What Every Writer Should Know
Published November 25th, 2009 | One of the things I’m always preaching is that writers and bloggers should know something about publishing and copyright law. One of my gripes about graduate-level writing programs has to do with the fact that almost none of them offer any sort of coursework on publishing law or the publishing business in general.
Well, there’s a neat little website by intellectual property lawyer, Lloyd J. Jassin (author of The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook) called Copylaw.com that offers articles on the subject of publishing law that every writer and blogger should read. Articles on copyright infringement, fair use, publisher’s business insurance, Work-for-hire agreements and negotiating book contracts among other articles and resources. Bookmark this site.
