Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category
National Novel Writer’s Month
Written by John Erianne on November 13, 2008 – 11:21 am -For those of you who’ve been living in a cave, it’s that time of year — no, I’m not talking about the holidays (although, many writers do consider this annual event a big holiday) — I’m talking about National Novel Writer’s Month:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, kiddies, the month is half over already. What are you waiting for?
This post is sponsored by Orovo.
Reflections on the Election
Written by John Erianne on November 5, 2008 – 11:38 am -
I woke-up early yesterday morning. I was like a kid at Christmas. I’ve never looked forward to casting a vote as much as I did this year. I’ll admit it — I am one of those cynical Americans Barack Obama often referred to on the campaign trail. And, after eight years of Bush, I’d just about given up any hope that this country had any future. I would pivot between rage and apathy. George W. Bush made me ashamed to be an American. Bush’s America was small and petty and cruel and fearful and not the America I’d been taught to believe in as a child. Barack Obama restored my good feelings about this country and about my own citizenship. And so, it was with that good, warm and fuzzy feeling that I cast my vote for the Obama/Biden ticket and spent a good portion of the remainder of the day sitting on pins and needles waiting for the polls to close and the results to pour in. Once they called Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida it was a foregone conclusion that Senator Obama would become President-Elect Obama and, ultimately, the 44th President of these United States.
As everyone else celebrated (many dancing in the streets), the commentators on Fox News were in shock. Despite the fact that for weeks, the polls clearly indicated that Obama would win easily, I think Brit Hume and company really believed that there no way in hell the United States would ever elect a black man. That the chants of “socialist,” “terrorist” would scare people into embracing McCain. That Joe the Plumber somehow represented “real America” and would convince voters in a way that McCain couldn’t. But that’s just it. Fox News and the Republican Party live in a bubble when it comes to this country. There are lots of reasons why McCain lost this election, but the main reason probably has little to do with McCain himself and a whole lot to do with the fact that the party in power has been a party of exclusivity. If you don’t agree with the far right-wing philosophy there is no place for you at their table. The most tragic thing about the Bush years, beyond the war in Iraq and the collapsing economy — beyond Katrina and the narrow social agenda of the religious right is that the vast majority of us simply became outcasts in our own country. One of the things Barack Obama was able to tap into is the fact that we are not really a country of “blue states” and “red states.” This is not strictly a center-right country. Our political and social make-up is much more complicated than that.
I don’t know that Obama will live up to his promise — politicians so rarely do. But if anyone can rise to genuine greatness, Barack Obama has a head-start on most. He’s already done the impossible: He made the most cynical among us feel like Americans again.
Studs Terkel, Dead at 96
Written by John Erianne on October 31, 2008 – 10:39 pm -
“I want a language that speaks the truth.”
“I think it’s realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: ‘I despair. The world’s no good.’ That’s a perverse idealist. It’s practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That’s very realistic. ”
“Someone who does an act. In a democratic society, you’re supposed to be an activist; that is, you participate. It could be a letter written to an editor. “ — Studs Terkel
Noted American writer, historian and activist, Studs Terkel died peacefully in his Chicago home today. He was 96.
Terkel was born in New York City in 1912 to Russian-Jewish parents, but lived most of his life in Chicago. He earned a law degree from the University of Chicago, but was never a practicing lawyer. Instead, Terkel joined the Federal Writer’s Project working in radio as an actor and newscaster during the Great Depression. This eventually lead to him having his own long-running radio show which ran from 1952 to 1997. During the 1950s, he was among the writers blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer.
Studs Terkel is probably best known for bestselling, award-winning oral histories. Among them, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression and “The Good War” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his writing, Terkel was a passionate advocate for peace and social justice. He shall be missed.
This post was sponsored by Rentalo.com: Wouldn’t you just love to get away to one of those exotic vacation rentals somewhere far away?
