Yes folks, it's that time of year when the wanna-be novelists put their fingies to the keyboards and click-clack away! And once again, I am acting as municipal liaison for Lake County Ohio...an emissary for the deviants who created National Novel Writing Month back in 1999. What started as your basic lunatic idea, attempting to write a 50,000-word novel in one month, has become an annual international phenomenon.
When I wrote my first novel, it was an exercise. I wanted to see if I could actually write a complete book. It took an entire year of voicing my thoughts into a hand-held recorder while driving or waiting for kids, then typing it up during my lunch breaks at work until it was all in one cohesive document. I was determined to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did.
Most people out there who just "know" they have a book in them don't have the drive to get it down on paper or computer. The task seems overwhelming.
They begin to create, and by the time they've massaged the same chapter a hundred times, they give up. The point of NaNoWriMo is to get it on paper. Just write with abandon: no editing, no rewriting. As NaNo's are fond of telling people "Editing is for the OTHER 11 months of the year." (You have to do something while you're waiting for the next year's event, right?)
I will be the first to admit, this is probably not the most "normal" way to write a book, but is there really an acceptable way to create? I know someone who was so desperate to get her book written that she would write on a notepad in the bathroom while sitting atop the throne. It was the only place in the house that she could get away from the kids and the husband and have a few minutes to herself. She wrote that entire book in her bathroom.
A novel written in a month can't be very good, you say? Amazing as it may seem, there have been several NaNo's who have cleaned up their NaNo manuscripts (taking advantage of the OTHER 11 months of the year) and managed to get book deals and publication.
So if writing that elusive novel has always been your dream, but you lack the motivation to attack the daunting task, join your fellow lunatic writers at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and get that book written this month!
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The Novel Experiment Continues - Number 2
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their comments on the first novel excerpt that I posted. I found all of your comments and suggestions helpful. So I decided to post an excerpt from another novel that I have sitting on a back burner, waiting for my time and attention. If you have the time and the inclination to read this, the preface to "The Disappearance of Jack" I would be most appreciative. All comments welcome!
The Disappearance of Jack
It was a truly amazing thing, a world unto itself, and yet, a world unto all. It was a place where one could seek information relentlessly and anonymously. It was a place where billions of bits of ideas, lies, truths and facts converged in a maelstrom of information, only to be categorized, classified, compartmentalized, sorted out and put to rest in countless databases.
Sarah found it endlessly fascinating. Sometimes she would start with a simple search and end up spending hours jumping from one intriguing site to the next. If not for work, laundry, meals, sleep and the other mundane duties of life, she would be forever glued to her flat-screen monitor happily clicking away.
What was the harm in that? It was not as though perusing the universe in such a way was intrinsically wrong. In doing so, she had learned an enormous amount about the world and about life, both good and bad. Sadly, she had also learned that she was observing life, not living it. She was one of the silent ones who watch the events of the world unfold around them without ever making a peep. Sarah was certainly not one to put herself, or her ideas, forward for comment, and her rather awkward shyness contributed to her absolute lack of a social life. It seemed the only way to have a life, while not giving up her beloved on-line time was to use the same venue as a conduit, a pipe-line for meeting new people, communicating, exchanging ideas and information, making new friends.
That is just what Sarah intended to do. In the previous month, she had posted three on-line profiles at various sites to meet other adults, and she had installed two messaging programs. An amazing number of replies to her profiles had found their way to her e-mail account, and she was rapidly learning how to use the messaging programs to find others also seeking communication.
It was not that she didn't have a life outside the ether, you understand. She worked a full-time job and talked with people all day long. A social life was something all together different, and the Internet was just a way of expanding her universe to include many things that would otherwise be, not only impossible, or unimaginable, but perhaps even unthinkable. Yet she could remain at a very safe distance behind a veil of anonymity, sequestered in the haven that was her home.
But that veil was thinner and much more translucent than Sarah could possibly fathom. She had no inkling just how expansive, how unthinkable, how unimaginable, and how very close to home her new universe could be.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Novel Experiment
This is part of the first chapter of a possible novel. I'm not sure if I should pursue the story. I'm welcoming all comments! Thanks!
Once Dead, Twice Shy
If someone tells you that death is the be all and end all, that when you’re dead, you’re dead…don’t believe a word of it because it just isn’t true. I’ve been dead, and I can tell you from personal, first-hand experience that all kind of activity was going on over on the other side. For one thing, the place was full of dead people. Dead kids were romping and playing like there was no tomorrow. Dead adults were milling around, talking, laughing and enjoying their “retirement”.
It was, quite simply, overwhelming. When I found myself there, I was instantly surrounded by crowds, everyone checking out the “newbie” to see if I was someone they needed to welcome. I was miraculously calm; not my normal self at all.
I searched the crowd for what seemed a good five minutes, and much to my delight, my grandmother emerged from the throng, a huge smile on her face. She gave me a bear hug…the kind she always doled out when she came to visit us long ago.
“Grandma!” I said and I started to cry.
“Good Lord, you haven’t changed a bit, Deenie…still weeping at the drop of a hat! You’re certainly not ready to be here, so stop your sniveling and go back where you came from!”
“Grandma?”
She pushed me backward until I tripped over my own feet. So much for a warm and welcoming reception! As I struggled to regain my footing, someone tapped me on the back. I whirled around to find my 8th grade English teacher?
“Mrs. Handeyville?” I asked, my voice dripping with incredulity.
“Deena dear,” she said and handed me a term paper with a big red “F” scrawled across the top. “That was a very nice try, but you’re just not working up to your potential. Now you go back home and do it right this time.”
She turned and walked back into the crowd; I stood there with my mouth hanging open, the F-laden term paper dangling from my hand.
The next and most unlikely surprise was Mac. From the time I was started kindergarten until we moved out of the city right after third grade, Mac was the beat cop with the kindly face that manned the crosswalk as I walked to school. I hadn’t seen him or thought of him in more than 30 years. Although he only looked vaguely familiar to me, I knew who he was the moment he firmly grabbed me by the arm.
“Go that way, Deena” he said, pointing me away from the light. “You’re not finished there and lives depend on you.”
“Lives depend on me? What do you mean ‘Lives depend on me’? What are you talking about?”
A little more information would have been helpful, but all he did was give me a hard shove back into the darkness.
Suddenly I was gasping for air.
I opened my eyes. Everything was white. I reached out and found a sheet over my face. As I pulled it away, the sterile hospital-room environment came swirling into view. What the hell happened? And what was I doing here?
Gingerly, I felt my arms, head and upper torso. Convinced I was still intact, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Were my legs working? Yes, I could feel the sheet on my toes. I swung my legs over the edge of the table before I realized I was buck-naked. Then my eyes and stomach began to swim and I lowered my head between my knees and took slow, deep breaths, hoping to regain my faculties. After a few very long minutes, I inched my way up until I was sitting normally again. Where were my clothes? I slid off the edge of the table and touched my feet to the floor, tentatively, wrapping myself in the sheet as I tested my ability to stand.
I walked forward a few halting steps, using the cold tile wall as my crutch. When I turned around, I saw a telltale, blue plastic hospital bag under the table.
“Thank God!” I said, aloud.
I opened the bag and extracted the remains of my clothing. My running shoes and jeans were intact, but my brand new L. L. Bean T-shirt, my favorite Victoria Secret bra and the matching panties were cut to ribbons.
“Damn! I only wore that shirt once. And my undies! Don’t these people believe in unfastening?”
I slipped into the jeans, sans the underpinnings. It was my first, and hopefully last, experience with rough seams rubbing and chafing in places unmentionable. I was over 40; it was hardly the time to start going panty-less, and although I wasn’t sagging as much as most of the over 40 crowd, going bra-less was not very appealing either.
With the sheet draped over my form like some kind of oddly huge sarong, I made my way to the wall of storage bins and cupboards. I flung open all the doors and drawers until I came across a stash of clean hospital gowns. After fastening all the appropriate arm snaps, I put one of the cursed things on backward, rolled it up above my waist and tied it under my unfettered bosoms, sort of a large hospital-gown dam, keeping the twins at bay. Dumping the remaining contents of the plastic bag on the table, I retrieved my cell phone, my purse (which amazingly appeared to be untouched) and my car keys. Then I slipped into my shoes and bravely stepped forth into the hallway.
“Excuse me,” I said to the only other human I could see…a nurse with her nose in some charts. “Could you tell me where I am?”
She didn’t even look up. “Metro.”
I guess I hadn’t yet made an impression.
“Would you mind telling me what happened, how I got here and who cut up my L.L. Bean T-shirt and my Victoria Secret undies?”
She looked up. The sarcastic retort she intended was choked off by a blood curdling scream. Then she hit some kind of button that set off a security siren.
Policemen and security guards came running, guns drawn. They found the nurse cowering in a corner and me, clad in jeans and my makeshift bustier, purse slung over my shoulder, leaning on the chest-high counter at the nurse’s station.
“She’s dead, she’s dead!” screamed the quivering mass of supposed medical knowledge.
“What’s going on here?” one policeman demanded.
“That’s exactly what I was asking. Then she started screaming and pushing buttons,” I said.
“You must have done something,” he said.
“Well I did. I woke up naked and covered with a sheet in a room down the hall. I found my shoes and jeans and what was left of my brand new L.L. Bean T-shirt and my gorgeous matching Victoria Secret bra and panties in a plastic hospital bag under the table. I got dressed as best I could and came out here to ask what happened, how I got here and especially who cut up my clothes. She took one look at me and went ballistic. I think the guys in white coats need to come take her to a safe place.”
“She’s dead, she’s dead!” the nurse continued to scream.
“Give it a break, lady,” I said. “You’re not the one who just woke up naked and covered from head to toe like a cadaver.”
Drawn guns followed me as I walked to the other side of the hall and sat down in a chair.
“I’m not leaving until someone tells me how I got here and who destroyed my clothing.”
The rest of the day will live in infamy, at least in my mind. I was detained for hours as the hospital administrator grilled me. I was re-examined at considerable length by the doctor who had declared me dead only hours before, as well as by his superiors and multiple other colleagues.
Upwards of 95% of the medical staff wandered in and out of the room gawking at the ‘miracle woman’ who had awakened from the dead. I was poked and prodded, quite literally, up one end and down the other. Finally, I was told that I was brought in by ambulance after suffering a severe allergic reaction…to crab cakes.
After about 8 hours of insanity, they put their collective medical degrees to work and came up with two conclusions that no lay person could ever possibly have figured out:
1) I was most definitely not dead and
2) I should avoid eating crab cakes…duh.
I never did find out the name of the culprit that slashed my clothing…and no offer of reimbursement was forthcoming. I wondered if I could claim the pricey undies on my insurance.
Eventually, I was released on my own recognizance. In other words, I refused to stay any longer. They had no legal right to keep me there. As I climbed into the cab that would take me back to the restaurant where the fatal crab-cake incident had occurred, I saw the screaming nurse, strapped to a gurney, being loaded into an ambulance marked Haverford Sanitorium. How fitting, I thought…and smiled.
Once Dead, Twice Shy
If someone tells you that death is the be all and end all, that when you’re dead, you’re dead…don’t believe a word of it because it just isn’t true. I’ve been dead, and I can tell you from personal, first-hand experience that all kind of activity was going on over on the other side. For one thing, the place was full of dead people. Dead kids were romping and playing like there was no tomorrow. Dead adults were milling around, talking, laughing and enjoying their “retirement”.
It was, quite simply, overwhelming. When I found myself there, I was instantly surrounded by crowds, everyone checking out the “newbie” to see if I was someone they needed to welcome. I was miraculously calm; not my normal self at all.
I searched the crowd for what seemed a good five minutes, and much to my delight, my grandmother emerged from the throng, a huge smile on her face. She gave me a bear hug…the kind she always doled out when she came to visit us long ago.
“Grandma!” I said and I started to cry.
“Good Lord, you haven’t changed a bit, Deenie…still weeping at the drop of a hat! You’re certainly not ready to be here, so stop your sniveling and go back where you came from!”
“Grandma?”
She pushed me backward until I tripped over my own feet. So much for a warm and welcoming reception! As I struggled to regain my footing, someone tapped me on the back. I whirled around to find my 8th grade English teacher?
“Mrs. Handeyville?” I asked, my voice dripping with incredulity.
“Deena dear,” she said and handed me a term paper with a big red “F” scrawled across the top. “That was a very nice try, but you’re just not working up to your potential. Now you go back home and do it right this time.”
She turned and walked back into the crowd; I stood there with my mouth hanging open, the F-laden term paper dangling from my hand.
The next and most unlikely surprise was Mac. From the time I was started kindergarten until we moved out of the city right after third grade, Mac was the beat cop with the kindly face that manned the crosswalk as I walked to school. I hadn’t seen him or thought of him in more than 30 years. Although he only looked vaguely familiar to me, I knew who he was the moment he firmly grabbed me by the arm.
“Go that way, Deena” he said, pointing me away from the light. “You’re not finished there and lives depend on you.”
“Lives depend on me? What do you mean ‘Lives depend on me’? What are you talking about?”
A little more information would have been helpful, but all he did was give me a hard shove back into the darkness.
Suddenly I was gasping for air.
I opened my eyes. Everything was white. I reached out and found a sheet over my face. As I pulled it away, the sterile hospital-room environment came swirling into view. What the hell happened? And what was I doing here?
Gingerly, I felt my arms, head and upper torso. Convinced I was still intact, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Were my legs working? Yes, I could feel the sheet on my toes. I swung my legs over the edge of the table before I realized I was buck-naked. Then my eyes and stomach began to swim and I lowered my head between my knees and took slow, deep breaths, hoping to regain my faculties. After a few very long minutes, I inched my way up until I was sitting normally again. Where were my clothes? I slid off the edge of the table and touched my feet to the floor, tentatively, wrapping myself in the sheet as I tested my ability to stand.
I walked forward a few halting steps, using the cold tile wall as my crutch. When I turned around, I saw a telltale, blue plastic hospital bag under the table.
“Thank God!” I said, aloud.
I opened the bag and extracted the remains of my clothing. My running shoes and jeans were intact, but my brand new L. L. Bean T-shirt, my favorite Victoria Secret bra and the matching panties were cut to ribbons.
“Damn! I only wore that shirt once. And my undies! Don’t these people believe in unfastening?”
I slipped into the jeans, sans the underpinnings. It was my first, and hopefully last, experience with rough seams rubbing and chafing in places unmentionable. I was over 40; it was hardly the time to start going panty-less, and although I wasn’t sagging as much as most of the over 40 crowd, going bra-less was not very appealing either.
With the sheet draped over my form like some kind of oddly huge sarong, I made my way to the wall of storage bins and cupboards. I flung open all the doors and drawers until I came across a stash of clean hospital gowns. After fastening all the appropriate arm snaps, I put one of the cursed things on backward, rolled it up above my waist and tied it under my unfettered bosoms, sort of a large hospital-gown dam, keeping the twins at bay. Dumping the remaining contents of the plastic bag on the table, I retrieved my cell phone, my purse (which amazingly appeared to be untouched) and my car keys. Then I slipped into my shoes and bravely stepped forth into the hallway.
“Excuse me,” I said to the only other human I could see…a nurse with her nose in some charts. “Could you tell me where I am?”
She didn’t even look up. “Metro.”
I guess I hadn’t yet made an impression.
“Would you mind telling me what happened, how I got here and who cut up my L.L. Bean T-shirt and my Victoria Secret undies?”
She looked up. The sarcastic retort she intended was choked off by a blood curdling scream. Then she hit some kind of button that set off a security siren.
Policemen and security guards came running, guns drawn. They found the nurse cowering in a corner and me, clad in jeans and my makeshift bustier, purse slung over my shoulder, leaning on the chest-high counter at the nurse’s station.
“She’s dead, she’s dead!” screamed the quivering mass of supposed medical knowledge.
“What’s going on here?” one policeman demanded.
“That’s exactly what I was asking. Then she started screaming and pushing buttons,” I said.
“You must have done something,” he said.
“Well I did. I woke up naked and covered with a sheet in a room down the hall. I found my shoes and jeans and what was left of my brand new L.L. Bean T-shirt and my gorgeous matching Victoria Secret bra and panties in a plastic hospital bag under the table. I got dressed as best I could and came out here to ask what happened, how I got here and especially who cut up my clothes. She took one look at me and went ballistic. I think the guys in white coats need to come take her to a safe place.”
“She’s dead, she’s dead!” the nurse continued to scream.
“Give it a break, lady,” I said. “You’re not the one who just woke up naked and covered from head to toe like a cadaver.”
Drawn guns followed me as I walked to the other side of the hall and sat down in a chair.
“I’m not leaving until someone tells me how I got here and who destroyed my clothing.”
The rest of the day will live in infamy, at least in my mind. I was detained for hours as the hospital administrator grilled me. I was re-examined at considerable length by the doctor who had declared me dead only hours before, as well as by his superiors and multiple other colleagues.
Upwards of 95% of the medical staff wandered in and out of the room gawking at the ‘miracle woman’ who had awakened from the dead. I was poked and prodded, quite literally, up one end and down the other. Finally, I was told that I was brought in by ambulance after suffering a severe allergic reaction…to crab cakes.
After about 8 hours of insanity, they put their collective medical degrees to work and came up with two conclusions that no lay person could ever possibly have figured out:
1) I was most definitely not dead and
2) I should avoid eating crab cakes…duh.
I never did find out the name of the culprit that slashed my clothing…and no offer of reimbursement was forthcoming. I wondered if I could claim the pricey undies on my insurance.
Eventually, I was released on my own recognizance. In other words, I refused to stay any longer. They had no legal right to keep me there. As I climbed into the cab that would take me back to the restaurant where the fatal crab-cake incident had occurred, I saw the screaming nurse, strapped to a gurney, being loaded into an ambulance marked Haverford Sanitorium. How fitting, I thought…and smiled.
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