My wonderful DC friends got in last night and we stayed up talked until 4 a.m., and they're still sleeping. I woke up thinking about NaNoWriMo. For someone who is not particularly adventurous and never much of a rule-breaker, I have a lot of trouble with self control, as evidenced by multiple 30-something for 30-something goals (next installment coming soon!), so I started to get a little bit worried that some weird part of me will rebel and not do it just to spite me.
But I do work better within some sort of framework, when I can feel the boundaries around me, so I am setting up some gentle rules. In fact, let us call them guidelines instead.
1. It's OK to let other stuff slide in November. I will probably not go to the gym very often, which is awesome because I'm always looking for an excuse for that. I will allow our apartment to get even less spic and span. I may not call people back in a timely fashion (but if you are on fire, please tell me and I will of course call you back immediately). It's just a month and things like that will be alright.
2. It's also OK to waste a little money in November. I am allowed to buy the good coffee at work and also not pack my lunch, guilt-free. J. gave me 10 coupons for my birthday that say "one free NaNoWriMo dinner" on them, which is kind of perfect -- I suspect I will not be cooking much in November either.
3. I will not, however, miss my knitting group or African dance or my week-long DC/NJ/PA Thanksigiving visit (how on earth am I going to write this thing when I'm traveling?) or the Dar concert for which I already have tickets.
4. I will not stop doing schoolwork entirely or be late with assignments, even if that means I fall behind with my word count.
5. If I get freaked out, I will read this (Wednesday Chef, inspiring) or this (Junot Diaz, also inspiring or this (McSweeney's, hilarious) or Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.
6. I will update this blog periodically with annoying status updates and word counts.
Also, I don't want to be pushy, because this is, duh, a large time commitment and I wouldn't like to be forced or guilted into it myself. But if you're one of the people who's mentioned to me or written in the comments that you're sort of interested... please tell me if you're still sort of interested. I found out recently that one of my work friends has been planning to do it all on her own, and it made me feel instantly less alone in this crazy thing. As do all of you, just for reading this -- thank you in advance for the preliminary support.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
NaNo... no way. (yes way?)
So, uh. I might do NaNoWriMo.
*scuffles feet on floor, stares at shoes, feels weird*
For those who don't read way too many blogs like I do and haven't seen multitudes of bloggers try this crazy thing, NaNoWriMo is a writing project. Specifically, it's a commitment to write a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. You're not supposed to bring in any previous half-finished work, because you already care about it too much to be able to write the utter junk that will come out of writing so much so fast; it's supposed to be quantity, not quality. In the organizers' words:
I feel lame for even wanting to, because it's sort of targeted to people who haven't written novels, and I have, and it's sitting in a drawer being lonely and sad and I feel guilty whenever I even think about it -- and THAT, my friends, that is why I'm going to do this thing.
(Did I just say I AM going to do it and not I'm THINKING about doing it? Uh.)
But I don't want to feel bad and guilty about writing, I don't want all this weird baggage about agents and the economy and the feeling of looking at those thin pathetic rejection envelopes hanging around. The reason I started writing in the first place was because I wanted to, right? Because it was just what I wanted to do. And that hasn't changed, even though I bury it under all these layers of weirdness. I want to build without tearing down -- something that I, a relentlessly obsessive editor who actually enjoys the editing process, never even tried with the first novel.
November is even sort of a good time for me... my internship is over and I'm not going to start volunteering until after the holidays, which means I have one whole day a week when I don't have to be at school or at my job. (Things I am now ignoring: the entire week of Thanksgiving when I plan to be in three different states, the existence of end-of-semester papers and projects, a deadline for the longest and most in-depth article I've ever written for any publication, ever.) But hey, maybe I'll just write 20,000 words a day every Wednesday! Ha.
It's insane.
I'm doing it.
I just registered.
(Who's with me? Someone? Maybe?)
*scuffles feet on floor, stares at shoes, feels weird*
For those who don't read way too many blogs like I do and haven't seen multitudes of bloggers try this crazy thing, NaNoWriMo is a writing project. Specifically, it's a commitment to write a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. You're not supposed to bring in any previous half-finished work, because you already care about it too much to be able to write the utter junk that will come out of writing so much so fast; it's supposed to be quantity, not quality. In the organizers' words:
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.
I feel lame for even wanting to, because it's sort of targeted to people who haven't written novels, and I have, and it's sitting in a drawer being lonely and sad and I feel guilty whenever I even think about it -- and THAT, my friends, that is why I'm going to do this thing.
(Did I just say I AM going to do it and not I'm THINKING about doing it? Uh.)
But I don't want to feel bad and guilty about writing, I don't want all this weird baggage about agents and the economy and the feeling of looking at those thin pathetic rejection envelopes hanging around. The reason I started writing in the first place was because I wanted to, right? Because it was just what I wanted to do. And that hasn't changed, even though I bury it under all these layers of weirdness. I want to build without tearing down -- something that I, a relentlessly obsessive editor who actually enjoys the editing process, never even tried with the first novel.
November is even sort of a good time for me... my internship is over and I'm not going to start volunteering until after the holidays, which means I have one whole day a week when I don't have to be at school or at my job. (Things I am now ignoring: the entire week of Thanksgiving when I plan to be in three different states, the existence of end-of-semester papers and projects, a deadline for the longest and most in-depth article I've ever written for any publication, ever.) But hey, maybe I'll just write 20,000 words a day every Wednesday! Ha.
[T]he glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that.
It's insane.
I'm doing it.
I just registered.
(Who's with me? Someone? Maybe?)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
prompt
Can I even begin to say how awesome it is that Elizabeth is doing this? Take chances, get messy, make mistakes...
---
Behind her the noise escalated.
Turning around didn't seem like a particularly appealing option, really, not when she knew the simian house hadn't been cleaned yet today. The second the capuchins saw you (as they'd seen her a minute ago), they started kicking up an incredible racket, like a bunch of tiny lunatics in a 19th-century mental institution. They would swing menacingly from the roof, smacking each other with those weirdly human hands and opening their weirdly human mouths. Sometimes they'd even fling things from their cage at you -- toys, food, their own shit. Needless to say, the whole cleaning crew at the zoo left the simian house until the end of the day, hoping that some emergency would come up (a barfing kid that needed the clean-up mop in front of the giraffes, an agitated panda that had topped over its bamboo stand, anything) and make it impossible for them to go back to the goddamn monkeys, leaving it for the next shift.
Instead, blissfully, Gloria walked toward the sea otter enclosure.
It was a new part of the zoo, built recently on the heels of some craze involving a children's book that told the story of a sea lion needing glasses and having to make a visit to the optometrist. Sea otters and sea lions weren't the same, of course, but sea otters had been a lot easier for the zoo to acquire and none of the visitors seemed to differentiate, particularly. Gloria slipped into the door of the back of the enclosure and pulled the special mop from the small supply closet, went into the humid main part of the enclosure, and began to work in the corner farthest from the glass pane separating her from the crowd. The people were dim and foggy behind the glass; the sea lions swam back and forth in their shallow pool, presumably. Gloria didn't take much notice.
Behind her, someone knocked on the door and she stood the mop against the wall. It wasn't unusual for another zoo employee to come in at the same time, either to share the cleaning or feed the animals. She hoped it was her supervisor, Big Joe, who sometimes brought her an elephant-shaped ice cream from the gift shop.
But it wasn't Big Joe. Instead, a little boy, probably about six, stared up at her mutely. He was unaccompanied by a parent or guardian -- against the zoo rules, of course -- and he looked scared.
Gloria, who didn't have kids yet and didn't know how to talked to them, just looked at him for a minute. She knelt down.
"Hi," she said. "Are you lost?"
The boy shook his head.
"Well, I bet you're not supposed to be here by yourself, right?"
The boy just stared past her, trying to see into the enclosure, when suddenly a woman rushed up behind him, loudly proclaiming her relief. The boy started to cry. Gloria noticed he had glasses, blue plastic frames now knocked a little crooked by the force of his mother's hug.
The woman began to apologize to Gloria, looking up at her and explaining they'd been at the monkey house and the boy had wandered away, and thanking Gloria for keeping him safe.
The boy, crying harder, spoke for the first time: "I hate the monkey house."
"Me too," Gloria said. The mother looked vaguely offended and Gloria suddenly resolved to do something she'd never done before. It was something strictly against the rules, and Gloria was not a rule-breaker.
She beckoned the two of them inside the sea otter enclosure. The mother looked doubtful, but still holding the boy, followed Gloria into the back and then the main part of the great, humid room, which blossomed with plants. Gloria put a finger to her lips even though silence was not really required.
Gloria led the two of them, the mother and the boy, toward the water and, still with her finger on her lips, peered down. Below the clear surface, the sea otters swam obliviously like Olympic champions, sleek and perfect, not noticing them at all. The boy looked up at Gloria, his mouth open and his eyes shining behind his steamy glasses.
---
Behind her the noise escalated.
Turning around didn't seem like a particularly appealing option, really, not when she knew the simian house hadn't been cleaned yet today. The second the capuchins saw you (as they'd seen her a minute ago), they started kicking up an incredible racket, like a bunch of tiny lunatics in a 19th-century mental institution. They would swing menacingly from the roof, smacking each other with those weirdly human hands and opening their weirdly human mouths. Sometimes they'd even fling things from their cage at you -- toys, food, their own shit. Needless to say, the whole cleaning crew at the zoo left the simian house until the end of the day, hoping that some emergency would come up (a barfing kid that needed the clean-up mop in front of the giraffes, an agitated panda that had topped over its bamboo stand, anything) and make it impossible for them to go back to the goddamn monkeys, leaving it for the next shift.
Instead, blissfully, Gloria walked toward the sea otter enclosure.
It was a new part of the zoo, built recently on the heels of some craze involving a children's book that told the story of a sea lion needing glasses and having to make a visit to the optometrist. Sea otters and sea lions weren't the same, of course, but sea otters had been a lot easier for the zoo to acquire and none of the visitors seemed to differentiate, particularly. Gloria slipped into the door of the back of the enclosure and pulled the special mop from the small supply closet, went into the humid main part of the enclosure, and began to work in the corner farthest from the glass pane separating her from the crowd. The people were dim and foggy behind the glass; the sea lions swam back and forth in their shallow pool, presumably. Gloria didn't take much notice.
Behind her, someone knocked on the door and she stood the mop against the wall. It wasn't unusual for another zoo employee to come in at the same time, either to share the cleaning or feed the animals. She hoped it was her supervisor, Big Joe, who sometimes brought her an elephant-shaped ice cream from the gift shop.
But it wasn't Big Joe. Instead, a little boy, probably about six, stared up at her mutely. He was unaccompanied by a parent or guardian -- against the zoo rules, of course -- and he looked scared.
Gloria, who didn't have kids yet and didn't know how to talked to them, just looked at him for a minute. She knelt down.
"Hi," she said. "Are you lost?"
The boy shook his head.
"Well, I bet you're not supposed to be here by yourself, right?"
The boy just stared past her, trying to see into the enclosure, when suddenly a woman rushed up behind him, loudly proclaiming her relief. The boy started to cry. Gloria noticed he had glasses, blue plastic frames now knocked a little crooked by the force of his mother's hug.
The woman began to apologize to Gloria, looking up at her and explaining they'd been at the monkey house and the boy had wandered away, and thanking Gloria for keeping him safe.
The boy, crying harder, spoke for the first time: "I hate the monkey house."
"Me too," Gloria said. The mother looked vaguely offended and Gloria suddenly resolved to do something she'd never done before. It was something strictly against the rules, and Gloria was not a rule-breaker.
She beckoned the two of them inside the sea otter enclosure. The mother looked doubtful, but still holding the boy, followed Gloria into the back and then the main part of the great, humid room, which blossomed with plants. Gloria put a finger to her lips even though silence was not really required.
Gloria led the two of them, the mother and the boy, toward the water and, still with her finger on her lips, peered down. Below the clear surface, the sea otters swam obliviously like Olympic champions, sleek and perfect, not noticing them at all. The boy looked up at Gloria, his mouth open and his eyes shining behind his steamy glasses.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)