I was reading BoingBoing just now, (I’m not a big BoingBoing reader, not having the attention span for that genre of commercial blog) but anyway I saw something that Cory posted about an interview he did with Mur Lafferty. Mur is one of the chief geek podcasters (GeekFuActionGrip), and I’ve caught wind of her work from time to time, so being the distractible fellow that I am, I clicked through to the website for her podcast “I Should Be Writing” and was quickly assaulted with news that it was, once again NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is and event wherein participants attempt to write a complete novel during the month of november. It’s a national thing. A writing speed/endurance test to end them all. It’s now a much more organized thing than It was four years ago when I was actually writing a book, and I remember thinking at that time, why bust your ass to write a crappy novel in november: clearly the way to make it work was to write steadily and continuously. For the past two years, when I realize that its NaNoMo, I get a sinking feeling. I wish I had the time to write like that in November. I wish I had a story sketched out.
NaNoWriMo (and the preparation I’d have to do) has gone on my list of “things to do if I don’t get into real graduate program.” I’ve been making a list of all the cool things that I could do if I weren’t in academia for a while, as part of my “lets be rational and not put all of my eggs in one basket” plan of getting into graduate school. I will go to graduate school, and I will do research. If I get time off now, I’ll also write another book.
So much of the way I remember my life, hinges on the book I wrote. There’s a bit of a confound in that I was writing that as I came out, but nevertheless. One part of the story that I think I tend to ignore/forget from time to time, is that I started another book after I finished the first, that sort of fell flat, because of the craziness that was my junior and senior year of high school (which strangely--or not--marks the beginning of my academic journey).
I began working on an outline for another book this summer, and it really didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been carrying that notebook around for a few weeks (it has some notes on books I’m reading too, but never mind,) and I don’t think that project is intriguing enough to justify the effort. So another one bites the dust.
I’ve noticed, as I’m sure long time (ha!) readers of the site should (you’d better!) notice, that my writing here has improved. I sort of want to know what my fiction might sound like if I were able to get off my ass and write it.
sigh
Well, There you have it, another TealArt entry… Funny how that happens. I hope you all are well.