NaNoWriMo

It's been a while hasn't it!!  And to think I was so committed to writing more regularly.  Well let me fill you on why I am back.  I had been tipping away at a novel for a while but not getting very far with it.  I had written about 8000 words and had a rough outline for the rest of it.  I was unsure of what to do with it and where to go with it so it had stalled.  Then, just by chance, on the 31st of October, I heard about something called NaNoWriMo (which is short for National Novel Writing Month).  The idea behind it is that you write daily for the 30 days of November and you 'win' it if you write 50000 words.

I though well why not!! So I ditched the 8000 words I had written and started again.  I decided that I wanted to write 60000 words cos I felt 50000 seemed short for a novel.  60000 is short too, mind you but it's more than 50000!!  So I started a routine of writing 2000 words a day.  1000 in the morning and 1000 in the evening.  I said to myself that if I can do this for a month I would achieve 2 things.  1) I would be able to say I wrote a book, and 2) I might get a habit of daily writing from it.

Well I did it.  Yesterday I finished my 62000 page novel called Twins.  It is mine and I am delighted.  I have no idea what the writing is like.  I am certain that there are many plot holes in it and that it would need a huge amount of work to make it readable, but that is the point of NaNoWriMo.  It is about experiencing the joy of writing and completing a book and about suppressing the inner critic and editor.  As I was writing I would be aware that I needed a character to have a certain skill.  To suddenly introduce that skill at the time it is needed is poor writing.  So I will have to go back and mention this as part of the characters description earlier in the novel.  But that's OK.  Normally I would have stopped the writing and gone back and done it.  But with NNWM you just plow on.

And today is the first day that I have not had the book to write.  I kind of miss it.  I feel there is more I could add to the people I have had living in my head for a month and they grew as the word count grew.  Some characters ended up doing things I hadn't planned and that dictated the direction the novel took.  But that's good too.  I think the whole plot hangs together well.  Now I'm not saying I have a blockbuster on my hands, but I have my 1st book.

As for the daily habit, well here I am.  I would like to write 1000 words every day but I think I will settle for anything between 500 and whatever.  I will probably use the daily writing as a sort of journal for a few days before I start on another story.  Who knows it may form the basis for the next novel I write.

I will be leaving Twins alone for at least a month to 6 weeks (on the advice of Stephen King in On Writing) and during that time I plan to study the way fiction should work and learn a little about editing.  There is a NaNoEdMo in March for editing the book.  I don't know if I can wait that long but we'll see.

There is a scriptwriting equivalent called Script Frenzy in April so I will probably so that.  And there is no reason why I can't just so a MyNoWriMo in any month I choose.  So that's it.  I would recommend NaNoWriMo to anyone and everyone who has ever felt they had a book in them.  It helps you to just write it.

That's it for now.


I will be writing daily from now on (I created a chain on Don't Break The Chain and I would like to keep it unbroken) so I will be back.

Why I don't like Ratzinger.

Firstly...read this, then come back here. (If you went there and thought 'this is too long!!' here is a summary :- Good people in the Catholic church should boycott the Popes visit to the UK because he was directly involved in the cover up of child rape, and he lists some individual cases to show this fact.)

I am an atheist. I have been for a long time. My reasons are many and varied but just to be clear about it, because I have often found myself correcting this, I did not become an atheist out of laziness. My atheism was a definite, clear and deliberate decision and act. Through reading, researching, thinking and learning, I came to realize that the situation that makes most sense to me is that there is no God. It wasn't just a laziness thing or through apathy that I just fell out with God and religion. I sincerely believe, from looking at it in many ways, there cannot be a God.

But I am in a minority. I am aware of that. People have many different reasons for believing in God. From my experiences I think the most common reason is that they were raised that way. The second most common reason is they like the comfort of it. These are observations, not any sort of scientific study or survey and of course are probably inaccurate. But if a person feels they are improved by religion, so be it. I of course believe these good people are good anyway and religion had nothing to do with it, but that is another blog altogether. But what is the point of religion if there is no good from it? (And I don't count simply spreading 'the word' as doing good!)

About a month or two ago I left the Catholic Church. I didn't know you could do this but a friend of mine told me about a site that showed you what to do. I was delighted and I used the information on Count Me Out to do it. There were varied reactions. Some people were shocked, some surprised, some thought I was petty and some were not surprised at all.

People wondered why I did it. Most people know I am an atheist. So why actually leave the church. Isn't it being a bit spiteful or controversial just for the sake of it? Well no. And if you read that article at the start before getting to here you now know why I did it and why I didn't want my name linked with the Catholic Church.

That horrible and disgusting man who calls himself The Pope is not a spiritual leader. He is not a moral guide. He is a bureaucrat more interested in keeping the business and image of the church intact than caring for the children who suffered while under their supposed protection. I do not want my name listed as being part of his church.

Next to my name on the baptismal registrar of my local church is says 'defected'. And I am proud.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Sir David Attenborough's view on Science & Religion - Life on Air

write away every day

I've been writing a lot on Demery Bader-Saye's blog write away every day. It's a great site where she gives you a photo prompt to get your creative juices flowing. Here are links to my entries, but give the others a look too cos there are some very good writers on there!!

slumbered
guaranteed
bugged
sheltered
powered
spent
found
parked
pined
howled
recycled
dispatched
yearned
found
unearthed
tasted

My One-Liners!!!

OK after bashing my brain I finally managed to hit a one-liner vein and these came to me in about 30 mins this morning. They are more likely to be candidates for the worst one-liner than the best.

Enjoy!

I woke up this morning staring in someone else window. I think I was stalking in my sleep.

I'm going on a package holiday next week. I'm posting myself abroad.


I've joined one of those pyramid schemes. My mummy convinced me.

I swapped the keys on my keyboard to see if it would help my Dyslexia. It qjusf.

Do colour-blind people get blue jokes?

I bought pills on the internet that help your memory. I dunno if they arrived yet.

I woke up this morning talking about black holes. I think I was Hawking in my sleep.

I was going to go to a motivation seminar, but then I, well you know.

Funny One-Liners

Yesterday I read what the funniest one liner from the Edinburgh fringe festival was. It was this.

"I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

Not too bad. But not great either. Not really my kind of joke. They also voted for the worst one liner. It was this.

"Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side."

The worst? That was FAR better! That is a great joke. Now maybe this says more about me than the competition or the entries themselves. Maybe it says I am a depressed individual or a sadist who likes to see other people (chickens?) suffer needlessly. But I think it was great.

It got me thinking though, I could write a better one liner than that.

So I started thinking.

And I thought.

And thought.

And I can't.

Not a single one liner came to me. Nothing. I was depressed. I was miserable. I even started to doubt myself and question my own identity. It was a bad few minutes.

But then I had a coffee and everything was good in the world again. Now if I was any good I would be able to finish this blog entry with a spot on one liner.

But nope. I can't think of them on the spot.