Wednesday, October 27, 2010

BONSAI!!!!


I am doing it. I am going to write a novel in 30 days. Hannah Moskowitz made me do it. And my life made me do it, too. I have three ideas for another book and I'm the kind of writer that needs to be threatened, whipped, cajoled, shamed, dared, challenged, tricked, peer pressured etc. into producing words. I think I would be more productive if I would stop self editing at every opportunity and use the bonsai approach- just vomit out 50,000 words and then prune, trim, hack away until I like the deformed little tree that remains.

I have mocked the NaNoWriMo in the past as a gimmicky exercise in futility but have seen the light. I need to get started. I'm going to just write my guts out: EVERY DAY. For one month straight. Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted. I think I'm going to try and expand my favorite and most successful short story "Buying the Farm" into a novel ala the great Meg Mullins.

I'm getting my literacy charity links together and they are good ones. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

1 comment:

Rachael said...

Hello. Me too to Nano. Am at 20,000 words already, to my amazement. I needed a kick up the bum to get going on the novel I've been planning for the last, well, ever.

I was sent a link to your blog through - now, this is complicated stuff, so you may need a bit of paper and a pencil - my best friend Elise's husband Alan, who is really good friends with your husband's brother. Still with me?

Or to make it more straightforward, I went to school with your not-American husband. He used to make me laugh a lot. Back then I was Rachael Lucas. Say hello to him from me. And I love your blog. I have two: www.shitmummy.com (where I am anonymous) and the other one (where I am sensible).

Excuse my rambling. Am supposed to be up here, hiding from children and writing. So far I've written two blog posts, faffed around on Twitter and now I'm writing an epic comment. Oops.