Stick a fork in me...

By Muriel from Lyon, France
(Fourchette dans le Léman)

...no, that's not the prelude to a steamy session of kink. (More's the pity.)

I'm done with NaNo. I'm calling it a little early, but call it I must. I managed two chapters but didn't clear even 10K words, much less near 50K.

C'est finis.

I dunno. Something, she ne marche pas bien, in my head. Something's not working.

I'm not raking myself over the coals for it, though. Even though I do have this honking huge fork, which'd likely be great for raking...

I'll figure this out.


In an unrelated story, here's a groovy, though NSFW (and/or children), tune that dropped, as the youths say, a few months ago. Have you heard it? Go on, give it a listen. It's damnably catchy.

Am I Really Doing This?

National Novel Writing Month
November 1-30
The world needs your novel.

Dudes.

I've just signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

I'm out of my damned mind.

If you're doing NaNo, you're basically making a commitment to yourself to write a 50K word novel in the month of November. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

No. No, it's not.

It's SO not easy. I did NaNo back in 2008 and I didn't make the 50K word mark. But I did build a little story I want to get back to someday.

This is not that day.

I've been in a major depressive slump and haven't done any writing since last fall. Well, that's bullshit.

A friend of mind at work keeps asking me if I've been writing (she's read my first book and claims to love it, bless her) and I keep telling her no. But now she's holding me accountable, largely because I told her to. Just before a recent business trip, I told her to check in with me when I was back in the office, and to ask me if I'd made a fucking writing plan already.

She did. And I had.

It's NaNo. Because of course it has to be.

I broke out my monthly planner and penned (not penciled!) in when, and for how long, I'll write in November. I'll be working on the story I abandoned last fall, which has two chapters (that need revision, which I'll work on during the rest of October, as well as finishing up my research for the project).

Whether good, bad, or indifferent, I will bloody well finish this draft in November 2016. You know, barring Act of God or hangnail, or whatnot.

Who's with me???

Resurrection Blogfest Honorable Mention #5

When I announced the finalists for my Resurrection Blogfest, I mentioned I'd be posting "Honorable Mentions," of entries that caught my attention and I wanted to bring to yours, Dear Reader. For the next week or so, I'll be doing just that. If you haven't yet read these entries, please give them a lookie-look!

In the order in which folks signed up, my fifth Resurrection Blogfest Honorable Mention goes to Trisha at Word + Stuff. Trisha resurrected her very first blog post ever, entitled NaNoWriMo - Is It Evil? For those who're not familiar with this, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a mad November event in which participants aim to write a 50K word novel in exactly 30 days. I gave it a shot in 2008 and crapped out mid-month. I may try it again in future but, for now, I'm demented enough as it is, thank you. :-)

Go on, now; check it out! And Trisha, please feel free to take the above badge for your blog and link it back to this post, if you like. Thanks again for participating in my first annual blogfest!

Crazy insane...?

The title of today's blog (apart from being a short, if hilarious, line from the movie Weird Science) accurately describes me, as some of you may have guessed and others know for a fact. I out myself as a loon because I've signed up for this year's Blogging From A to Z Challenge. (Witness nifty badge to the right.) Basically, I've committed to blogging at least 100 words per post on subjects spanning the alphabet, in order. (So, April 1's subject must begin with the letter "A," April 2's with "B," and so on.) Blogs may be themed or not, it's up to each blogger's particular brand of bonkers.

I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I decided to throw down with the alphabet, blog-stylie. Rather, I don't know that I was thinking - a primal urge to engage in battle bubbled up from my reptilian brain and completely overrode all reason. I saw the sign-up page and it suddenly got all Eye of the Tiger in my mind's ear. This surge of writerly recklessness took no note of how I'd utterly failed to complete NaNoWriMo back in November 2008 (though my frenzied efforts, while they lasted, did form the beginning of a story I'm keen to expand upon). (At some point.) (I'm dead meat if Chuck Wendig ever reads this: see point #8 of this blog post.)

Anyway, I believe I will successfully complete the A to Z Challenge because it's a different sort of time investment - 26 100-word blogs don't seem quite as daunting to write as a 50K-word book. Too, I can write some, or all, of the blogs in advance and have them automatically publish on their due-dates. (That is to say, it's my understanding that the rules allow this. I encourage anyone who knows different to please set me straight.) This Challenge appears to be a more manageable endeavor for a single mom who works full time but, as I said before, I'm nuts. (NVTS)

In other news, R. Mac Wheeler's blog post inspired me to Wordle my mythological romance, That Fatal Kiss, which I've been shopping around. A Wordle is sort of a word-collage of selected text, or set of words, which emphasizes repeated words by increasing their size in the collage. The larger the word, the more often it's used. Check it:

Here's another one; I dig how it looks like Hades is breaking through a ground of words to get to Persephone:

PS, y'all: It would be super groovy if you'd vote in my poll, up yonder at the right-hand tippity-top of the page. Thanks!