2006-10-24, 09:13 AM — i read until i'm sick
One problem I have with reading and writing is that I tend to do both to exhaustion. Reading particularly. I'll pick up a book and read the entirety of it in one sitting, possibly getting up for pee breaks. It's even less likely that I'll eat.
This might be why I have little patience for dense books, that require examination and re-examination as you are reading it. I'm a big fan of Japanese manga, which can be read in one sitting but tends to yield secrets upon the second, third and fourth readings. The last book I read was called "Poison Study" by a new author, Maria V. Snyder and I'll confess I read it in one night (went to bed at 3am) and then re-read it again the next day.
Reading the book was fantastic. The hangover afterwards was not. I get dehydrated and exhausted and gritty-eyed, but I can't seem to put a book down without knowing what happens next. Once I've read it through once, the second time is much easier on me.
I'm about to attempt "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austin, just out of curiosity. I've not read anything by her but I did enjoy watching "Mansfield Park" so we'll see. I suspect it might be a little harder slogging than "Poison Study" was. But it's much shorter, so maybe it will balance out.
2006-10-05, 09:58 PM — Nano redux
Well, there. I've gone and done it. I've signed up for Nanowrimo again this year. It's my first year since 2002. I have two stories lined up; we'll see which one I decide to hold off writing until November. Either one of them is a good candidate for completely splurging on writing.
I was thinking about why Nanowrimo worked so well for me, and what seems to have gone wrong since. I mean, I did, technically, finish a novel between 2002 and now. It isn't a very good novel. But it's done, which is more than I've ever done before, including my nanonovel from 2002. It's still not done. It's pretty close. I could probably finish it before November of this year if I tried.
All of that said, when I'm not forced by something (inspiration being what forced me the one time it's happened) to sit and work on one piece, I tend to work on all of them. Whatever draws my attention at the moment, whatever keeps me in the mood. With Nanowrimo it was different. It didn't matter if I was in the mood or not, I just had to keep writing.
It worked surprisingly well, once I actually got around to it. And the rush of finishing that 50 000 words on November 30th was incredible. And very very cool. And a lot of what came out of that month was actually really inspired, even when I didn't think I was inspired. And a lot of the time the necessity of writing over 1000 words per day actually inspired me out of nowhere.
So I'm looking forward to it. I have rough outlines for both the stories, and a few ideas written down. Main characters are envisioned, but I'm not going to do character outlines because I'm kind of curious to see what happens to the characters as the plot unfolds. I think if I actually wrote character outlines I'd feel obligated to stick to them. I don't know that I'll feel that way with the plot outlines; the outlines have already changed shape in my head several times. I rather enjoy that part, too.
2006-08-16, 07:23 AM — blog spammers suck my will to update
All right. I've decided that until such time as I have a new way to deal with comments, or a new space, I probably won't be posting here too much. It's pretty frustrating.
Things are going well, though. I am also partially not updating because I'm very tired and things have been getting busier and busier. Looking forward to September, when things will calm down a fair amount. I hope.