Writing Time

It is that time again. Nanowrimo is here. Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. I participated last year and it really jump started me finishing my first novel. I ended up at around 88,000 words. I wrote almost every night through the month of November. It was great being able to track my progress and have know others were working toward a similar goal. By the way, the goal on the website is to write 50,000 words for the month. This is a really difficult goal, but if you work at it you can reach it.

Along with the website I have a quote from Ray Bradbury about writing that inspires me. The quote is from a Writer's Digest interview.

WD: You're terribly prolific, but a lot of writers produce one book in a lifetime. Would you advise young writers to spend all their time polishing one piece or to go for quantity?

BRADBURY: It simply follows that quantity produces quality. Only if you do a lot will you ever be any good. If you do very little, you'll never have quality of idea or quality of output. The excitement and creativity comes from a whole lot of doing; hoping you'll suddenly be struck by lightning. If you only write a few things, you're doomed. The history of literature is the history of prolific people. I always say to students, give me four pages a day, every day. That's three or four hundred thousand words a year. Most of that will be bilge, but the rest ... It will save your life!

I will be starting a new novel next month. I am not sure which one yet. I could do the sequel to the one I finished, or one of the two others that are bouncing around in my head. I encourage you to participate if you have a story inside you. Even if you never finish it you will enjoy the experience.

50,000 Time

I just finished 50,000 words on my novel. I am halfway to finishing my book. 100,000 words is the goal for the average novel. I have been working on it since Kelly bought me my laptop. This Christmas will be two years since I started working on it. I have written and written and rewritten. The weird thing is if you think about a real writer, and by that I mean someone who has published a book, they have written many hundreds of thousands of words for their books. For me though the 50,000 mark is one I have been striving for recently. It is a real relief to reach it. The rest is downhill... right?

The sleeper has awakened.

I have always been an avid tea drinker. Usually I would enjoy a glass of sweet tea anytime. Then last October I went to an ASCD conference in Atlanta. Before the first session started there were pastries, coffee, and tea. The coffee was prebrewed, but the tea you had to make yourself. The tea available was TAZO Awake. It being early in the morning I decided to give it a go. I brewed the tea and it was great. Hot tea in the morning became a habit with me after that. I continued with the same brand all winter. I cut back some during the summer. Hot tea and hot weather is not a good combo.

While I was looking at one of the packets I saw that in French the ingredients included melange. For those of you who do not recognize that reference then you might know it as the "spice" from Frank Herbert's Dune. The mind altering, space warp enabling drug in that novel. That in and of itself is kind of interesting. Then consider the quote, from the movie, about Paul Atreidies when he overdoses on melange and he becomes super Paul. That is right the quote is, "The sleeper has awakened." The name of the tea is Awake. Coincidence maybe, but who knows. If I develop any space warping powers maybe I won't have to worry about gas.