NaNoWriMo 2013

It’s November.  That means it’s time for NaNoWriMo.

For those unaware, NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a month long writing spree.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  You aren’t allowed to write anything previously (though you can, of course, make outlines and characters and such) and you are highly discouraged from editing (that’s for December or, if we’re being official, March).

I participated during my last two years of high school and my freshman year of college, and I actually managed to finish each time.  It’s been a couple years since I last had time to participate, and certain events had actually discouraged me from writing fiction for a certain amount of time.

But, I’ve had an idea or two rolling around in my head for some time.  I was going to write this novel in August as part of a senior year project, but I decided to hold off until November.  It’s just been far too long since I last participated.

So, what does that mean for this place?  Well, paradoxically, when my month is filled with this many projects, I find I typically have more time than usual.  Here’s my goal for the next month: I plan on posting at least one poem each week in November (yes, I know that’s my general goal, but I haven’t been good on keeping that recently).  Each time, after the poem, I’ll update my word count.

There may also be another way to keep you apprised of my progress, but I’m still thinking about it.  Anyway, I’m shooting for Wednesdays for these posts, so look for them.

I’ll have more information about what my novel is actually about next week, maybe.  As for now, I have to go write my main character’s death scene.  And yes, that is in Chapter One.

Spring Hiatus — Kinda

Alright, this is really annoying, but I feel like I have little choice.  I’m currently taking an intensive spanish college course, basically a year of spanish in the next two months.  It’s going to take more work than I expected going in, so I’m going to have to keep my slow pace of poetry for the next few weeks, probably through most of June.

I won’t abandon this blog entirely for those months though.  I’ll probably post three times a week, on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Maybe Friday if I get the chance.  I’m currently about 6o% finished with a new poem right now, so expect that on Friday.  Alright, that’s all.

Espero que todos tengan una buena semana.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

Okay, a quick word of explanation for the recent dearth of posts.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve exhausted my backlog of poetry, at least any that’s publishable at the moment.  The rest is a bit too personal or too uninteresting to put up.  That’s not to say that all of the poetry up here thus far was old; at least a third of it, expecially the more recent ones, were written maybe a day or two before I put them up.  But, since I now don’t have a supply of poetry to put up when I don’t have the time or inspiration to write, I find myself at a loss.  To make matters worse, my exams and other final projects are this week, so I don’t think I’ll get much written until Sunday evening.  That said, I have a plan.

I still have a few very short poems I can put up over this week, called Clerihews (and I guess I’ll write a brief post going into detail about those and my experiences with writing them).  They’re only four lines apiece, and they’re light verse, but I find them, for the most part, amusing.  So, I’ll post those sproadically between now and Sunday, along with (probably) another double dactyl and a full-length poem.  At the latest, I should be able to get back to at least a normal every-other-day schedule by Monday.

That said, I am working on a few newer things for over the summer.  I’m going to try to get back to writing short stories (though I doubt anyone cares about that), along with a few new poetry projects.  I know that, based on what I’ve already written, I seem to be very focused on form, but I have another genre of poetry with which I am currently infatuated: spoken word.  I’ve made attempts to write spoken word poetry in the past, but I’ve never quite gotten the hang of it.  However, I think I might go ahead and try again anyways.

I’ve also been thinking… as much as I like writing poetry, I might like reading it even more.  I feel like there’s something you gain with listening to a poem being read than just reading it on the page.  So, I’m considering putting up a few audio clips of me reading poetry, both my own and some from famous poets.

And, also… there’s National Novel Writing Month.  It’s in November, and it’s quickly approaching.  I participated (and succeeded, I might add) three times in high school, but I’ve been avoiding it whilst in college.  This year will be no different, as my schedule is harsh and unforgiving.  But… I’m thinking about it, though perhaps I’ll aim for late summer instead of fall, when I have the time.  We’ll see.  More on that later.

Alright, it’s late (or, rather, early), so I think that’s enough for now, my imaginary audience.

Standard Introduction Post

I’ll keep this brief, as I prefer to remain silent for the time being.  I have quite a bit of short fiction and poetry just taking up file space on my computer, so I thought I might as well dust them off and post some of them so friends or wanderers of the internet can read them, and perhaps even enjoy them.  I’m also pretty interested in writing, naturally, so I might post about that subject every once in a while if I get the urge.  I’m going to spend the weekend filling out this blog, but I plan on posting regularly.