Wow, I need to post.

It is the new year. 2012. That this new year has come changes. I'm taking a break from work for the school semester...which started for me Friday morning. I'm taking a Literature class, a Monday night Math class and a History class that doesn't start until February.

This past weekend I went to a conference in New Jersey and was able to see some of New Jersey and Philly. I also discovered that I would love to live in a condo in a lovely quaint town with beautiful houses all around.

I have also joined a writers' critique group that meets in a wonderful used book store in town run by some amazing people. And in joining this group I have made more friends and met great writers and have been able to recieve great feedback on my own story. It also helps me continually work (more or less) on my book.

Andrew has joined the Marines and leaves for bootcamp in March. He's working so hard and diligently on the diet and fitness - waking up every morning at 5 for Physical Training and doing the same before supper every evening.

I had a great time off between Christmas and New Years and life is just starting to get back into the swing of things and I'm looking forward to what the beginning of this New Year will bring us.

November's Insane - Now Try Adding 50,000 Words to the Mix

So as November approaches I look at my schedule and wonder. November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where if you join in you have to write a novel in one month, or 50,000 words. I have taken part in NaNoWriMo a few times over the past years and was debating trying it this year too.

Looking at my schedule though, I do wonder if I could handle it. I have recently started college classes and I'm also working at the Dollar Tree still. Also that month is so busy for me. The first weekend is our conference, and later in the month we have Thanksgiving - also if it works out reading my first chapter this Friday, the next writers group meeting is November 11th. So a pretty slammed month as it is...could I also squeeze in 50,000 words of my story.

And then I say...what if I could? I would finish book one of my trilogy and give me another boost to keep writing. Also then I think (with my head in the skies!) that if I wrote the rough draft in November - during the month of December I could rewrite and hopefully have my first book completely done and ready to share by the new year. This of course is bit of a stretch but I do dream all the same.

So I wonder if it is worth the risk and stress to try and squeeze those 50,000 words into November. I could majorly fail...but I could also succeed...it would just be a very hectic, insane month.

Black and Blue Ink

The past few days I have been writing every spare moment I had. First my inspiration was planning on sharing it at a writers gorup this Friday. But then it turned into an idea. I had earlier joked to Erin that for her birthday I would give her my first chapter for free. Well, Erin's birthday came and I decided that I would give her the first chapter.

Though her birthday was Wednesday we decided to celebrate it Thursday after Andrew and I were done with school. That was a blessing. I was at school and during my breaks was writing like a mad thing trying to get it finished for Erin. I finished just in time and slipped the printed copy into her gift bag (but not before the printer ran out of black ink and I had to print half the chapter in blue).

But she read it that very night and gave me a number of helpful ways to improve it - for which I was most thankful. I'll have to edit it one more time before Friday...now I just have to get over my fear of reading it out loud in front of an audience.

"Slow is Fearless"

"Slow is Fearless" is the title of a chapter in one of my favorite writing books, Heather Sellers' Chapter after Chapter.

I really loved that chapter. I also loved a sentence from it. "Time-soaked writing is good writing."

Heather Sellers teaches in this chapter that a lot of the time slow is good. Maybe even better than going fast on some things...writing is one of them.

The other day I was watching The Princess Bride and a quote from that triggered this same though too. Miracle Max says, "You rush a miracle, and you get rotten miracles." (or something along those lines).

Hearing about these things make me not feel so badly about how slow I am being on my work. But at the same time I don't want it to be laziness. So I'm trying to find that fine line and accept the slow factor without it becoming an excuse for laziness.

Anyway, that is all I have for right now and I just thought I should post something.

Any Ideas?

So, I've been thinking on this story I'm trying to write for the contest. I am having trouble with it though because I don't know where to begin. I've researched the publishers and found that they tend to publish either contemporary fiction or historical fiction. I'm not sure which genre I want to go to because there are pros and cons to both. The hardest thing for both is going to be research. Can I do enough thorough research to write a story in around 150 days? And then there is the actual story, involving plot and characters, etc. I have some ideas but I'm trying to find something that clicks. Should I use an idea I already have or should I start on something completely new? So many questions and so little time to answer, especially considering I have to write it after figuring these things out. What am I going to do? Any ideas?

Operation First Novel

Right now I am enrolled and am taking a writing course from the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild. A contest they hold annually with Tyndale Publishing House is called Operation First Novel. As a member you submit your first novel and if you win your novel is published by Tyndale and you receive an award of $20,000.

The deadline is in September.

I am so tempted to enter but I shrink at such a daunting task. Could I write a novel in 5 months? You say, "Sure. Why not?"

I reply, "Could I really write my first novel in 5 months? Can I really put out my best work in so short a time?"

I don't know. But that won't stop me from trying. Now just to start and write.

An Expostulation - A poem by C.S. Lewis

An Expostulation - by C.S. Lewis

Against too many writers of science fiction

Why did you lure us on like this,
Light-year on light-year, through the abyss,
Building (as though we cared for size!)
Empires that cover galaxies
If at the journey's end we find
The same old stuff we left behind,
Well-worn Tellurian stories of
Crooks, spies, conspirators, or love,
Whose setting might as well have been
The Bronx, Montmartre, or Bedinal Green?

Why should I leave this green-floored cell,
Roofed in blue air, in which we dwell,
Unless, outside its guarded gates,
Long, long desired the Unearthly waits
Strangeness that moves us more than fear,
Beauty that stabs with tingling spear,
Or Wonder, laying on one's heart
That finger-tip at which we start
As if some thought too swift and shy
For reason's grasp had just gone by?