Thursday, November 18, 2010

pop musings

I have to say, I was held fairly in thrall by the latest Rolling Stone interview with Eminem. Here's a guy who found a lot of fame by ticking off/shocking a bunch of people, and he's also obviously faced down his share of demons over the years. I have to say, it's refreshing to have something like respect for an entertainer who used to repel me on every level.

Also, call me hopelessly behind the times, but I heard Katy Perry's Firework for the first time today, and ...Wow! What an awesome message (though I have to say "igniting the light" looks pretty painful).

Just, you know, catching up with pop culture a little bit.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

writing and running

Seems a lot of writers are also runners, and as I work the theme of running into a new story I’m working on, I can see why. The physical act of writing is fairly static: You sit in a chair, you stretch once in a while, but mostly it’s your fingers moving. Running is a chance for those of us who otherwise sit a lot to get out and get moving. It’s a way to connect with motion and forward momentum. I’ve found this can be really, really useful when a project is getting bogged down and losing that page-turner quality.

Running – especially outdoor running…especially trail running – is anything but static. When you’re out off-roading it, your entire being needs to be alert and aware. It’s good practice for writerly types who, if given the choice, would spend most of their time with their heads in the clouds. I remember when I used to go for runs across the remote prairie where I lived I always had at least one ear and one eye on the alert for mountain lions because a canyon they supposedly liked to frequent was just a couple miles away as the crow flies. It was great motivation to keep moving at a good clip, let me tell you (and I was never quite sure what I’d do if I actually ran into a mountain lion, but just being aware of the possibility seemed somehow like a good idea).

These days I run mostly on a frontage road near the interstate, but I usually take Lizzy the Cow Dog with me on her telescoping leash. That means I have to keep my eye out for cars, since she has very little sense that way and will basically run right out into the road, completely oblivious. So, my eyes are on the dog and the road ahead, my ears are kept busy with iPod tunes, and my legs are doing their thing, reminding me that forward momentum is what keeps the world – and the story – alive and interesting.

Monday, November 15, 2010

a warm song

...for a cold day. Brrrr! It feels like the icy November wind is finally blowing winter into the Northland. It was t-shirt weather all weekend, and I'm NOT ready for the freeze!

That's okay. Paramore can warm us all up.

Friday, November 12, 2010

being enough

Here’s a pretty awesome article for those of us who have a history of being – how can I put this delicately? - RABIDLY TYPE A about some of these issues.
Seems especially fitting for a day like today, when channelling Jimmy Buffett sounds like not such a bad idea.
So, what are your "what ifs" and "whens?"

Thursday, November 11, 2010

wri-ing the mo away

So, National Novel Writing Month. Yeah, that thing.

It's actually going pretty well, which is surprising. I'm up to just over 16K words as of last night, which is just a couple hundred words shy of where I 'd ideally like to be. Normally, by this point in the process (well into week two), the initial exuberance has worn off a bit and things have started to plateau. Also, a few weeks in I generally start finding it really tough at times to meet that daily word count.

Not so much this time around, though. It probably helps that I jumped into the writing with some fairly strong ideas and story leads I wanted to follow. Having just finished getting a YA novel ready for submission, I figured my muse would be pretty much spent, and I'd end up writing 50,000 words of drivel. And while some of what I've knocked out definitely has been drivel, I'm finding some pretty nice passages when I look back through the past ten days of content.

If you're doing NaNo this year, too, how's it going?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

thanks, popular kids

Seems my whining about being all alone and dweeked out on the Facebook Interwebs worked, and I'd like to thank those who came to my rescue by either accepting my friend requests or friending me of their own volition. Bear with me in this digression, but it reminds me of the boost of confidence I was supposed to get when I was thirteen, and a kindly neighbor lady stopped by to chat with my mother. I was wearing braces to fix the diastema (which I hear is all the rage among the supermodel set nowadays) and coke bottle glasses to correct the myopia.

After chatting with me for a while, the neighbor lady said something along the lines of, "You know, you're going to be a pretty girl...Some day, I mean. When you get rid of the glasses and braces."

I assume my response looked something like this:


Tuesday, November 09, 2010

overheard at the school bus carpool drop-off

A 6th grade boy (mine) and a 4th grade boy (not mine) were vehemently agreeing on the general principle of teachers seeming to go easier on girls when it comes to warnings, discipline "and stuff."

The conversation was peppered with exclamations like, "I know!" and "Dude, it's so unfair!"

Until finally, the whole thing was summed up by an observation delivered by the fourth grader in the most authoritative tone imaginable:

"That just proves my theory that girls get more publicity and stuff than boys."

Touché.

Wait...what?

Saturday, November 06, 2010

the lone FB-er

After a long hiatus, I've decided to return to Facebook. I know, I know: It's breaking news capable of stopping the Earth's very rotation. It's a bit of a sad state of affairs, though, since I apparently deleted my profile with such vehemence that I managed to wipe all traces of myself from the FB system (some may question whether this is even possible: I say, yes it is).

So, I'm starting from scratch, with NO FRIENDS! It's like a bad junior high nightmare where you walk into the cafeteria holding your lunch tray, your headgear strapped firmly into place, and look around, hoping that someone - anyone - will summon you to their table.

Oh, and you're in your underwear, too.

Can you feel my pain? Can you??

Monday, November 01, 2010

"note to self:

must use the words midget, Saluki and galoshes in next novel (man, I love NaNoWriMo)."

Thus begins the first 2,000-word installment of my 2010 NaNoWriMo journey. My mom's getting in on the action this year, too, which is awesome. She's long been a prolific journaler, but her big quandary for this undertaking is deciding whether to write in English or Spanish. My advice? Do both! It's NaNo, fer cryin' out loud!

What are YOUR NaNoWriMo plans?

What?

Don't have any?

Well, shoot - come on! Jump on the bandwagon! It's a literary (I use the term loosely) free-for-all, and it's going to be fun!

Go ahead and sign up at the official NaNoWriMo site.