Saturday, November 29, 2008

Write a novel in 30 days





The final days of the National Novel Writing Month were in sight and I was trying desperately to keep up my quota.

Even though this was the fourth year I’d taken part in this writing challenge, the first two weeks were especially difficult. It wasn’t until the third week that I began to pick up speed. By the fourth week I had actually drawn a little ahead of the daily quota of 1,700 words and could see the target in the distance.

I wanted to try and be a little early, because I knew from past experience that different word-processors count totals slightly differently. There’s nothing worse than sending in your completed manuscript only to find that you are a few hundred words short of the 50,000.

So when I clocked up the magic total at 5 pm on 28th November I was happy but wary. And sure enough, when I entered it into the word count validator on the NaNoWriMo website, I was about 250 words short.

A determined effort over the next half hour managed to put me over the hump, and I collapsed in a heap.

I’ll never put myself through that ordeal again.... well, not until next year anyway.

To see my NaNoWriMo novels, go to this site



Some problems with the recording of today’s Theatre Organ Showcase, but the sound clears up after the first few minutes. Listen for yourself and see what you think. You can download it from here

Thursday, November 20, 2008

just lazing around

People kept saying to me “So, what will you do with all that extra time once you retire?” Let me think...

Last Thursday for example, I looked at the calendar and said to my sister Julie “Look at the date. We have to be at Parliament House in 45 minutes!” We rushed in to town to take the tour arranged by Adult Education followed by morning tea with the Speaker of the House.

Then we went to Julie’s house to feed her animals and swung by my sister Pauline’s place to pick up a mobile phone we’d left there the night before. After that we drove in to the church office; I may not work there any longer but Julie still had things to do in the church library.

From there we went on to dinner with friends at Claremont. We played cards with them for a while after watching the thunder over the hills.

And before I went to bed, I had to write 1,700 words for this year’s National Novel Writing Month.

All that extra time? Don’t think it will be a problem.

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This year’s NaNoWriMo story was a difficult one to get started. It’s the fourth year I’ve done it, but I’ve never had so much trouble getting off the ground. I don’t even have a title for it.

I suspect that this year my creativity fuel-tank was so low that it kept running out before I could refill it each week. In fact the first week I kept thinking to myself “I’m getting bored with this story” - that’s never happened before.

But once I passed the halfway mark I started to pick up speed a bit. What’s still difficult is when you’re typing it late at night and you think “How much more have I got to go?” 500 words.. 400 words.. 300 words.. It can be arduous getting those last few sentences out.

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Listened to the Theatre Organ Showcase on 96FM. Ah, the mighty Wurlitzer! Another great show. Where else will you hear the theme music from ‘Paul Temple’ and ‘Things to Come’ one after the other? You can download it at the link below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?1mmoiq4njmi