Monday Musings: NaNoWriMo is Finished & I won!

I can't believe it!  I actually was able to write a 50,000 word novel in less than 30 days!  I kicked NaNoWriMo's butt!  Ok, well not exactly since there were several days I didn't write anything, but I still persevered and made it through 30 days of crazy noveling.  My novel is still quite rough, but at least I now have something I can work with to make it better.  To give a short synopsis, my novel is about a girl who moves to a small Tennessee town and discovers she has a deep rooted connection to it.  It's sort of like The Crucible meets The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane meets Gallows Hill meets a typical ghost story.  People always say write what you know, and ever since I was little I was fascinated with the supernatural.  I was the one who was addicted to the R.L. Stine Fear Street series and the Christopher Pike books in junior high.  I loved anything about the Salem Witch Trials after reading The Crucible in high school.  I remember writing a short story in junior high and I wrote it about a lake where people were haunted and then died.  Morbid, I know.  But I promise I'm not a weird, recluse-type of person.  To look at me you would have zero inkling that I loved books, movies, and TV shows about the supernatural.  I would have liked to have written a chick-lit sort of book or a good funny romance, but honestly, I don't know how to write that stuff.  So, for National Novel Writing Month, I wrote what I knew--ghosts.  I think the book is a good read.  Once I get through editing over 50,000 words and 256 pages, I will probably be the typical first-time novelist who self-publishes it only to be struck down by the hardest critics, but hey, if one person enjoys my book, then I'll be happy.  I'll try to keep you updated on my editing of the novel, and if it ever does happen to be published you all will be some of the first to know.

Now, on to the business of books.  I can now start reading and reviewing again!  Yay!!! I'm about half way finished with On Writing by Stephen King, so that will probably be one of the first I review.  I've also got a few books by up and coming authors that I will be reviewing at their request.  One is Being Light by Helen Smith.   It looks to be a good book, and I'm anxious to get started on it.  So, be watching for new review posts and of course I'll get back with my reviews of other things as well as my "Whats in Your Bag?" posts that seem to be enjoyable.  So, I hope everyone has a good end of November, and I'll see you in December!

Happy Reading!

Wednesday Poetry Café (November 24)

I know I haven't done a poetry cafe in a while, so I thought I'd take a break before I start NaNoWriMo-ing and do one.  This week's selection is a poem by the great Edgar Allan Poe.  Since my NaNoWriMo novel is leaning toward the supernatural-ghostly-witchy genre, I thought Poe would be a perfect choice for this week since it is the last full week of the 30 day novel writing challenge.  So, here's the poem.  My analysis and thoughts on it can be found below.

Spirits of the Dead

by Edgar Allan Poe

Thy soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone --

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy:

Be silent in that solitude

    Which is not loneliness -- for then

The spirits of the dead who stood

    In life before thee are again

In death around thee -- and their will

Shall then overshadow thee: be still.

For the night -- tho' clear -- shall frown --

And the stars shall look not down,

From their high thrones in the Heaven,

With light like Hope to mortals given --

But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee for ever :

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish --

Now are visions ne'er to vanish --

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more -- like dew-drop from the grass:

The breeze -- the breath of God -- is still --

And the mist upon the hill

Shadowy -- shadowy -- yet unbroken,

Is a symbol and a token --

How it hangs upon the trees,

A mystery of mysteries! --

It's sort of obvious that "Spirits of the Dead" is about death.  Poe was a bit death obsessed, but I don't think that was entirely his own doing.  He did endure quite a few tragic events in his life, thus contributing to his slightly odd obsession.  Back to the poem.  Personally, I think it is a beautifully written poem.  I think he is showing us how the spirits think, how they act, and what they see.  It could also be interpreted asa poem about being alone, but not really being alone.  There are ways in this life and the next in which we aren't really alone.  Poe seems to be able to tap into that part of our psyche where we don't really understand the meaning of being truly alone.  No one truly is alone if you think about it.  There is always someone there.  I could say that as I write this I'm alone.  No one I know is with me.  I'm sitting at a table alone at Starbucks, but in reality I have several people surrounding me.  They are not my friends nor are they really my acquaintances.  But I am still not alone.  Poe, in his life, was left alone (as most would define it) many times, but he did try to persevere through some of those times.  I think that one of those ways was in his writing.  He expressed himself beautifully most of the time, strangely yes, but still beautifully.  What do you think?

Monday Musings: NaNoWriMo Update

Well, I'm trucking along in my quest to write 50,000 in 30 days.  As of right now, I have a little over 12,000 words written in my book, which has yet to be titled.  To keep up with my daily count, I need to write around 1667 words per day.   Honestly 50,000 is not a lot for one book, and I'm expecting that I will continue to write for a while longer so that I can turn out a decent amount of words and so I can tweak what I've already done.  I will give you a short synopsis of the book in a "back cover" type of style to hopefully get a few people interested:

Katharine Archer moves to the small town of Wisdom Point, Tennessee, to take part in the elite graduate program at Dayton College. She seems to fit in perfectly and loves the small town life; she even meets a great guy and some good friends. But what Katie doesn't know is that her new love of Wisdom Point runs deeper than just feeling like she's at home in the small town. She'll discover that she is connected to the places and people of Wisdom Point more than she could ever imagine.

The book is actually a supernatural mystery/thriller mixed in with a little twist on history, too.  I've categorized it as a Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense Novel on NaNoWriMo.  A little more of a teaser, here is a short excerpt from the novel so far:

            Katie opened her laptop again so she could get started with some work.  A few minutes into typing up her research on the house, the waitress walked over to refill Katie’s tea.  She placed a napkin next to the glass.  Katie noticed that the napkin had some writing on the underside.  She turned it over.  Welcome home, Katie.  She looked up.  The waitress was going on about her business.  Katie assumed she didn’t write it.  No one else in the restaurant looked as if they would have either.  Katie walked up to the counter.  “Excuse me,”  she called to the waitress.

            “Yeah?”  She sounded a bit annoyed.

            “Um, you put this napkin on my table.”  She handed the napkin to the waitress.  “Can you tell me who wrote that?”

            The waitress read the message.  “No.  Sorry.  I just picked it up from the stack there.”  She pointed to the supply of napkins.  “Maybe you’ve got an admirer,” she winked.

            “Yeah, maybe that’s it,”  Katie lied.  She wasn’t sure what the message meant, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t from an admirer.  For some reason, Katie felt like this was an ominous message from someone.  Why would the napkin say Welcome home of all things?  And who would know her name?  Alex was the only one she’d seen in the café that she knew, and she’d watched him pay and leave.  No, it couldn’t have been him.  Katie sat back down at her table.  She took out her planner and folded the napkin so it would fit in the pocket.  She finished her meal, all the time constantly thinking about the strange message.  She packed up her things, paid, and left, walking toward number three Oak Street.  When she reached the house, she still had no idea what to make of the napkin and its strange message.

            She dropped her satchel on the couch and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.  While the water was heating to boil, she sat down on the sofa chair in the family room.  Welcome home, Katie.  The message kept running through her mind over and over.  The strange handwriting.  It was written in ink.  It wasn’t modern block print or even cursive.  It looked like the handwriting she’d seen on the old documents she’d used when researching her undergraduate thesis at Harvard.  Welcome home, Katie.  As the kettle whistled in the kitchen, Katie still couldn’t get it out of her mind that this message wasn’t welcoming her at all.

So, there you go.  I think that is one of the better parts I've written so far.  What do you think?  Constructive criticism is always welcome!

Happy reading & writing!

Monday Musings: NaNoWriMo

Wait...what?  What in the world is NaNoWriMo?  Many of you know that I'm a high school teacher and book critic by day and an aspiring writer by night.  Ok, maybe not many of you, but at least some of you know this.  Today I began my first book, and it was because of NaNoWriMo.  Ready for me to explain what that means?  Have I kept you in suspense long enough?  Alrighty then.  NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  From November 1st to November 30th, I will be writing my first ever novel of at least 50,000 words (that's about 175 pages to non-writers).  Sound like an unattainable feat?  Really it isn't.  On the first day, today, I've written a little over 1900 words in less than two hours.  Now, I'm not saying that this is going to win the Pulitzer or even get published, but I'm pretty darn proud of myself to say the least.  I've written poems and a short story or two, but I've never tried to tackle a novel or novella before.  With working full time, I'm probably going to hit the 50,000 mark actually on November 30th, so I'm definitely not expecting much more than that.  But the fact that I'm actually doing it means a lot to me.  So, I'm going to try to keep my readers updated with my progress by blogging after I finish each day's count so that you know what's going on.  I'll be making a special page where I'll link back to all the posts that I make concerning NaNoWriMo and my novel, which doesn't yet have a name.  So, I hope you enjoy my delving into madness in trying to write a book in 30 days!