BW44: November - National Novel Writing Month

  National Novel Writing Month

November is coming up fast and that means it is time for Nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month.   If you aren't aware of what it is - here's the skinny:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write 50,000 words  by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I've been participating since 2007 which makes November a very crazy, stressful, interesting month.  Why do I do it?  Because it challenges me to be creative.  However, going to do things a little differently this time.  I'm in the midst of editing a story, which involves a lot of rewriting.  I'm going to be a Nano rebel.  I've checked in with the powers that be and the consensus is 1 hour of editing is equal to 1000 words, so shooting for at least two hours of editing a day. Yeah!  It's doable.  Plus the sparkly idea percolating in the back of my head may just get incorporated into the story.  

My son is also participating through the Young Writer's Program and he gets to set his own writing goal.  He loves writing fan fiction and would probably write 8 hours a day if I let him.

So if you have ever had the urge to write, jump in and join the rest of the nanowrimo's. For those nonwriters among us, check out the Irish Times new book club or Russia Beyond the Headlines article on children's literature and How Dr. Dolittle became Dr. Ayobolit.

*****************************************************************************  

Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW43: Happy Birthday Ursula Le Guin

Copyright © by Marian Wood Kolisch

Tuesday, October 21st marks Ursula Le Guin's 85th birthday.  She has written over 21 novels of which, I think, she is best known for her EarthSea series.   As a matter of fact, Margaret Atwood proposed  A Wizard of Earthsea for the Wall Street Journal's latest bookclub read.

Le Guin's also published a number of short story collections, poetry as well as books for children.  She has also translated a few books including Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral and Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching; in addition to  essays about writing and life.  She has won numerous awards including the Hugo award in 1970 for The Left Hand of Darkness and in 1975 for The Dispossessed.

Yesterday I went on a book purge through my teetering stacks.  Decided if hadn't gotten around to actually reading a book in the past two or three years,  despite glancing through occasionally and returning to the pile, then it was time to go.  Unearthed The Left Hand of Darkness and it immediately called to me to read.

Synopsis:  When the human ambassador Genly Ai is sent to Gethen, the planet known as Winter by those outsiders who have experienced its arctic climate, he thinks that his mission will be a standard one of making peace between warring factions. Instead the ambassador finds himself wildly unprepared. For Gethen is inhabited by a society with a rich, ancient culture full of strange beauty and deadly intrigue—a society of people who are both male and female in one, and neither. This lack of fixed gender, and the resulting lack of gender-based discrimination, is the very cornerstone of Gethen life. But Genly is all too human. Unless he can overcome his ingrained prejudices about the significance of "male" and "female," he may destroy both his mission and himself.

Next month, she is being honored with the National Book Foundation's 2014 Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters.  

Happy Birthday to Ursula Le Guin. 

********************************************************************************************

Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW42: Armchair traveling - Let's sail the ocean blue

We've been armchair traveling most of the year across the continents.  We've spent quite a bit of time land locked, meandering about from England to Africa to Europe.  It's time to have a bit of fun, wipe the dust off our feet and head out across the waters.   Are you ready for a bit of barefoot travel, with the wind at our backs, mist in our hair as we sail the ocean blue. 

I can't decide whether to head out into the Atlantic and go north of the equator up to Greenland, or sail down and around the cape of Africa into the Indian Ocean.  As I have the hankering to explore Mozambique as well as the barrier islands in the archipelago (a bit of book research, nudge nudge, wink wink)think I'll start there, before heading east to Indonesia. Then I'll have to decide whether to drop down to sail around Australia.  Or sail to Singapore through the strait to the Pacific Ocean which will bring me back to where I started, ending and beginning my year at the same spot. 

Currently in my backpack are Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander and Post Captain from his Aubrey/Maturin historical series, M.L. Stedman's The Light Between Oceans and James Rollins' Deep Fathom.

If you've yet to read Melville's Moby Dick or C.S. Foresters Hornblower saga or Nordhoff and Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty, now may be a good time.  For more suggestions go to historical naval fiction, or Goodreads selection of Popular Naval Fiction, books set in the Atlantic and books set in the Pacific.  Check out Pinterest's eclectic list of Must Read Ocean Books.

Happy Sailing! 

******************************************************************

Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

  

BW41: New York Times Best Sellers List

I'm always on the look out for unique or interesting book lists and periodically turn to Hawes Publications which lists every  New York Times Bestseller from the year 1950 until the present.  You can look up which fiction and non fictions books were published and on the best seller list for the year, month and week you were born. Or when your children were born or the year you got married.  So many ways to play with the list.   This time round I decided to go with every ten years and see what books are on the list that I already have read or have, but not yet read. 

1959

Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell

1969 

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

1979

The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart 

1989

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

1999

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2009

Heat Wave by Richard Castle 

I've read them all except for Eco's book which is sitting front and center on my bookshelf pleading to be read.  The rest may deserve a reread but I'll save that for next year. 

So check out the lists, find your birth date, one of your loved ones birth dates, or any special date you can devise and pick out one of the books to read.  Enjoy!

***************************************************************************

 Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url.