Four Days Left

NaNo WriMo is almost here and my big goal for today is to figure out how my story should end so I can finish up my outline for it. It's called Out of the Ashes. I wrote the first two of this trilogy the past two Novembers. This is the last one and it's going to be the best. How do I know that without having written a single word of it?

Easy. I am a better writer now than I was last year. I wrote The Stupid Book, which taught me a lot. Every story does, of course, but I learned a lot this summer. Besides, Ashes is the finale. The dramatic ending to the story of two sisters. *does excited squealing happy dance. It involves a lot of hand flailing.*

My friends, I am sorry in advance. The unique madness that comes from writing in a mad dash amid school and not being a hermit can be frightening. Especially towards the end of NaNo, when I inevitably fall behind and end up writing in a mad dash to finish before November 30. I temporarily lose the ability to think things all the way through before I say them. While it can be funny, it can also be mean. So I am sorry.

But it is a wonderful feeling, to be consumed by a story. I am never happier than when I am writing and it is going well.

Still, living with a writer who is in the midst of writing can be a challenge. Give us our space, lend a half-attentive ear when we need to vent and when we try to avoid the writing, tell us to stop being stupid and go write. Seriously.

Because the only thing harder than NaNo is not getting to 50,000 words. Trust me.

Dragonslayer

Let's talk about dragons. Yes, the great beasts that show up to wreak havoc on unsuspecting villages and kidnap damsels and end up getting slayed by the knight in shining armor.

I myself have a childish love of dragons. The basis for starting The Stupid Book was I wanted to write a story without cliched dragons in it. Whether or not I succeeded in that is for my hopeful future readers to decide. But my dragons are cool.

Actually, today I am more interested in the metaphoric dragons. The dragon that needs to be slayed by the knight or the peasant farmer, depending on your view of yourself.

See, we all have dragons. A project at work, a really frickin' busy day, an essay on the Puritans (yes it is as bad as it sounds), some class called Differential Equations, or midterms. (Can you tell school's been dominating my brain recently?) You get the idea. Metaphoric dragons are the things that are difficult and require time and energy to get through. Usually, it isn't fun.

National Novel Writing Month is starting in fifteen days. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days used to scare me. Then I wrote The Stupid Book over the summer and thought I was better than that. But November is different. November has school. And essays. And studying. And a set amount of time I am required to do things other than write. So I am beginning to realize that 50,000 words in 30 days is still a lot. Enough to be considered a dragon.

But I love dragons. I have not written a story that makes dragons the villains. So I am looking at NaNo in that respect. I don't have to slay the dragon.

I have to tame it.

This is the NaNo website, if you're interested: www.nanowrimo.org

And here are dragon pictures

.

http://dragonkatet.wordpress.com/
http://amxgraphics.com/Dragons/Black.html

Just a Poem

I thought I might share something that I've written, instead of just writing about writing. So, below is a poem I wrote last night and revised today. It's still not finished but now at least I don't feel like I'm leading you on.

Anyway.

"Here"

Let's sit here, then,
under the blotted sun
clouds gathering behind
the old battleground

Let's sit here, then,
as the air rises and falls
ruffling your hair,
tangling mine

Let's sit here, then,
where the northern road
crosses the southern river
and a leaf dances in the rain

Let's sit here, then,
and let the rain and
the clouds and the wind
stay in between.