Highmoon's Ponderings

Well, we have just begun week 2 of NaNo. Week 2 is described as being tedious because you lose the steam brought by the newness of NaNo, but you aren’t so far in that quitting isn’t an option. Last year I quit in week 2, but this year I will plow on.

Today I broke 13,000 words; after a very dismal word count yesterday, I came back and wrote 2753 words during the day, putting me back on track. I can’t slack off, though.

My book has taken an interesting turn.
I knew that fiction stories took on a life of their own, characters suddenly deciding to do things other than what you intended (and if you aren’t a writer, you think that sounds ludicrous), but I though a memoir was immune to that. I was wrong, it seems. Meant to be a combination religious journey/travel memoir, it seems the religious journey has taken center stage, with the travel an addendum to explain how I changed based on those trips. I’m gonna let it continue to lead me in that direction. If I need to take out all the early part about traveling that doesn’t fit with the other theme when I go over the draft then so be it.

This is very new to me, and I’m liking it.

Broke 9000 words tonight and I am beat. The words are flowing nicely, but tonight was a difficult night to write, as I had to relive very painful moments of my life to get those images from my mind onto “paper.” Still, I’m feeling very good about the book so far.

Day 3 and so far so good; the words are flowing without much coaxing, and the act of writing feels organic, not forced. I was worried about that since I hadn’t written in quite a long time, but thank G-d, no problem there so far.

The hardest part for me is that I am writing a memoir, and shifting through the foggy mists of memory can distract you before you are even aware you are daydreaming and have lost 10-15 minutes recalling something that won’t be more than a couple of sentences on the page. The opposite of that is getting lost in the writing of a scene, recalling a particular memory and writing it out in excrutiating detail when just a couple of sentences would have sufficed. Now, of the two I prefer the second one, since it adds to the word count, even if I know I’ll have to revise and edit later on, but both are a danger one needs to keep in mind when writing a memoir.

The only problem with NaNo I (and my wife for that matter) have is that we are observant Jews that keep Shabbat, so Friday night to Saturday night NaNo is off-limits to us, thus our daily word count totals are slightly different than the standard 50K-divided-by-30. That means that when we need to be on top of our game even more, so we can make up the word count for the days we don’t have all day to write.

Now I gotta head home and prepare for Shabbat, though maybe I’ll have time to put down another 500 words before I have to go to prayers.

Well, it’s November 1st and that means NaNoWriMo 2006 has officially started! I’ll be tracking my progress with a nifty NaNoWriMo Word Count Widget.

This is now featured prominently on the sidebar of my website, so everyone can share my progress and praise me when it’s going good, or heckle me when I’m slacking.

Well, wish me luck. Now, to write!

Today’s been one of those days where you do a hundred different things but don’t really finish anything completely.

I have not written much lately in my NaNoWriMo project, though last night I did about 770 words and currently have a total word count of just over 6000. Not bad but not great either. I am not giving up on NaNo, though. I’ll write as much as I can during the month and see what happens, though with the trip to Paris, the last seven days will be a total loss. At least I’m writing again, which is good. Tonight, however, I have not written anything, nor do I think I will, seeing how I’ll be going to bed soon.

I received today four outlines for Mythic Vistas adventures, including one for the sequel of the finished Medieval Player’s Manual one by Bret Boyd. I need to finish laying out the Testament adventure and get it out for sale already. I’m hoping to be able to do it before I leave in exactly two weeks, which also means I need to finish the press release for the new project in association with Green Ronin, so I can put an ad for it in the adventure to start drumming up interest. After the Testament adventure is done, I can move to the MPM adventure (as soon as GR sends me the graphics). I guess somewhere along the way I’ll find some space and time to write something myself. One hopes.

Today we emailed the hotel in Paris where we hope to stay. The price is a little high, but it is centrally located in the Marais, right next to the Jewish Quarter, which means we’ll have kosher eateries by the dozen, as well as synagogues to choose from, not to mention two Metro stations just a street away and one of the landmarks of Paris, the Centre Pompidou, one block behind. I’m now waiting for their confirmation. Now we are trying to arrange our itinerary so we make the most of our 6 days in Paris.

Lastly, and the only thing actually accomplished today, my wife and I (by which I mean really my wife, with me just helping out here and there) made some etrog and orange marmalade. Etrog is a citrus fruit, known sometimes as citron, which looks like a large, bumpy lemon, and which Jews use during the festival of Sukkot. After the holy day is done we normally save the etrogs and either plant the seeds later in the year (during the New Year for Trees), burn it right before Passover, or make candy, as we did. It is now cooling, though we had a small taste and it is very yummy, an interesting combination of sweet and tart.

Now to sleep, cause I gotta work tomorrow.

My travel dreams are soaring today, so here’s a very nice slideshow on bella Italia.

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive.aspx?type=ss&launch=9826987,9741926&pg=10

Of note:

• Picture 1 – Check out the beautiful lights they placed above the streets.
• Picture 3 – The Duomo in Milan has reopened (it was closed during 2004-2005 for rennovations). Check out also about Carless Day. We should do that here in the States as well.
• Picture 5 – Awesome view of Pompeii, ancient and modern.
• Picture 8 – Check out that most interesting tidbit about the Mole Antonelliana dome! Seems Torino was a lot more Jew-friendly than I knew.
• Picture 10 – Imagine waking up to that in the morning.

On the NaNoWriMo front, my total word count stands at 3031 as of this post. I am trying to squeeze in some writing time today, but work keeps stealing my precious time away. As it is, I am a little behind schedule, but not by much.

The same songs keep driving the story forward. It seems that what I really want to write is the story of a relationship, but I am looking to wrap it in a dark modern fantasy blanket. I am also trying to keep the story contained to a relatively small area (Miami), but already there has been a murder in Brooklyn, so there goes that. Don’t know if the main characters will travel to NYC, but I do feel like they should travel at some point. We’ll see what they tell me.