Musings in the Dark: October 2014

10/31/2014

It's November, and that means...

NaNoWriMo has begun!

November is National Novel Writing Month.  The object is for up and coming authors to get used to the writing process by writing each day.  The goal is to create a 50,000-word novel by November 30.  How you work out the amount of words you write per day is up to you.  I've never participated, as my writing routines were well in place before I ever heard of NaNoWriMo.  But my brotha from anotha motha, Denny Upkins, wrote Hollowstone in NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago and was able to get it published.  I strongly encourage newbies to participate.  It can be fun, you can get essential feedback, and if you're serious, you can get a novel and some notoriety.


Even if I wanted to take a shot at NaNo, I couldn't.  My muse holds to no one's schedule.  She's sididdy like that. 

Go to www.nanowrimo.org for more details.

Happy writing, peeps!  Even if you don't finish, every day of progress puts you closer to your goal.  Writing is a long, lonely process, and most people only notice when the hard work is done.  NaNo is good for glimpsing into that process.

10/27/2014

From the Vault...All Hallows' Eve

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  It occurs during my favorite
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season.  My birthday’s about ten days removed, it’s the middle of football season, I’m cooking “real” food, and the air’s got a nice snap to it. For many, Halloween’s about trick-or-treating, costumes, candy, pranks, haunted houses, parties, great TV...yanno, cool shit like that.  For me, it’s always been about the candy, movies and costumes, but as I got older, I became fascinated with the origins of the holiday.