Friday, October 30, 2009

NaNoWriMo is almost here!




Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!"  -Andre Gide
pic copyright Adrian Pingstone


I'm soooo excited for NaNoWriMo. I feel like I have this secret purpose in my life outside of homework now. I have my novel idea and rough characters, but I haven't looked at my notes in ages, so I'm going to do that to get back into the groove. I am really concerned with getting stuck and losing steam early on, because it's been so long since I've been involved in my story. But I think the momentum of the NaNo events and the letters of encouragement they send should help me.


 I have to be very very very focused. 1,666 words per day. I'm setting an alarm to go off each day to make sure I have a habitual writing time. I also have 2 essays for school to work one, one which is due next Friday, so it's going to be stressful for the first week or so. But  we'll see. It just means I need to work harder, sleep less, no YouTube time, no Facebook, no Hulu, no long lunch and dinner chats with friends. It's going to be a lonely, but productive month.


But the weather is also AMAZING. Autumn puts me in such a good mood. It's chilly and I can have tea or apple cider while typing furiously on my laptop. The cold will keep me from socializing and going outside:)


My Zac blog will be taking a break so I can actually get this novel done, but I'll be back with him in December hopefully. So far I have 5 dishes and 7 subscribers yayyyy. I'm so proud of myself for doing that blog. It's a strange, unconcious story that's continuing and I have no idea where that project is going. But it's there and that's what matters. 


I hope some of you do NaNoWriMo too. It'll be nice to have some company. I've joined the East Valley group and the Phoenix group, so I can meet up with them and discuss our novel troubles throughout the month. This is going to be real change of pace, but I think it should be a good one. Good luck and happy writing!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Vooks are Not Vivacious Books



"Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in few."
- Pythagoras

pic copyright: manipulateddreams (deviantart)

So I read this interesting article in the NY Times about this new thing called a "vook." It's basically a virtual book, with text interspersed with digital elements like videos. It's the future of books! Or is it?
I like the fact that people are trying to shake up the literary world and expand the horizons of what a story is, but what worries me is that it's trying to avoid being a book. What's wrong with just reading a book with words? You read a book, because it's a book and if there's a movie adaptation, you might go see that to see how it looks, but both together? I don't know, it's weird to me.
Lots of books these days are now connecting to websites and adding a virtual world for the characters. Readers can go on and influence or discuss the storylines like in The 39 Clues, which is a huge hit in children's fiction. I think it's great that there are enthusiastic readers who want to continue the story outside the pages the author wrote. Especially since most kids won't talk about a book outside of class, but they'll be more than willing to go on discussion boards and talk about who Blair and Serena should end up with or who should have gone home on American Idol.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't want it to be an excuse for people to not actually read words anymore. All that flashes is not a good story. Words paint pictures and emotions that can't be physically reproduced in my opinion. I work hard to be able to capture an image and bring a character to life and to have a video replaces parts of that text would make it all seem pointless...But we'll see whether this catches on or not.

To read the article, check it out here:http://tinyurl.com/ydmfkk5