merry christmas!! (four days later)

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
- Emile Zola

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (soon enough).

I hope everyone had as memorable a December as I had this year. It was exciting, busy, relaxing, productive, calm, family-filled, friend-filled, and eventful - a whirlwind to say the least.

Since Christmas Day, we've spent much of our time occupied with Rock Band, the PlayStation game I got my sister that has brought me the closest to feeling the thrill of actually being in a band. Considering that we have an actual drum set, electric guitar, acoustic guitars, piano, and singing voices to match, we're hoping that the same enthusiasm we feel for video game controllers in the shape of instruments will translate to the real instruments one of these days. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks what progress we make in that direction...

I also just started reading Coraline, the Neil Gaiman bestseller that has captured everyone's attention, including my little sister, who gave it to me. It has received numerous awards and endless praise. Gaiman is an author that, among a host of other things, writes children's books that appeal to both children and adults, are creepy and enchanted, can delight while still causing you to recoil - perfect combinations. For the past few months, the name "Neil Gaiman" keeps popping up, when I least expect it, and I'm starting to think it's not just coincidence. First, my sister told me about this amazing book she had read (Coraline) and its author. Then, an e-mail from Neil Gaiman appeared in my inbox, thanks to his participation in NaNoWriMo's published author-e-mail mentor campaign. Yes, thousands of others also received the exact same e-mail from him, but the point is, his name and his e-mail were in my inbox. Then we went to go see Beowulf, and afterward, Alex commented to me, "I didn't know Neil Gaiman had co-wrote the script," to which I shook my fist and shouted, "Neil Gaiman!!" (it was probably more dramatic). Then a few weeks later, I found myself reading his blog, and before I knew it, I kept hearing the man's name everywhere, a name which had never really struck me before, but still, I did not buy Coraline.

Well, now I have it, and I have begun reading it. I got the hint, Neil Gaiman.

As for my own writing, I'm still plugging away. January might be a little calmer, which will give me more time to think and to plan and to write.

Stay tuned for upcoming news about VM.

Now the only thing missing in my life is the three-headed dragon finger puppet from Folkmanis Puppets I had been so looking forward to receiving... in case anyone is considering any belated presents for me =)

let the editing begin!!

It is perfectly okay to write garbage - as long as you edit brilliantly.
- C. J. Cherryh

Filling a blank page with words is hard, but changing words that are already there is even more difficult, not to mention having to delete words because of space constraints (i.e. writing an article about a fascinating subject with a word count that can't possibly accommodate all I have to say about aforementioned fascinating subject... without every single word that was there to begin with it, it might actually be reduced to something less than fascinating).
Then there are novels and stories and plot lines with muddy twists and gaping holes, and suddenly you find yourself being poked incessantly by that inner editor that you, the writer, for once in your life had been holding back for just enough time so that you could get something - anything - on paper.

So you did, and now here you sit, staring at a large quantity of words that at some odd hour of the night once seemed to all make sense. Half drunk on sleep, half invigorated with a burst of creative adrenaline, you did something all writers must learn to do at some point if they ever hope to be productive - you locked away the perfectionist, the cautious artist, the know-it-all procrastinator, the pouty second-guesser, the biting critic, the voice that won't shut up, the random-thought stifler, the self-proclaimed all-important, all-knowing editor.

Yes, you managed to do the near impossible, and you smile and pat yourself on the back, knowing that you let your creativity flow and your imagination run wherever it wanted to go, as long as there was a string, as flimsy as it may have been, tying it all together.

And then you begin to read, now alert and ready to finalize what is sure to be no less than genius... but of course, it is far from it.

You realize that names of rather important characters changed mid-story, and you are now at a loss to make a decision, as both sets of names have their merits.

Somewhere between Chapters 1 and 2, your protagonist was cured of his asthma and abandoned his inhaler, leaving him to spend much of his time sprinting long distances to get to each remaining chapter. Perhaps readers won't notice...

As you're reading, you have to remind yourself that there is only one of you, not eight, as the various styles of writing that come and go throughout the novel would lead other, more unsuspecting readers than yourself to believe.

You start to wonder if you subconsciously favor only ten out of the gazillion words in the English dictionary because, as you notice with a frown, they seem to be every other word in your story.

Yes, all these things and more become very apparent all too quickly after a first read-through.

So what's a writer to do? Well, bring back that pesky inner editor, of course, who will no doubt be mumbling, "I told you so," through the whole editing/revising/rewriting (and very long) ordeal.

But as a writer, who now has 100+ pages of text to call your own, you know it was worth it. Your novel may not be perfect, and a good portion of it might sound downright ridiculous, but it's only Round 1, with many, many nights to go before you sleep.

remember, remember the month of november

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
- Lord Byron

So I finally did it - 50,000+ words written in November (National Novel Writing Month, for those of you that might not be aware), making me an official NaNoWriMo 2007 winner!!

Is my novel complete? Not even close. Is it further along than it was one month ago? Most definitely.

Now, alas, there is more writing to be done - research papers, essays, articles, online magazines, and, of course, blogging, to name just a few.

After this next week, I will be able to put the pen down and the typewriter away to make way instead for presents and trees and lights.

Who knows, maybe I'll have a few interesting things to write about Christmas when the time comes around =)