NaNoWriMo 2011

ATM there’s one week left to complete NaNoWriMo 2011. This is Year Four for me; two wins, one abortion on Day Three in Year Two, plus this year. But this year I’m not really doing it according to the rules. I started off following the rules. I did the same as I did in Years One and Two; coming up with an idea during last couple of days of October. […]

Outline, 3DayNovel, and writing

I did the 3 Day Novel this past September. The word count is half what I get from doing NaNoWriMo but it’s a complete story, though a short one. I went into this with a detailed outline which helped a lot. In the process of doing the writing I hit most of the outline targets but I know that the story is short; some scenes are missing, possibly some secondary […]

Emotional Masturbation

Apparently there is something bad or wrong about masturbation. It’s not natural, or it’s devoid of the element of procreation or sharing that is supposed to be the purpose of sexual drive. Some people who accept masturbation as okay have issues with pornography. Besides being devoid of procreation like masturbation, pornography also devalues the act of sex and devalues the people/gender/activities that are displayed. Some authors then carefully try to […]

Ego bruising

I attended a writing workshop this weekend. Standard structure; moderator asked panel of published writers some questions about how they write, what advice they have, why they chose their genres. This was followed by a session where preregistered participants met for fast reviews by experienced writers or editors. I had a review by an editor of erotic fiction. A cool opportunity for me, but I wasn’t planning to submit my […]

Write about what you know

“Write about what you know” You hear this all the time. The theory is that if you pull stories from your own life and use settings, occupations, and situations that you are familiar with, then your writing will ring true. Writing about what you know will also help to avoid errors like using words that Brits don’t use when a character is supposed to be British, or calling a street […]

Writing analysis: “Axis”, by Alice Munro

I’ve been waiting to find another short story in the New Yorker that generated interest in doing some more writing analysis. After going back to some older issues as well as keeping up on the semi-regular delivery of new issues in the mail I finally found an interesting story to look at. Unfortunately, it’s a story by Alice Munro. I say “unfortunately” because it’s intimidating to select the master of […]

Writing analysis: Blue Roses, by Francis Hwang

Review of “Blue Roses” by Francis Hwang Published in “The New Yorker” November 1, 2010. SUMMARY: Chinese mother feels that her children don’t appreciate her and take from her without giving in return. She becomes angry with her closest daughter when the daughter is unwilling to invite the mother’s widowed friend to Christmas dinner. The mother refuses to go to the dinner, causing a crisis in the family. She admits […]

Analyzing writing

I was a music composition major in university and one of the things that my composition teacher required was score reading. Score reading means to take a bit of a string quartet or orchestral work and be able to play a reduction of it at the piano regardless whether you are a pianist or not. And in theory classes we analyzed music looking at the formal structure, root elements such […]

NaNoWriMo reflections

I want to take a few moments to reflect on this year’s NaNoWriMo event before I put it to bed for a while. I plan to come back and revise and edit, but I want some distance before I try. btw, the opening is published on Smashwords if you’re interested. This was much more difficult and time consuming than the first novel. I think that is a function of a […]