I encouraged several writer friends to do NaNo this year, from the soap opera fan site I visit. I'm thrilled they are taking part. Its fun to see others jump in and ride this crazy train.

Hope your writing is going well for you,

Sara

Yesterday, I was reading the novel The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright . It is about about a couple that writer letters to each other each week. The thing that makes this book noteworthy is that the epilogue is done in the coolest way. In the very back of the book, an envelope is attached and inside is the last letter.

I've never seen something like that in a novel. It made it a stand out, something I won't forget anytime soon.

History Before Your Eyes

I'm excited to let all of you know that today a new poetry community launched. Not only will this bring new poets together to share their work but it will share many varied poetic visions with the blogosphere at large.

Head on over to Read Write Poem., sign up and meet the contributors.

I don't know about you but I think its a good day when more poetry enters the world. Best of luck to our friends at

Excerpt of Intersection

From my NaNo Novel, viewpoint of Kenny,-

He walked from driveway to driveway, jogging right through the middle of the yards, not even trying to hide himself because at 5 am no one was awake to notice the guy in prison orange outside their house, and finally found a car with the door unlocked.

In two minutes flat he had the dark green Saturn hot wired. He drove slowly off that block, headed east toward Rt. 30, and pulled into the first gas station he found. There was not a minute when he thought Maybe I shouldn’t do this.

His mind did not work that way. He needed cash. This place has cash. He would take the cash, meet up with Cadillac and then they would cruise up out to Los Angeles and lay low. Get lost among the chicanos and glitterati. Everyone was nuts out in California, no one would notice a couple more crazy men among the masses

Update on Nano Novel

There are twenty-plus characters in my NaNo novel. I actually went ahead and worked up a plot outline, which I never do but desperate times call for desperate measures. There will be seventeen chapters and the name of each chapter is based on the character it is about.

Here are the first five characters:


Criminal- Kenny Delucca
Witness- Marissa Montez
Hostage- Bianca Stein
Cop - Tom White
Neighbor of hostage- Lionel Hughes

Since, for reasons I still have not figured out, I thought it would be fun to do National Blog Posting month this year, you will find me here everyday this month with a new post.

I'm thrilled to see so many friends I know online doing NaNoWriMo this year. I always encourage any writer I know to give it a chance. I think it is amazingly empowering to be able to turn off your internal editor and write freely, without agonizing over each and every word during the first draft. Being desperate to reach that daily word count is a good thing!

I did not win NaNo on my first try in 2005, but I did in 2006. I now wonder if winning last year has made it so I don't feel the same intensity to win this year. I am still trying but not pushing as hard as I did last year.

Then again, I loved my story last year. Nikolas and Simone was very close to my heart. Intersection doesn't grab me in the same way.

Maybe this weekend I can go all out during my writing sessions and catch up. Stranger things have happened, right? Its not like my brain will explode if I write 10,000 words in a day....at least I wouldn't think so. Maybe I should google that and make sure.

Check out my favorite NaNo related post by me from last year:
How to survive NaNoWriMo

Song Lyrics of the Day



Don't know much about your life.
Don't know much about your world, but
Don't want to be alone tonight,
On this planet they call earth.

You don't know about my past, and
I don't have a future figured out.
And maybe this is going too fast.
And maybe it's not meant to last,

But what do you say to taking chances,
What do you say to jumping off the edge?
Never knowing if there's solid ground below
Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,
What do you say,
What do you say?

Celine Dion

3WW

Compensate
Modern
Radio

Hello everyone. Here is the latest installment of my 3WW
continuing story. If you want to catch up, read:

part one
part two

Rock Bottom Part Three

Note to self: Never again make a death bed promise to anyone.

Of course, when that person is your mother, it is kinda hard to refuse. Still, Eric wouldn’t be out in my living room, in his grungy street person clothes, if I hadn’t promised to always look out for him. But I am the younger brother, so what do I really owe him?

I mean I was supposed to look up to him, and I did. He played baseball in high school, so I worked hard to make the team myself. Though I was always in his shadow, having to hustle twice as hard for half the glory. Then he was off to college and, when I graduated, no one but the trade schools would let me in unless I took a full year’s worth of courses without credit to compensate for my lack of academic achievement in high school. I didn’t have Eric’s brains or looks or charm. No one called me a modern day Jimmy Stewart. Eric hit the gene pool jackpot and still managed to waste it all away.

While, here I am, working freaking overtime to keep my head above water and the loan sharks off my ass. The gambling used to be just for fun- a few hours on the boats or the computer, make a couple thousand and get out. Being good and lucky at poker- about the only thing I ever did excel at- made me just cocky enough to think I could run the tables in Vegas, make enough to start my own business, and never work for anyone else ever again.

One crazy weekend about three years ago, Gina and I headed out there to make it happen. I went there with only five thousand in my pocket, borrowed mostly from friends and family, but managed to leave Sin City with six figures. The pizza parlor opened six months later. And if I had kept my word and given up gambling altogether, went straight like Gina begged, I wouldn’t be in this mess I am now.

I couldn’t stay away from the tables, though. It was like a temptress calling to me. Easy money, Tommy, easy money. So easy.

For a while it had been, till my hot streak went ice cold. The restaurant needed money, I needed to make it a success so I could finally give Gina all she deserved: the huge diamond ring, the big wedding, the house behind gates in the suburbs. She deserved it all and more. So I found a way to stay in the game, past when I should have known to get out.

First I borrowed from the wrong loan shark, then I started working for him. I know, real smart, right?

I take bets for Mickey ‘the Mountain’ Panazzo. People call me up and put twenty on The Bears, or one hundred on the Cubbies. Then I got to make sure the winners get paid and the losers pay up. I get two grand a week for this, while the Mountain makes ten times that, at least. I would never skim from him though. I’m not the only bookie he has and I’ve seen what happens when someone loses their job with him- they also lose their ability to breath.

If I can do this side job with him for a few more months, I’ve have enough to get out, sell my pizza joint, move out to Indiana where all the mini-mansions are popping up, and start over, just me and my girl. Gina can give up her job at the radio station and be a stay at home mom like she dreams. I can be the hero she thought I was.

I might not even tell Eric where I live once we move. I can’t have him showing up, all high and wasted, smelling like the sewer, when I have kids running around the house.

Or maybe he will straighten out before then. Maybe I should help him. Get him in rehab finally. I did tell Ma I would never turn my back on him.

Ring. Ring.

I stop typing on the computer, where I was filing out invoices for work, and reach for the portable phone I usually keep on the desk next to me when I am in my study. But it’s not there. I realize I put it back on its charger in the kitchen. Jogging out into the living room I never make it to the phone, because I spot a hundred dollar bill laying on the ground.

My eyes dart back to my bedroom. The door is open. My heart jumps into my throat. I only shoved the money under my bed because someone knocked on the door and I didn’t have time to put it back in the safe in the closet. Then my mind got consumed with my older brother and his idea that he should squat in my home for who the hell knows how long- a weekend, he said, yeah right.

My feet nearly slide out from under me as I race into my bedroom.

He didn’t, I think frantically, He couldn’t have.....

I throw myself on the floor, to look under my bed, and then I have my answer: he did. My brother has screwed me over big time, the duffle bag of money is gone. Damn you, Eric.

NaNo is kicking my butt. This year is taking my sanity away bit by bit. The truly ironic thing is that last year at this time I have never written 50,000 words on any one story before but now I have, several times over.

In November 2006, I didn't know I could reach 50,000 words. This year I know I can and yet I am stymied at every turn.

Over this last year I really got into writing fanfiction and I wonder if that is the crux of my problem. Maybe I am so used to writing within another writer's universe that I can no longer create my own.

I keep thinking that I am going to hit my stride and start cranking out word after word but it has not happened yet.

Don't think I am giving up though. It's not November 30th yet. I hate math but I have run the numbers and I think I could still make it to 50,000 words by the end of this month.

Or go crazy trying.


NaNaWriMo Participant for the third year
NaBloPoMo Participant for the first year

I have a favorite blog. I have gushed in the past about Fiction Scribe.

This post is inspired by one I saw there.

Thirteen First Sentences to Start Your NaNo

13. I knew I shouldn't have married a werewolf.
12. It was the most awesomest of times, it was the most baddest of times.
11. This is a story about a story within a story about a story I once heard.
10. Chickens need love too.
9. In a galaxy far, far away....
8. You will not like this novel but read it anyway.
7. He loved licking toes- the smellier the better.
6. It was not easy to kill the gaint blob living in the sewers in New York City but somebody had to do it.
5. I need to pee.
4. The butler did it and now I will tell you how.
3. This is a memoir about the time I was abducted by aliens.
2. "The first thing you need to understand, Officer, is that this all started when I decided to try and write a 50,000 word novel in a month."

and the number one way to start your nanowrimo novel is....

1. He was a wizard named Scary Trotter.


* Use these suggestions at your own peril.

Now that's how you play Poetry Tag

The sound shook his bones
like a cymbal
crashing fast against his soul,

a soul detached from mind and body,
shivering in the dark
and fearing the coming light.

He fled to a dingy back alley
and waited. A wind rushed
to meet him at the end
with that terrible sound wound through it,

and all he could do was wonder if he remembered to lock his front door,
or if his memories would be taken away with his sanity.

He crouched down, curling into his grief,
and all he could do was fight for water memories and gas-lit stoves still on,
and a cardboard castle, while insensitive queen
did battle for the pawn of man, within his fragile mind.


3 MORE LINES ARE NEEDED FOR THIS POEM BEFORE IT CAN RETURN HOME TO Poets Who Blog. The last site this poem was on was A (de)finite problem with an in(de)finite solutions

If you want to add the next line, then comment tag and take the whole poem to your blog. Tell your readers that you found it here and that if they want to play here are the rules:

Comment TAG
Paste poem on your blog and add a line
mention what site the poem was on last

After the 19th line the poem should be returned to PWB by leaving the entire poem in the comments section there.


Thanks for helping our poem travel the blogosphere.

Day Three

I am happy to report that I have actually managed to come up with a story idea.

Intersection- there is a price to pay for every sin, but who is to say when and how that price is paid?

Caleb wants justice for an injustice perpetrated against him in his past, so he hunts down high powered divorce attorney Franklin Gorman with the aim to end his life.

But when three other people get trapped in the office where Caleb has taken Franklin hostage will they become victums or heros? Is Caleb justified or just out of his mind?


Song Lyrics of the Day

Head under water
and you tell me to
breathe easy for awhile.

The breathing gets harder- even
I know that.

Made room for me.
It's too soon to see if
I'm happy in your hands.

I'm unusually hard to hold on to.

Blank stares at blank pages.
No easy way to say this.
You mean well but you make this hard on me.

I'm not gonna write you a love song.
Cause you ask for it.
Cause you need one, you see.

I'm not gonna write you a love song.
Cause you tell me it's make or break in this.

If you're on your way,
I'm not gonna write you to stay.

If all you have is leaving,
I'm gonna need a better reason
to write you a
love song
today
today..


Sara Bereiles lyrics

Day One

NaNo has started. I still find myself idealess. The writer within is getting very whiny. Thoughts in my mind over the last few days:

How can every other NaNo person-from 8th graders who type in text speak to trekkies who are living in Star Wars World- have a damn plot for their novel and I still don't?

Maybe if I just start typing Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night, when...the rest will just flow out of me like water.


Hey, that was twelve words. Only 49,988 to go. It doesn't matter if that would be the worst start to the worst novel ever, does it? Yeah, it does. Back to the drawing board.


Maybe I can write about trolls.No research needed.

Is thinking about writing about trolls a sign of mental illness? Should I start medication before I write this novel this month?


Because I am writing this novel this month, I am.

Just as soon as I figure out what in the world I will be writing about.

Song Lyrics of the Day

Like a gift from the heavens,
it was easy to tell,
it was love from above that could save me from hell.

She had fire in her soul.
It was easy to see
how the devil himself could be pulled out of me.

There were drums in the air
as she started to dance.

Every soul in the room keeping time with their hands.

And we sang…

Ay oh ay oh ay oh ay,
and the voices bang like the angels
sing.


Santana feat. Chad Kreoger

NaBloPoMo participant for the first time
NaNoWriMo participant for the thrid year in a row