Writing Lessons Learned from NaNoWriMo
I've won National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) multiple times, but this year was my first time tackling it since 2011. And I didn't win -- I only hit 15,000 words. (For those of you who don't think in word counts, that's just under 1/4 of the way through the novel I'm writing.)
Here's what I (re)learned...
5. NaNoWriMo is not worth killing your wrists over. I've had on-and-off wrist problems this fall, and as soon as I started to push for higher word counts, the problems flared up again. I backed off right away and wrote all of 300 words in the next five days, before cautiously starting up again. I'm still trying to pinpoint how much I can comfortably write without physical consequences (current guess is at least 800 words a day), but I'm in this for the long haul. I'll do what I gotta do.
Writing the Wrongs
I had a plan for this blog post. I don’t remember what it was. Last night’s events in Missouri have left me saddened, outraged, and deeply distressed. I can’t talk lightheartedly today.
In this world, we’re not supposed to hit people. We’re not supposed to react with violence to the hate and harm piled on us. And I get it. I do. Anything that can be solved with violence can be solved better and faster without it, if people are willing to try. And we need to be willing to try. Or it just gets worse.
I know that. But sometimes, man…sometimes the need to just hit someone is pretty darn strong.
Year of No Fear: Eye Pain
Those of you who have been following my shenanigans know that since February of last year, I have been suffering from severe chronic eye pain in my left eye. It happened suddenly, and as far as I know, it hasn't affected my vision. But the pain has been excruciating, and it's constant. I'm on a nerve pain medication for it, but I have to stay on a low dose to prevent terrible side effects. So I often have breakthrough pain.
(I am, however, very thankful that I didn't go blind. That would have been much worse.)
Con Aftermath
So, if you guys follow our Twitter or Facebook feeds, you'll know that a few weeks ago we had a table at a smallish scifi/fantasy literature convention called MileHiCon.
We went into this madness with our previous experience on the subject being that we had attended a couple conventions ourselves at various times, and also knowing people who had had tables themselves, though not with any details about how they had run said tables.
