Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 74

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts, 1952 by Grove Press. The play was first written in French, and translated later by the author himself.

Seems everywhere I turn, “Waiting for Godot” is lauded as the height of theater in the 20th century, if not the best literature of the 20th century. Beckett is also known for the Molloy novel trilogy (also on my to-read list, but not for quite some time) and other writings. He is considered the end of modernism, the beginning of postmodernism, the epitome of absurdist, and also French avant-garde (not to mention a member of the French Resistance in World War II). He hung with James Joyce and the James Joyce circle in Paris, where he lived, although he was first an Irishman studying language in Dublin. A novelist, playwright, director and poet, he was known for black comedy and minimalism, and also for his “open attack on the then-popular realist tradition. Throwing conventional plot lines and restricted time sequences to the wind, his experimental writing style paved the way…” (Huffington Post). I like how “The Modern World” website put it: His is “very human drama pared down to its most necessary gestures: expectation, companionship, abuse, hope.” Or from the Nobel Peace Prize award that he won for “his writing ….–in new forms for the novel and drama–in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation.”

I picked up Waiting for Godot because I had read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and got on a Tom Stoppard kick. Then I heard that if I liked Stoppard, I would like his major influence, Godot. This proved to be an obvious jump, but not a truthful one. I can see the similarities; they are glaring. But I don’t really like Godot nor enjoy it. If asked if I can appreciate it, I would say “Yes.” If asked if I would recommend it, I would say “No, not for most people.”

Honestly, if you read both Godot and some Stoppard theater and were asked if they were by the same author (with no prior knowledge), you would get a resounding “Of course!” So why didn’t I like Godot as much? I don’t really know. Perhaps I didn’t find it as funny as Stoppard. Perhaps I need to see it performed for better appreciation. (I would love to catch the current Broadway production, but I can’t see that happening.) Perhaps I was getting sick of “nothing” entertainment (what, after all that pre-absurdist Ibsen and then Stoppard and Seinfeld).

If nothing else, it’s a short read, so it is easy to explore without the investment of something weightier like War and Peace or even Parade’s End, which I am currently reading. Though, in true weight of material, Godot may outstrip them all. I’m sure, with the proper grouping of academics or friends, one could spend great time and energy sifting through Godot for its gems, learning a lot in the process. In fact, I’m also sure that very thing is happening right now somewhere, for someone. Is Godot God? What is Beckett saying about humanity or about modern man? What did he do to change theater–art–and make it what it is today? Perhaps I will revisit all this when I get to the Molloy trilogy.

“‘Funny, the more you eat the worse it gets.’ / ‘With me it’s just the opposite.’ / ‘In other words?’ / ‘I get used to the muck as I go along’” (p13).

“‘It’s the start that’s difficult.’ ‘You can start from anything.’ / ‘Yes, but you have to decide.’ / ‘True’” (p54).

“‘We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?’” / ‘Yes, yes, we’re magicians. But let us persevere in what we have resolved, before we forget’” (p59).

“‘We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?” (p70).

“‘The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too’” (p77).

“‘One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give brth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more’” (p80).

“‘Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps’” (p81).

I have a friend who is sort of like an oracle of writing advice. It seems like any time we are having writing conversation, he pops out some real gems. Last time I was talking to him, I took notes, so here is a combination of my own contributions and thoughts with his excellent, random nuggets of writer wisdom.

Along the vein of “Show, don’t tell,” (which is and always will be great advice,) whenever you see an adjective not referring to a real object, find some other way of describing it. Feelings often fall under this category. Instead of saying “Sam is sad,” or even “Sam’s eyes welled up with tears,” put Sam in a misty, blue setting with a trickling rain and then bring a tear to his eye.
Consider having your protagonist “save a cat from a tree” in the first few pages of your story. It’s old advice, but having the character do something unselfish and risky can establish a positive feeling about the character before we have too many restrictions about what we, as the reader, will believe about him/her. I did this, sort of, in my first novel. In the first three paragraphs, Mikhail (the male counterpart) is scraping roadkill from the street and burying it. We get it: he’s a compassionate guy. (Whereas my main lead, Gaby, was shown being particularly normal in the first few paragraphs, and strongly rooted in her family. Different goals, I guess.) This works especially well when we are going to see lots of the character’s more trying characteristics over time.
Beware the Predisposition. Alright, this is my advice, and I’ve been harping on it for over fifteen years. Just realize, and make yourself pay attention to the fact, that once you hear or read or write a word–especially a particularly memorable one–you are likely going to use it again, and soon. Like Harry Potter and “panting.” Or Rowling’s other book and “stocky legs.” Those are repeats that will distract a reader. Stocky legs.
If you are at point in the narrative where you think your reader may be confused, make one of your characters just as confused and have another character explain it to him/her. So obvious, right?
Think of the start of your story as the window in. Think of the ending as the bookend.
“Pick things that imply things.” This is something I do all the time, but have never put so succinctly. Sort of like in the example above, rain is not simply rain. There are connotations and relationships with every word we choose, and you can pick loaded ones as long as you understand them. I think this is part of writing which comes so intuitively to some (and I hope, to me). Rain can imply sadness or mellowness, it can imply newness or birth, it can imply an answer to “Why is Sara staying inside on this particular day?” And you thought it was just a setting description. It also really helps with keeping descriptions short, like choosing blue eyes and crow’s feet to describe someone (all-American, advanced age) or that he is carrying around a folder of headshots and a Sharpie (he is clearly confident, maybe cocky and deluded).

Thanks to the Great Whodini. Pretty sure he’ll be showing up again.

Sitting in my most recent writers’ club meeting, my mind wandered to the issue of the modern reader and how a writer should and would respond. Most specifically, I was thinking about the attention span and the action requirements of the modern reader. Personally, I can relate. I have adult ADHD and even though I love books and writing and can enjoy Les Miserables and Shakespeare, I can’t manage things like Tolkien or Russian literature because of their length, attention to minute detail, repetition, and slow unfolding. I can’t but wonder if in the near future most “old” literature will be lost on Americans, both for leisure and even in the education system.

We are in a culture of distracted people, that is abundantly clear. I was reminded of this when I attended my sister’s Christmas cantata this past Sunday. Nothing against her lovely church (mine would have done the same), but I spent most of the performance struggling to look at Lindsay up there singing away because there was a giant screen above her head showing lyrics and second-rate graphics related to the songs (like babies in swaddling clothes and stars and Christmas trees). It wasn’t what was up there, it was that it was there at all. Let me hear a shout-out from you ADHD-ers; I struggle every Sunday with trying to pay attention to the sermon when the pastor is projected onto three different screens, and sing a worship song when these crazy graphics are looping around in the background (I have to find the mathematical pattern!) and now even on the walls and ceiling! And it is not just church. On no, it is everywhere. At the grocery store, I give wide berth to all those talking, flashing ads that dot the ends of aisles, now. At the gas station, I am being shown a mini-movie advertisement when I would have formerly been watching the numbers tick by and thumping the window to tell Eamon to get the heck back in the back seat. While driving even, everything has gone computer, so that instead of just picking a radio channel with a tactile dial or button, I have to look down and scroll around on a flat board through McDonalds ads and photos of album covers. And that’s not all, but I know I don’t have to go any further, ’cause you know, you understand. If I gave as many examples as I can think of right now, this blog entry would be tens if not hundreds of scroll-downs long. And I’m not just referring to electronic media. Think billboards. Think children’s toys. Think of the trend toward wackier and more integrated illustrations in novels.

And one of the major issues of all this bang and pizazz and around-the-clock entertainment and stimulation is that not only are we a distracted society, we are fast becoming a distractable one. I know it. You look inside and you know it. The more we are stimulated externally, the less able we become to stimulate ourselves internally.

So what does this mean for books? For writers? Even for publishers? As far as I can tell, there are two opposite reactions we might have to this, two courses of action.

One, join in. Beef up that book. Buy books that are exciting! Short words, short paragraphs, short on everything except anything titillating. Dumb down your geeky writer-speak and concentrate on things like cliffhangers and plot twists and the perfect, big ending. Otherwise, how are we, as people of a quieter industry, supposed to compete? Supposed to stay valid? Because that is what it may come down to in the end: not just Do I read a book right now or watch America’s Biggest Dancing Idol? but a more profound Do I read? It has always amazed me, anyhow, that many adults define themselves as “not a reader.” In this competition, we may become the next closest thing to obsolete. So why not keep up, stay current, give the modern reader what he never knew he wanted and more? Think creatively, since that’s what we do best: find ways to integrate reading and storytelling with modern media and modern entertainment and modern education. Even find ways of regurgitation “old” literature for a more fast-paced and stressful world.

Two, fight it. Hone your work so that it is the very best of the literary experience and stay that way. Don’t compromise, and stand tall, like a beacon of righteous literature, always there for the true literary seeker. And then hope like crazy that everyone else still picks up a book sometimes over the next couple hundred years, that they can still decipher the visual English language, whether it be on a page, a screen, or in liquid ink. You have to keep up with the technology, to a point, but no further than keep up, because there is something magical and primal about markings on a surface that reveal a story, and we–as keepers of literature–know what a good story is, what it can be.

I can’t tell you which way to react. Perhaps just keeping on keeping on, reminding yourself here and there about the changing needs and limitations of your audience is an okay option, too.

What I can tell you is this is indeed a story in itself about the slow unwinding of language as it first appeared thousands of years ago, how it became an oral tradition that became a written tradition that is at the moment strongly emphasizing external visual and auditory experience of the flashiest sort. The most distracting. And about how a people became a more distractable people, inundated with information and with options. And about how literature prevailed, in some form or another, and how we all had something to do with that.

I pay close attention to first lines. One of my writer aspirations is to have such a great first line that they’ll be begging me to use it in the “First Lines” section of Poets & Writers. I read that section, every month, scrutinizing the novel lines. Then whenever I start a new book, I look very closely at that first line, think about it.

Yesterday, I began a book with a terrible first line. I won’t go into deets here, although I can imagine myself in the future as a writing professor putting it up on the holographic board and asking my students to critique it for me. (Bless my husband, who actually asked me, “Well, what’s wrong with it?” Fun times.) It sent me on a mind spree about first lines and the reason you need–not a good one but–a great one.

Here it is.

You want people to read the book, right?

Think of it this way: your first line needs to propel the reader into the first paragraph. Your first paragraph needs to propel them through the first page. The first page, through the first chapter. And that first chapter? Through the first “section.” By then, they’ll know if they want to read the rest based on lots of different things about your writing and storytelling (including ends of chapters).

So, when editing you novel for eventual publication, this is where I think you need to concentrate some real effort: The first sentence. The first paragraph. The first page. The first chapter. The endings of chapters, especially the first several. The ending. As a novelist, you can never give as much attention to each sentence and word as you want to, and you would as a poet. But you can triage.

Here are my first lines, so far. (You can see, I am not the master of first lines, but I am trying.):

“Tow-headed Mikhail bent over the lifeless, flattened, bloodied chipmunk.” -Benevolent (2013)

“She had a perm. John didn’t know anything about those kinds of things, but he was surprised later to find out—when she came home one afternoon smelling of bitter plastic and fish—that what he had been running his fingers through and adoring splayed on his white, eyelet bed linen, was a ruse.” -The Family Elephant’s Jewels (2014)

“Cecily stood in the mud where the deep ruts crested at the side of the road and hardened into long, false hills, stony underneath but slick on the top.” or, from the forward, “Some call it the night of thieves and others call it the night of a hundred thieves.” -The Night of One Hundred Thieves (2014)

“Peter stood to the side, his fists shoved down into his hoodie pockets and his gaze wandering over the closest wall of the stairwell.” -Spin (draft)

“I would begin a story about me, Jonah, on the day that Mr. James came to stay with us.” -Frame 352 (draft)

“Her name was Mary. In her original life—at least, as far as Mary could ever tell, it was her original life—she was born in 1829.” The Marvelous Life of Mary McG (draft)

“The mess under Jimmy Bloum’s bed was thick and quite dusty.” -Rails (draft)

“The plan, for sixty years, was to drive off a coastal cliff in our car, clinging to each other in the front seat like Velcro monkeys.” The Last Book (draft)

 

With NaNoWriMo, I honesty haven’t been taking in too much to entertainment, even reading (which is like half-entertainment, half-work). My plan for these last two months was several books, but I haven’t even finished one all month (unless you count the first book of Parade’s End, which I guess we should).

We did, early on, switch gears to the final season of Fringe. Wow. It’s really interesting how Abrams decided to do this thing, and it makes me wonder why. You see, Fringe, like Lost before it, is a contained series, like Sherlock or lots of other British series. Effectively, season four ends the series with the conclusion of everything we have been expecting to end, but with a few little teasers for something new. Season five, then, is really a bonus season, taking place not only in the futures of the main characters, but also outside of the main plots of the first four seasons. I only like this idea if I think about it that way: a bonus season, like a movie sequel. (I also had major issues with one main development at the end of season four, which seemed to want to be scientific but was clearly impossible (key words: Olivia as power). Other than that, I thought the (first) ending was pretty good. It’s funny; I always hated how easily Abrams would kill off his main characters in Lost, but I found myself also resenting how resilient they were in Fringe.)

Frozen (2013). Found myself on the last day of November at the movie theater with my extended family, shoulder-to-shoulder with swarms of eight-year-olds and up to my elbows in the kiddie combo, watching the newest Disney princess flick. It was pretty excellent. Now, I had to restrain myself from throwing my frozen Coke at the screen when one of the first things to happen was the death of the parents (Disney! What gives? Every single movie you make?!?), but then I calmed down as it proceeded with great animation, beautiful scenery, engaging characters, catchy tunes, laugh-out-loud moments, and complex dilemmas. I did think that Anna should have turned out to be a latent spring sorceress, and I also think they could have done a better job at making the bad guy seem just a little bad before the big reveal, but overall… up to par, a little above.

I told you I hadn’t watched much. I haven’t even gotten through Christmas Vacation yet, this year. (For Christmas entertainment recommends, click here.)

My novella-in-progress.

And yes, I have been going on and on all month about NaNoWriMo. (To follow the series, click here.) The basic news is that I entered National Novel Writing Month and its 50,000 word requirement with a vague plan for a Benevolent spin-off novella. I was severely injured two days previous and (yeah, enough with the excuses ;)) only hit 30,000 before the deadline. I have given myself till next Saturday at midnight to finish the book (it will be around 50,000 when complete, I believe). I think it is going well, but it is so hard to tell, using a different technique. (Who am I kidding? It’s always hard to tell while writing–or at any time–how good or bad my own stuff is.) At this point, I am writing the final section before the last chapter (there are only eight chapters in the book, total), and things are revving up for the big night (of The Night of One Hundred Thieves). I have plotted out the rest of the book and just have to type and type and type. Yesterday, my husband and I figured out a rough page count for the final version and then went to our bookshelves to compare it to a book there. I know that intuitively I always said this was going to be a short novel (mistakenly, I was calling it a novella), but it is so small! I really feel like all that work should be much weightier! Oh well, it will be a cheaper and less daunting book than its predecessor, as long as I can keep readers from being confused about the many, many characters. (Love the book cover? It’s not final, but me too.)

I have also run into a little snafu with my plan to dominate the book world by entering all the indy-open novel contests: money. Miraculously, I have managed all year since March to make all the fiscal requirements, but right when a couple of big ones are looming, I find myself cash poor; like hundreds cash poor. Argh. So unless my book goes viral or money suddenly sprouts from our Charlie-Brown-sized Christmas tree, I am going to have to swallow the disappointment and leave myself a reminder to never wonder if.

I hate losing. Not that I’m very competitive. I like other people to win, too. But I also hate losing and I love being first.

I lost NaNoWriMo. There was no avoiding it, for me. I severely sprained my spine (read: ruptured a disk) on October 30 and spent the first several days of November laying flat on my back in terrible pain. As I (slowly) recovered, I started typing laying down and managed to get 30,000 words on the virtual page before the end of the month, which was no small accomplishment. The last few days of the month, however, included my daughter’s birthday and birthday party, Thanksgiving, and Hanukkah. I was still going to power through. Then on Friday, my computer died when I had left my cord behind at my last place of usage. On Friday and Saturday I made attempts to recover the cord which were thwarted. It was a sad, sad sign.

And still, I went kicking and screaming over that midnight line a couple nights ago.

So, let’s revisit why doing NaNoWriMo was useful in the first place. Was it the swag? The gloating? The little icon on my future years’ NaNoWriMo page? I don’t think so, at least not primarily. The main reason I did NaNoWriMo was to stretch writing muscles that I did not normally use and to have a novel that I didn’t have before, at least in first draft form. Did I accomplish these objectives in 30,000 words? Did I stretch muscles I did not know I had? Yes. I learned a lot–empirically–about writing fast and writing without editing or drafting. I think I will do this again, next year, maybe even do Camp NaNoWriMo this summer. (I’ll know better how to prepare and I will try my darndest not to get laid up.) I also think that some time in the future I am going to work on a book on an old-style typewriter (not the electronic kind) so that I don’t have the option of the backspace button. Then I could move even faster, and that might be an even further stretch. Of course, first I want to see if what I’ve written this time is worth the effort, and then I will have to transcribe…

But as far as the second main objective–to have a novel that I did not have before–30,000 words didn’t cut it. I need, I think, 45,000-55,000 to accomplish that. But there is something that I can do about that. I can keep on NaNoWriMo-ing right past the end of NaNoWriMo. And since most novels don’t wrap up exactly at 50,000 words anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s what the plan is for everyone involved in NaNoWriMo. So, if I don’t want my experience to be swamped by a load of excuses, I am setting a new goal, my own personal PerNoWriMo: by next Saturday at midnight, I plan to finish The Night of One Hundred Thieves.

Take it or leave it, ’cause sometimes those are your only two options.

They all said to make a plan. I even chirped the same advice to my writing friends: October should be NaNoPlaMo, National Novel Planning Month, we said. Because if you want to succeed at the 50,000 words demanded of you to conquer National Novel Writing Month in November, you want to have all guns blazing when you go in, including something to write about. Sure, people have run straight through NaNoWriMo, pennants flapping (can you tell my genre?), absolutely no idea what was going to go down in their supposed novel, and succeeded, big time. And yet, the advice stays. You want to finish a book in 30 days? Best have a skeleton, some character sketches, probably even an ending in mind.

As for me, I managed to disappear October into no man’s land and walked into NaNoWriMo with only an idea and a page of vague notes. That, and a rough draft of a cover.

Now, just take a look at my stats.

That graph, to the right: that’s my word count as the month progresses. You see that first miserable dip? That’s when I was busy spraining my spine and then writing while crying and laying down. So we’ll ignore that. Now this second dip I am experiencing? That would be me eating my own advice. That’s right. I got stuck because suddenly the plot was thickening and I needed to know the layout of the land (literally) and the details of the story’s main plot (as in, the plot my character’s are plotting–it’s quite elaborate–for stealing a magical ring). Giant pause. It has taken me a few days now to map the land, insert all the characters, figure out how the robbery goes down, and then figure out how I want to present the planning and the execution with all thirty two of my characters involved. You can see how that would cut my word counts, right?

So now my ridiculous task is to take a precipitous nosedive up and write–not 1600 or 2200 words per day, but–3000 words per day until the end of the month. Oops, my bad.

Next year, don’t let it be yours.

And now I want to say a little something about planning your writing outside of NaNoWriMo, because we know it’s not every day we are trying to write a novel in a month, although, now that you mention it, that situation may come up more than you would expect. Anyhoo.

Some writers write with elaborate plans and map out the whole story or book before they start. Some never use plans and just write what comes to the them day by day. I would guess that most writers fall somewhere in between. And then there’s research to consider. And editing. (And by that I don’t mean dealing with the changes your editor suggests, but the drafting process.) I have always been surprised by the time and effort that many writers put into a book before they even begin. Think trips to other countries and months of work resulting in crates of files. Clearly, I am a planner, but not a researcher. I mean, I research, but I do it as I go on the internet or I put symbols in my writing (like ooo or ***) to indicate I need to return to an area. I am also a draft-as-I-go person, and by the time I lay down the last line, I’ve basically been through the first few drafts. It’s only one major draft before my First Readers see it. Then one more big draft and a proofread.

So there is no right way to go about it, but there is probably a right way for you. I think the key is to try different ways of moving through the writing process before you lock into a routine, and then don’t be afraid to do things differently and watch how your writing reacts. Here are some ideas to get you thinking about mixing up your own routine and thereby strengthening your process. (Many of them are mutually exclusive; I in no way mean for you to try them all on one book.)

Research:

Immerse yourself in the culture of your story
Do hard research, take extensive notes and file them neatly
Ask around about your topics
Conduct interviews with “experts”
Read other (fiction) books similar
Read (nonfiction) books about your subjects
Use index cards and stickers to organize facts and ideas
When you need research, pause writing and do it
Plan research for once a week and keep a list of needs as you write
Earmark your writing and wait to do any research until you are done with the first draft

Planning:

Make drawings of your characters or scenes
Make a map of your town, house, or land
Create graphs or timelines or flow charts
Pause before writing and come up with a complete skeleton of the book
Write chapter synopses before writing chapters, perhaps all at once
Use YWriter to flesh out characters, places, and symbols, before writing
Keep files on characters, or at least write up character sketches or interviews
Forbid yourself from planning, and write strictly as you go
Don’t plan until you need it, then pause and plan

Writing:

Use YWriter, a free program that helps you organize your writing
Use a Note program, one that keeps you from formatting
Use Word, like most of us
Use paper and pen, gasp!, and overcome cramping like a champ
Write a certain number of words every day
Write a certain time per day
Write a lot in a shorter burst, like 50,000 words in a month
Write consistently over time, like a couple chapters per week, but with a commitment to times, like weekdays, or all days except holidays
Work on one thing at a time until it is complete
Give yourself options between a few projects, each day (not an infinite amount)
Schedule no more than ten per cent of your writing time on promotion, marketing, and publicity
Talk your story into a recording device
Use writing cues. You can find them lots of places
Keep reading, but read something different from what you are writing
Take occasional breaks to write a short story or poem or blog
Take occasional breaks to draw or doodle or scribble about your story and characters
Find some sort of starting routine and do it religiously, then refuse to be distracted
Schedule goals on a calendar, for the story you are working on or longer term. Meet them
Keep it all a secret until you are done
Blab about it to everyone you meet
Converse with a few select people whenever you think you need input
Use a typewriter (It’ll help you not use the backspace button)
Keep up on the trade mags and their articles
Keep up on trade blogs and their articles
Use Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, and Google
Have a shelf within arm’s reach with a dictionary, thesaurus, character name book, the Flip Dictionary, and any other references you might need
Read a writing book while you are in process. My favorite is Stephen King’s On Writing, but there are many others
Use a writing helps book to walk you through the process, such as Plot & Structure, by James Scott Bell. Again, there are many others
Use a writing journal or prompts cards (You can even make either yourself)

Editing:

Join a writing group and use it for real-time critique and encouragement/accountability
Draft as you write
Write straight through, and then start drafting
Use First Readers
Use an online critique forum, such as Write.com or Scribophile
Find an agent or an editor
Refuse to let your manuscript die, and rewrite as drastically as needed
Set your story aside, for a time, to let it breathe
Release it as short bits to the e-public
Begin your promotion before the book is perfectly ready
Create a cover, format, even a book trailer
Write a back cover synopsis to define what your story will/does accomplish and who its audience is

And don’t stop, don’t pause for long, don’t wander too far from the path. You’ll get there. There’s always Camp NaNoWriMo in April.

Still in the middle of National Novel Writing Month. Still spending five-plus hours per day getting those 2,200 words on the page. (Normally, it would be more like 1,600, but I was behind due to a sprained spine; more on that to come.) I am trying to keep writing and stop wanting to lollygag and do things like work on the cover art, work on a book trailer idea, format what I’ve written so far to look like a novel, start a website for my next book release… oh, the pitfalls of speed writing! And I am up to my armpits in the usual novel-writing doubts interspersed with random moments of shocking pride, exhilaration, and self-perceived brilliance.

During NaNoWriMo (see previous blog entry for explanation), I get daily emails with articles and tips for writing, and writing fast, and also about endurance. In lieu of writing my own blog in the middle of all this insanity (and what enjoyable insanity it is, especially coupled with the beautiful fall weather and the buzz of the holidays), I am going to point you to my favorite writing on this month-long event, to date. I found this article inspiring and wonderful, possibly a little mind-blowing, even worth re-directing you from my blog to somewhere else in the world wide web.

Please come back.

But here it is; “Pep Talk” by Catherynne Valente

In case you are unaware (and I haven’t spoken with you in the past couple weeks), November is National Novel Writing Month. Now, it is true that every day and every week and every month is some sort of official something day or week or month, but this one–believe it or not–is widely observed by, well, writers. This year, close to 30,000 people are officially signed up on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website, tracking their observance.

How does one observe? The whole point of this month-long festivity is to write a novel in one month. Specifically, it means to put 50,000 words down on paper and can include Write Ins (meeting with other NaNoWriMo participants to sit and drink coffee or imbibe beer and ignore each other; laptops required), local meetups, daily inspirational emails, quotes, and articles, registration (which can include your potential novel cover and synopsis, as well as the typical author bio and photo), prizes and awards, and tracking oneself on the website. I love the tracking bit: all those graphs telling me target words per day and showing me how I measure up. And I am also really enjoying the Write Ins: snuggled up with my mind and story and an orange juice with seltzer, the quiet hum of classic rock, interrupting my friends’ typing to ask a serious question about point of view, and racing a train home down deserted, frosty roads.

But the best part is the process of NaNoWriMo. Because whether or not it produces the next best seller (through me, obviously), I will have learned more in this month than in at least the last six. Removing myself from my usual writing process (edit as I write), speeding up my usual speed (one novel per year), and focusing on a specific goal (to the detriment of my general life) has really been flexing muscles I had no idea I had. And it’s invigorating and fun and involves mob mentality.

All that to say, I won’t be blogging in my usual way for the remainder of November. I can’t. I have to produce 2,200 words per day for the next 18 days on top of managing Thanksgiving and a Nine-Year-Old Spa Birthday Party (on top of being that other, domestic Devon). 2,200 words per day completely zaps my 5 1/2 hour work day (sometimes, plus some). So I will see you on the flip side, for reviews and witty insight into the writing world and self publishing. As for now, enjoy riding along with me for NaNoWriMo and consider your own observation, next year. Or if you are not a writer or aspiring writer, celebrate by honoring the novel and read.

I have started in a writing group, this month. (See “It Could Have Been Worse.”) I have entered another contest. I have been rejected by the establishment as a self-publisher. (To be addressed in a future blog, titled “The Rejection of the Nuances.”) I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. (See the official website at NaNoWriMo.) And I have been stymied in my usual work on The Family Elephant’s Jewels by vacation, injury, and home renovation.

So here is the month of October (post-Orlando) in entertainment.

Phineas and Ferb (TV series, 2007-). I have to admit that I refused to watch this show for years because I couldn’t figure out why the main characters had heads shaped like a triangle, Frankenstein, and the letter “P.” I lumped it together with all those nonsense shows that dominate modern cartoons, which I believe contribute to this bizarre confusion our children have about reality. But then, somehow, I let my kids watch a few episodes and I discovered very quickly that not only is the show not like all those super-bizarro shows (I still don’t know why their heads are shaped like that), but it’s quite funny and clever, perfect for both kids and adults. It has become our favorite show to watch as a family. We like it so much, we have plans to be them for next Halloween.

Mansfield Park (movie, 1999). I had a night with just myself and Amazon Prime, so I surfed through the new additions and found this. I usually enjoy a Jane Austen film, and somehow I hadn’t seen this one. It wasn’t, say, the best movie I have ever seen, but it was still good. It helped that I have never read Mansfield Park and didn’t know the story. Classic romance stuff. Worth the watch.

Fringe (TV series, 2008-2013). I have reviewed this before, but I have to re-review it because midway through Season Two, everything changes. Before, I called it mediocre and said it was like CSI meets The X Files. Now, it’s like CSI meets The X Files meets Lost meets Armageddon. Up until the point when I did my first review, each episode was highly episodic, built around a familiar skeleton of someone dies in a gruesome way, the Fringe team comes to check it out, they apprehend the culprit of some bizarre fringey thing before the third event. What you quickly discover after mid-second season, is that all the little additions to the overall plot were leading somewhere, and everything picks up in a whirlwind that I expect will keep up until the series conclusion, at the end of Season Five. Engaging and addictive. Way better than I previously said.

Anne of Green Gables (movie, 1985). I know I said previously that I would never watch the Anne of Green Gables movies because they would ruin my internal idea of Anne and Avonlea and everyone else (I have been adamant about this for years), but when I was reviewing the series last month, I suddenly decided that maybe it would be fine–even fun–to check out the movies. I have not been able to move onto the second and third one due to a Netflix snafu, but by next month I’ll be able to also review The Sequel and The Continuing Story. Anyhow, I did enjoy the movie, but not quite as much as I wanted to. My eight-year-old daughter enjoyed it more. Or maybe I’m being hard on it; we are both anticipating the arrival of the next disc.

Shakespeare in Love (movie, 1998). I watched this again after reviewing Tom Stoppard (the screenplay writer) and giving Shakespeare a fifteen-year-old effort. It was entertaining, but I still don’t love that movie. At all. It’s way to affair-y for me (and, as a note, it includes multiple sex scenes). It has it’s moments of beauty and maybe even poignancy, but overall it was sort of blah. No need to review it ever again. Not a fan.

A Monster in Paris (movie, 2011). Picked this one for a family movie night. Thought it was one of those low-budget numbers that the kids get all excited about and then really sucks, but it turns out it is just French. I think everyone would give it a thumbs up, if not overly enthusiastic about it. My favorite part is the musical numbers (especially “La Seine and I,” which is still have in my head), but the whole thing was a surprise of animation and song. Worth the watch.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 (movie, 2013). On one of our very occasional trips to the theater, we paid top-dollar for this little gem. I love Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (the first movie), so this one measures up to about good. Then again, the kids reeeeaaally loved it (even though they can never get the full title out. It’s usually “Chancey With Meatballs”). Funny. Clever. And visually stunning, even though a bit lacking in plot. Your kids will probably love it, too.