Still NaNoing

SQ
Working on: Walking along the boardwalk as Mari comes to terms with her little death and Simonsant and Nine flirt/fight.
Word for this chapter: 89

Chugging along in NaNo. I've fallen a bit behind, but I'll be able to catch up this weekend. It's almost halfway done!

I'm not as happy with SQ as I was with TTBtM last year. My writing's just so bare bones; all my sentences are the same and my vocabulary so limited. I have a hard time writing descriptions. Reading Catherynne M. Valente makes me desperate to come up with metaphors and similes like hers, but I don't have her lyrical ability. One of the folks in my writers group said he didn't like my metaphors/similes - Too forced and awkward. Gahhhhhhh I have these images in my brain but somehow they get muddled up and crappy when I translate them into writing.

Blarggggggggggglepants.

Writer's/Reader's Manifesto

Found this great post when wandering around LJ this morning: To Develop Your Writer's Intuition, You Must First Read Like a Maniac by Justine Musk.

"Reading is living. It is a way of touching minds with some of the most remarkable minds that exist or ever did exist. Reading takes you deeper into the nature of reality, helps you penetrate the human condition itself. It enlarges your consciousness. It provides you with experiences you never could have had in any other way (or just haven’t had yet). And when you put the book down, everything you take away from it helps you live your life with added depth and richness. Fiction may not provide you with the same kind of information as non-fiction, but information is not always knowledge, and knowledge is not always wisdom. Fiction – the best fiction – is wise, and makes you just a little bit wiser, and you can take that wisdom and apply it across all the different parts of your life."

This is a great essay about what a person needs to be a writer - Namely books. I agree with Musk and I can relate to her as a compulsive, obsessive reader. Between The Boy and me, we've filled three bookcases in our apartment, filled them so that books are stacked in rows of twos or piled up. There are books on our desks, on the kitchen table, on our bureaus, and I've got a tower of books next to my side of the bed. Books! Love 'em!

"Reading is the inhale, writing is the exhale."

WOW. YES. YES THAT'S AN AWESOME WAY OF PUTTING IT.