Oh, yeah, and one more thing.

Remember that NaNoWriMo thing?

I won.

YAY!!

Fine print: For those of you who don't know what NaNo is, winning just means you achieved the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days (or 60 hours in 30 days for me, 'cause I'm rebellious). There are thousands and thousands of winners. So I'm not special or anything. ;)

Today is the Day

Today's the day. For better or for worse, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to read my Script Frenzy manuscript.

Wish me luck. In my three Screnzies, this is the first time I've summoned the courage to go through the result (shameful, I know). I have no idea what I might find.

I'm a little scared. I found after reading my NaNo novel that the parts I felt when writing them were absolutely horrid weren't actually so terrible as I remembered. The parts, however, I thought at the time were kind of good... made me want to scream. They were so bad.

Throughout April I felt for the most part that what I was writing was pretty good, sort of. But that probably just means that when I look at it again I will pluck my head hair by hair.

So, if you don't see me around for a while, I'm probably still recovering from the trauma, and shopping for wigs on Amazon*.

When I'm back together, you might get to see some amusing Screnzyisms.

When you reread your first drafts for the first time,** do you find it's better or worse than you remember? Have you ever come across any particularly amusing errors or typos? If you're not a writer and you're reading this post, do you like pie?



*Okay, I couldn't resist. I just did it. I think this one would look really natural on me, don't you think?
**That sounds sorta funny: reread for the first time. Hehe. Anyway.

I Think This is the Title

So, I’m trying out this feature where you can post a blog post through email. I’m assuming the subject of the email becomes the title of the post, but I’m not really sure.

I don’t really have much to write, except that I have nothing to write. Last night working on Script Frenzy, I was so out of things to write my characters engaged in a philosophical discussion concerning the metronome. It was actually sort of interesting, and rather fun to write. And also painfully reminiscent of my own trials involving the metronome…

My metronome scene is pretty much wrapped up, and I’m not sure what to write next. I’m running out of characters to kill off. I guess that’s what I get for making them die in the backstory. I could write backstory, I guess…

Also, I’ve been looking through my NaNo manuscript. (And Outlook spellcheck told me “NaNo” isn’t a word. That is so not true. NaNo is totally a word. I shall add it to the dictionary.) In November, the scenes I believed profaned literature are upon reread actually not as horrific as I remembered, and some of them are quite witty. Almost good, even, ringing with the little truths in life that are often overlooked. One short scene which I had ended abruptly with the words, “Oh, this is so horrific I cannot go on,” was actually rather poetic. Another scene I had been so horrified with I rewrote it twice and made a note to cut the first take, I actually found to be best in its original form.

Unfortunately, the scenes which I had thought at the time were not so bad, were really, really bad. After reading them I thoroughly rinsed my eyes and consulted Poison Control. After explaining to them that no, by NaNo I did not mean NaNO₃, they let me go with instructions to rinse again just in case and call my physician if I experienced anything out of the ordinary in regards to my vision.

The good news, though, is that in general throughout the month of November the quality of my writing increased, reaching its zenith around the time of the creation of my amoeba poem. This I found to be most pleasing. The blood, sweat, and tears I shed producing what I thought at the time to be utter drivel was not completely a waste. Only 70% of it was utter drivel.

(Okay, so I exaggerate. There was actually only a small portion of it that was entirely unsalvageable. The majority just needed major revision.)

What I fear, however, is how nonhorrific I think my Screnzy (which I also had to add to the spellcheck dictionary) is turning out to be. The vast majority of it I feel is actually tolerable quality for a Screnzy script. Which, if the same proves true as it did for NaNo, means what I’m producing is really quite atrocious.

This is getting long and rambling, and I’m pretty far behind in Screnzy and should be writing, so I should wrap it up. Those of you doing Screnzy, how are you doing? And those who did NaNo, did you find your novel better or worse than you remembered when you unearthed the manuscript from the bottom of the drawer?

Little Amoebae: A Poem

There are those November nights when it's one AM and you're ten thousand words behind in NaNo and you've stepped into a plot sinkhole and you have no idea what to write and so you word-war with a friend and set Write or Die on Evil Kamikaze mode and disable backspace and the result... is something like this:

Dear little ambaoae,
Dwelling in the pond skum
Do you ever seen the sky,
And do you ever come?

Oh, little amobae,
Dwelling in the pond floor,
Have you ever jumped up high,
And hit your head on the door?

lLittle tiny amoaebae,
All of you--aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Have you ever wondered
What word wrhymes with cousins?

Oh you little amoebae,
Dwelling in the pond scum,
The night draws nigh
And into the darkness I hum.

Invisible little amoebae,
Well, I suppose sometimes you're bidg enough to see
But when I can see you with the naked eye,
Still how small are you compared to me?

Funny looking amoebae,
Changing shapes whenever you wish
Extracted by the scientist,
And plotpped onto a dish

Yeah. I worry myself too.