Last Year at This Time: Nov PAD Challenge

So this year I've returned to the adventure of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) after taking last year off. After all, fiction writing isn't my thing. My participation in NaNoWriMo in 2008 marked my first foray into fiction writing since college, and somehow, nonfiction writer though I am, I was hooked.

I think it was the freedom of NaNoWriMo that drew me in, hypnotizing me into writing until the wee small hours most nights when the rest of the household slept. I wrote with only a single sheet of notes in front of me: just a class schedule, a few background notes, a few street names. And I just let my fingers roam, typing whatever came to mind as I followed my main character around, describing what she did, what she said, how she felt.

I finished the challenge in 2008, and in 2009 I attempted and succeeded in completing the second half of the 2008 novel. It was a heady feeling for a nonfiction writer usually bound by facts, writing stories straight from my brain with such abandon.

But when 2010 rolled around, too many obligations filled my proverbial plate to consider participating in NaNoWriMo, so I tackled a different challenge that I thought would take less time and less energy.

I was wrong about that last part. My choice for last November's writing challenge was anything but quick and easy. In fact, I'm pretty darn sure that I spent more time on it per day than I did with NaNoWriMo.

Robert Lee Brewer, the editor of Poets Market offered his annual Nov (November) PAD (Poem a Day) Chapbook Challenge on his Poetic Asides blog on the Writers Digest website. In past years I had pounced on the opportunity of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) in April, but with the main website that hosted it now defunct, Brewer's poem-a-day challenge truly appealed to me.

While I enjoyed the different daily prompts which evoked some very different poems from me than I had composed previously, the major advantage to the Nov PAD Chapbook Challenge was the contest itself: a chapbook of poems composed during the Nov PAD Challenge would be chosen by Brewer (and perhaps be published?).

Plus, with some fairly impressive names in poetry participating, some of my poems received some excellent feedback from contemporary poets. The movers-and-shakers of the American poetry scene were coming to my blog and leaving very helpful comments to help me improve some of my more promising efforts.

Brewer's daily prompts seemed fairly simple on the surface, but when explored more deeply, the possibilities (and thus my imagination) abounded. Over the course of the month, my writing deepened and broadened wonderfully, maturing me both as a writer and a poet. And isn't that what we desire more than anything?

If poets decide to participate in NaNoWriMo, Brewer also hosts a Poem a Day challenge in April as well, his own version of NaPoWriMo. So all is not lost if November is too busy to join the Nov PAD Chapbook Challenge.

Link for the rules for Nov PAD Chapbook Challenge:
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/2011-november-pad-chapbook-challenge-rules

Link for Brewer's Poetic Asides Blog (the site of the challenge):
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides

Writing with you this month,

Quotation for the Week

I'm a teensy bit behind in my NaNoWriMo word count. Just a teensy bit. Our household has been very busy, readying the house for company--friends over for dinner last night and a blogging friend and her husband spending a few nights with us this coming week.

I also have a bunch of work to do for my classes this week: lesson planning for the week for our three home-educated boybarians, new discussion questions to post at Brave Writer for my Anne of Green Gables Literary Analysis class (and responses to their replies), lesson preparation and essay grading for my medieval history and high school writing courses at Heritage Christian School's Class Days, plus NaNoWriMo and posting edited chapters on Wattpad in a timely manner.

So a little inspiration is definitely needed to help me push through this busy month.

And it comes from an unlikely source: the "curmudgeonous" George Bernard Shaw. (Yes, I made up the word curmudgeonous--I think it describes Shaw perfectly.)

"Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love, and beauty."

--George Bernard Shaw

Yeah, I know. The idea of "perfect truth, love, and beauty" is a bit of a reach to apply to NaNoWriMo, and especially to my teen stories.

But one can dream, right?

I'm just so excited that the main story I'm writing for NaNoWriMo hit a high on Wattpad of #1 in the Thriller category and #3 in its main category, nearly reaching into the Top 100 works on the entire website (#103) this week. That's amazing!! :)

So on I tap, tap, tap, writing furiously while attempting to juggle all else that I need to do in addition to writing a 50,000 word novel, especially this week.

With a never-ending tap, tap, tap,

Update from NaNo Land

Well, it's Day Four of National Novel Writing Month, known affectionately as NaNoWriMo, and it's going well. My goal for the end of today is 8,000 words, and I'm slightly over 7,000 right now without having written today.

And today, with one of the first rainstorms of the wintry season, is a perfect day for writing. I even have a cup of hot chocolate at my elbow to assist me.

This is a strange year for doing NaNoWriMo as I'm juggling two partially-written stories, one nearly done and one only a few chapters in. And as I'm posting finished chapters on a writing website, I have to take breaks from writing freely and creatively to revise, edit, and proof before posting new chapters on schedule: weekends for the nearly-finished story, and mid-week for the newer story. If I don't post on time, I start receiving whining complaints from readers. And that's not good. Some even claim withdrawals, but I wouldn't go that far. ;)

So I'm popping back and forth between the two stories, wanting to finish the first (I have 2 1/2 chapters left to write) then devote myself to the second story for the remainder of NaNoWriMo.

It's also fun having so many Writing Buddies this year. Several former writing students, now graduated, have joined and rejoined, plus a few online friends and at least two students from my current writing class. (Yes, I offered extra credit.) We keep track of one another and give each other a swift kick if the writing totals start stagnating. It's really wonderful.

So I thought I'd post the Prologue of my second story; I've published this prologue and eight short chapters so far online. Let me know what you think, okay?

Prologue to Pinned but Fluttering

How had it gone on this long? I wondered, my eyes listlessly wandering over the nearly-bare room lit by a single light bulb hanging from the water-stained ceiling.

It had all seemed so simple at first. So normal.

Now I was locked in this room nearly 24/7, only allowed out while being escorted to the bathroom three times a day.

Like an animal.

I missed the sun. So much.

But I missed my parents even more. Even after all these years, I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that they're gone. Both of them. It had happened so fast, one right after the other.

Tears rose unbidden to my eyes, blurring the dirty white walls, the plywood nailed securely over the one small, boarded window.

If it weren't for the battery-operated alarm clock on the floor next to the mattress I slept on, I would have never have any idea of the time.

I could tell day from night by the frequency of bathroom breaks, not from the usual rhythms of sunlight and darkness.

Not that either of them would ever let me even pee in peace, anyway.

But I had a strange feeling that things were going to change. And soon.

I could sense the tension between the two of them—the way they bellowed and screamed at one another hour after hour, the animosity building between them each day.

Part of me was scared silly. Change, in my book, was never a good thing. Change had always meant a definite worsening of my lot. Yep, every stinking time. Always. Change was bad.

But part of me was restless, perhaps even excited. Through the thick, bolted door, I had managed to catch just enough of their incessant arguing to figure out what the fighting was all about.

It was all about me.

But this time, I could be granted a chance—the chance I've been praying for every night...for years.

It only took one slip on their part, and I could be free. Free of this tiny room. Free of their anger...which they always took out on me. Free of them.

All love I'd had for them when I was a child was gone...long gone. I wasn't sure that I had the mental energy to hate them, even after all this time. But I did know that I didn't love them. That I would leave them the very first chance that came my way.

Because I knew that one chance was all I would ever, ever get.


So if any of you are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, please comment and leave me your user name so that we can become Writing Buddies.

Writing furiously,

Muslims and Christians

Image Attribution

On this All Saints' Day, a day in which Christians remember those saints, both those recognized by the Church as well as those living quiet lives for Christ's Kingdom, I received a thought-provoking (and prayer-provoking) e-mail from K, a friend of mine serving as a missionary in Asia. She's also a superb writer and this morning she sent out a thought-provoking article on her observations of Muslim-Christian relations. With her kind written permission, I am reprinting her article in its entirety:

As part of my research for the week, I was reading up on the history of missions to Muslims since the founding of Islam.

Mostly, what I read made me profoundly sad. Sad, and frustrated. Because it seems like Christians and Muslims have been talking past each other for several hundred years, and fighting the same battles over and over again, without ever really understanding each other.

What makes it worse is that among Christians, Muslims often have the reputation for “hardheartedness” or “stubbornness” when they don’t immediately accept the gospel offered by foreigners. Reaching Muslims is seen as hopeless, impossible. But often, the problem is not that Muslims are refusing to accept what God has done, but simply not understanding what is being offered to them, because of religious vocabulary differences, cultural differences, or just plain old language differences.

Likewise, among Muslims, Christians have the reputation of being colonialist, overbearing, and stubborn in their insistence on trying to bring a foreign way of life (complete with dirty foreign meats and several foreign gods) into a very, very different culture.

The most heartbreaking passage of this particular paper pointed out that many Christians simply want the demise of Islam – if Muslims don’t become Christian, at least they can become secular. So Muslims who encounter foreigners often feel that the very foundations of their society are under attack – better that they learn to watch “Sex and the City” and wear revealing clothes than continue to worship the Creator God in the traditional way. As attractive as freedom in Christ is, it comes bundled with western promiscuity, western traditions, and a western worldview. And yet, we continue to call them the “stubborn” ones for refusing to change.

Seriously, I wanted to cry when I read that. Call me crazy, but I think God has a deep, abiding love for Muslims. I think their culture (like every culture) still carries strong reflections of God’s image. And I think that followers of Jesus must learn to change from within – first, from within themselves, and then from within their culture. I cannot preach a secular gospel; I cannot say that religious and cultural heritage don’t matter. Nor can I deny the power of Jesus to help people re-invent culture in new, God honoring ways. Because of the cross, everything is redeemable.

We need to stop looking for outward change, without caring about the heart reasons for the change. A woman who takes off her headscarf might be experiencing freedom in Christ, or she might be lusting after western culture. A man who stops praying five times a day could be liberated, or he could be lazy.

And we need to care enough about the people we’re supposedly trying to reach to try to understand their culture from the inside, and not just dismiss it as completely worthless or ungodly. After all, didn’t we all start from a place of unknowing, a place of groping after some form of truth in one way or another? No matter where we come from, God is able to redeem and transform us into a new creation; how can we say that anyone is truly beyond hope?

Thanks for listening to the sadness of my heart on this issue. Would you take a minute to stop and pray for the interaction between the Christian and Muslim worlds – to pray that there would be a brighter future springing from the knowledge of Jesus?

Thought-provoking? What do you think? Especially on All Saints' Day?


Thinking (and praying) tonight,

Quotation for the Week: On Writing

With NaNoWriMo starting on Tuesday, an inspirational quotation on writing seems to be in order for this week. Of course, the daily encouragement e-mails from the wonderful people at NaNoWriMo are helpful, but sometimes a quotation from our own journals, one that snatched our attention and inspired us enough to jot it down months or even years ago, may be just the ticket to start strong and avoid the unsightly procrastination monster.

For some of my consistent readers, a warning: these quotations are reprints of ones I have posted before on this blog. But they're sooooo good that they're worth another perusal, I think. :)

"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotion."
--James Michener

"Easy reading is damn hard writing."
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
--Anton Checkov

So as we gather our creative forces in preparation for NaNoWriMo, we can find inspiration in the most obscure corners where no one dares to explore, or in the brightest hallways where many have tread and continue to do so.

As long as we keep writing, writing, writing. For it is only in writing that our writing will improve, and thus we seek the heart and soul of our craft: the beauty and truth inherent in the written word.

Writing with you,

Yep--Another Banner NaNoWriMo Year!!!

Yep. I'm gonna do it again. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.

The goal of NaNoWriMo: Write a 50,000-word novel in a month, in this case, November. Thirty days. 50,000 words. Fun.

I participated in 2008 for the first time. Yes, me. The NON-fiction writer. The I-barely-survived-creative-writing-in-college writer. The writer who had not penned a work of fiction since that same creative writing class...which I think culminated in a story about a flea named Spike.

I wrote a story about a single woman on the journey from the evangelical church to the liturgical, historical Anglican church. Of course, the story was quite autobiographical, but I took my creative writing professor's words to heart: Write what you know. And I completed the challenge: 50,000 words by November 29th, 2008.

In 2009 I tackled the second half of the novel which I had titled The Pilgrim Pathway. Have I touched it since November 28, 2009? Nope. It's very rough (actually, "extremely rough" would be more accurate), but mostly complete.

Last year I was teaching an intensive Brave Writer class over the month of November, so I elected to take up a Poem-a-Day challenge through Robert Brewer's Poets Market blog on the Writers Market website. I wrote thirty poems, a few of them decent, and received some wonderfully helpful critiques from some fairly major poets. Cool. But I think I sunk as much time into the poems as I would have in NaNoWriMo.

But the joyous freedom of allowing a story to unfold in one's brain and flow through tapping fingers onto a computer screen was too addicting. I started writing a fiction story on another website in the middle of the month; I've been posting a chapter a week and am down to the final three chapters. The story contains 50 chapters (very short, 25000-word chapters which is what the website handles best), and 200 pages on my computer, 150 pages on the website. And this story has followers: it has garnered over 110,000 "reads" (or hits), over 1100 votes/likes, nearly 1000 individual comments, and last week the 50th chapter reached a high ranking of #9 in its category. So I guess I couldn't stop writing fiction after all.

So I'm back with NaNoWriMo in 2011, and I'm planning to work on a second story I started on the same writing website in August. It's called Pinned but Fluttering. So far I have a prologue and seven chapters written, and it's even more popular than my first story. I posted Chapter Seven early Wednesday, and this morning it's ranked #4 in its category and #2 in the Thriller category--it reached #1 in the Thriller category for a few days last week. Out of over a million stories and poems posted on the site, these rankings are very encouraging!

And the exciting thing about NaNoWriMo this year is that I'm doing it with friends! In 2009, I "friended" a writing student and a member of our local writers workshop, and we worked together, encouraging each other. My local friend and I even met at our library and wrote next to each other, our fingers typing as we composed companionably.

But this year I will be participating with several former writing students, all having graduated high school, plus my workshop friend. And on a whim I offered extra credit to my current writing class in our home school co-op--one extra credit point for every 1000 words written, with a maximum of 50 extra credit points. And almost half the class raised hands when I asked who was considering participating in NaNoWriMo this fall.

And NaNoWriMo is more than a bunch of people writing: over a quarter of a million adults participate, along with school programs for kids. But NaNoWriMo is a non-profit, so in the spirit of sharing the love of writing (and the money), I'm posting a two-minute video on all they do, with the hopes that many of us will send in a few bucks to keep the ball[point pens] rolling..



So...who's in??? Post your NaNoWriMo user name in my comments, and we can journey together!!

Writing with you,

Quotation for the Week

I've now been sick for over a week. I started feeling ill last Saturday night, then stayed home Sunday from church. I tried to have a normal school day on Monday, but went to bed very early--totally unlike myself. Then I just couldn't function for the rest of the week and spent most of Tuesday through Sunday in bed. I managed to finish grading essays for my Brave Writer course, but that was about it all week.

Last night I did the boys' school planning, and I was lightheaded the entire time.

This morning I woke, planning to return to my normal schedule, and I just can't. I'll try to stay on the sofa so that I can help the boys with their schoolwork, but I'm definitely going to have to take it easy.

So as I peruse the quotations in my journal this week, I came across an odd truth from an unusual source. See what you think about it....

"Man can't do without God. Just like you're thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can't go without God."
--Bob Marley

We "can't go without God." Isn't that the Truth? Marley seems to be paraphrasing John 15:5: "...for apart from me you can do nothing."

So as we walk with God this week, depending on Him for everything, may we ponder the simple yet profound words from an unusual source...dreads and all.

Wishing you all a blessed week,

Thankful for Autumn

This week autumn made itself felt. Our first winter storm came through, bringing rain and high winds, and the boys carried in wood and built the first fire of the season. Each morning I have to scrape frost from my windshield. I've put away the capris of summer, pulling out jeans and sweats and wool socks.

Autumn is my favorite season. The heat of summer wanes into crisp, clean days, a few cirrus clouds spreading across the skies, filmy mare's tails. The days grow shorter, and the apples ripen, blushing on the branches of our Pippin tree. The days are warm and pleasant; the night cool, often downright cold. We add another quilt to the bed at night. The boys stop watering the garden and start hauling firewood, our main source of heat in the house. I open the windows in the mornings to warm the house with temperate breezes, closing them when the sun dips, bringing coolness of evening, the opposite of summertime in which we open windows at night to cool the house and seal it up tight in the mornings to keep the rooms as comfortable as possible.

So with the arrival of autumn, I continue on the journey to One Thousand Gifts with the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience as I thank God this day...

671. for the nearly full moon shimmering through evergreen branches in deep dusk

672. for midnight-blue skies illuminating silhouettes of pines in dusky twilight

673. for the neighbor strumming guitar, practicing Christmas music in early October evenings

674. for the first frost of the season icing morning windshields

675. for harvest of pumpkins from community garden

676. for persistent toad who keeps returning to visit my spa

677. for new milestones for my stories

678. for first winter storm, bringing oh-so-welcome rain

679. for warmth of wool socks and UGG-style boots

680. for late lazy sunrises and early sunsets as autumn days wane

So as pumpkins are harvested and harvest moons wink in chill evenings, I count the days of autumn, treasuring each one. We make popcorn, apple cider, and hot chocolate in afternoons, and soup reappears on our dinner menus. And we look forward to Thanksgiving, the day set aside here in the States for gratitude for the good gifts of God.

Journeying in gratitude, now and always,

Quotation(s) of the Week: On Literature

This past week has been all about writing.

I've been grading the first drafts of my Brave Writer MLA Research Essay class. I've been writing and publishing parts/chapters of my two stories, and I've been helping my boys write their essay assignments, one writing a "keen observation" essay and the other rewriting a scene from The Hobbit from another character's point-of-view.

And as I write what I consider to be "fluff" writing, I keep thinking about the difference between fiction and literature.

Fiction (what I'm writing right now and the focus of my writing for the past eleven months) is writing stories not based in actual events (like biography and history); they may be loosely based in real life happenings, but they're disguised by the writer so as to be fairly unrecognizable.

Literature is fiction with longevity. It's not just "fluff"; it contains universal themes, quality writing styles, deep character development, and wide appeal. Literature often morphs into a "classic" with the passage of time.

I very much doubt that my current writing projects will become literature, but I hope that some of my future work will aspire to the literary category.

I have jotted down a few quotations about literature that seem memorable to me; I hope you'll find them worthy as well:

"Good literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
--Ezra Pound

"It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression."
--Alfred North Whitehead

"Oh, literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow of our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!"
--D.H. Lawrence

So as we devour fiction and literature and books of all sorts, and as we write what we hope will become literature (or at least hope to be published!), may we express our very hearts in the guise of deeply-resonant characters, exciting plots, lovely writing styles, and memorable prose.

Writing furiously, as always,

Buried....and Quotation for the Week

On Friday the students in my online MLA Research Essay class at Brave Writer submitted their rough drafts. And I've been buried ever since.

Using Open Office's editing function and margin text notes, I marked everything in all the essays regarding content, MLA formatting, and language usage. Each essay took between four and six hours to comment upon.

Yep. Four to six hours. Each.

So, I spent all day Saturday, all day Sunday (missing church), all day Monday when I wasn't homeschooling, and until five in the morning this morning, commenting on rough drafts.

So no blogging, Tweeting, or Facebooking this week, along with no writing of my stories. I didn't even have time to do more than text "Happy Birthday" wishes to two dear friends.  It's been a stressful few days to be sure.

At least when the final essays are submitted on Friday, grading them will not be nearly as much work since I've already commented on the major issues in the essays. (Thank goodness!) Plus, I have ten days to turn around the essays, rather than three days. (Thank goodness, again!)

So as my students write and I dream of writing, I thought that a writing quotation might be appropriate for this week:

"Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish."
--John Jakes

Even though I'm not much of a John Jakes fan, this wise advice is a guiding force behind our teaching at Brave Writer:

--write what you know
--write from the heart
--write with passion

And as I continue to experiment with fiction writing, I'm learning the same lessons. I'm not much of a creative writer--never have been, except for poetry. So I'm pushing myself in new directions as I work on a couple of stories that are becoming quite popular on a publication website. The comments are very encouraging, but I know that I have a long way to go before I am writing truly good fiction. But this site is a good place to experiment, to "cut my teeth" before attempting greater things.

As my students will continue writing, I'll continue grading, and when I finish the grading, I will continue writing my own little stories, learning as I go....

Always, always with pen in hand,