Abby F.'s blog

November is National Novel Writing Month

nobody@vox.com(Abby) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:03:06 -0800

It took Jack Kerouc three weeks to draft his classic, On The Road. You might think that influenced the launch of The National Novel Writing Month. The event itself is a challenge: write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's the fourth day of NaNoWriteMo and things are going swimmingly. Novice and seasoned writers are rallying 'round the challenge. All it takes, for this endeavor, is the desire to write, a sense of adventure, and some discipline for time management. There are as many ways to write a novel as there are writers who have written one. NaNoWriteMo isn't out to echo Kerouc's three-week endeavor, though, "it's about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces (the participants) to lower (their) expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

Last year's challenge drew 80-thousand participants. Not bad for a nine-year-old event, which boasted 21 competitors the first year. Started by Chris Baty as a local Bay Area event, NaNoWriMo continued to evolve and now draws challengers from the US and overseas. Writers can pursue any theme in any genre as long as it's a "lengthy work of fiction." The novel itself must be written during the contest window, though previously scripted notes are allowed. Writers can find tips, strategies, and fun online in forums, such as "plot doctoring", "character plot and realism", "role playing and communal story building", and "games, diversions, and other exciting forms of diversion." It doesn't end there, NaNoWriMo communities can be found in many regions throughout the globe.

Rewards for the winners are more spiritual than material. Anyone reaching the 50-thousand word goal is a winner, though "the 50,000 word limit is a threshold, not necessarily a stopping place." Participants can submit their novels five days before the contest's close. Once the word count is verified, the electronic certificate is available for printing.

A number of participants provide updates on their progress with Twitter, a social networking service and Vox, a blog hosting service. Twitters from mwpetersen, living in Austin, TX, reports a current word count of 5,000 words; jen_b, a librarian from British Columbia, states that she is "writing while chatting and playing scrabble. I don't know why this works, but it does."; embereye, "a Brooklyn girl" from New York, says "I'm at 6155! Now to write another...oh...4k tomorrow! It'll be great!"; cjnash, from Edmonton, Alberta, writes while going home on the bus. He provides more details on Vox, "I only managed to write 875 words yesterday. On the one hand, pretty cool. On the other hand, about half the daily amount I'll need to finish with 50,000 by November 30."

For those who think the writing is simply an exercise in discipline, a number of novels rose above the pile and have been published, including: Jessica Burkhart's High Jumps at Collins Academy (Simon & Schuster), Lani Diane Rich's Time Off for Good Behavior (Warner Books), David Niall Wilson's The Mote in Andrea's Eye (Five Star), Rebecca Agiewich's BreakupBabe (Ballantine Books), Jon F. Merz's The Destructor (Pinnacle Books), Francesca Segre's Daughter of the Bride (Berkeley Books), Gayle Brandeis' Self Storage (Ballantine Books), and, a New York Times best seller, Flying Changes by Sarah Gruen (HarperCollins).

More than 15-thousand kids and teenagers registered with the NaNoWriMo Young-Writers program in 2006. The Young Writers webpage offers games, exercises, and information for the younger writer. Classroom starter kits were created for teachers who wanted to have their class participate.

NaNoWriMo, a non-profit organization since last year, formed a partnership with Room to Read, a non-profit children's literacy group, a few years back. Half of the net proceeds from 2004 and 2005 helped build libraries in Southeast Asia (three in Cambodia and seven in Laos.) The estimated budget for 2007 is approximately $195K. Donations from supporters and proceeds from the T-shirts, books, and other items sold at the store help defray costs.

Budding novelists can refer to Chris Baty's two books for assistance year round, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing A novel in 30 Days and The No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit.

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U2, A Hotel Room, and Me

nobody@vox.com(Abby) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:44:11 -0700

When I head out on the highway I usually bring along my own mix of music. Depending on a particular radio station to play my favorite tunes is an exercise in futility. I didn’t always feel this way. Never worried about taking my eyes off the road to glare at the radio, hoping that I’d find one station that played the songs I liked best. It worked out much of the time. That’s how I first discovered U2’s I Will Follow. I really liked their Boy album and went scouting for anything else they released. Soon found U2-3, a 12-inch import EP. When October was released, I had the record company send over a copy. Then the band came to the states to promote it and I made sure I got an interview.

U2’s publicist directed me to the hotel where the band was staying. Larry Mullen, Jr., Adam Clayton, and the Edge were there. Bono was not. I considered myself lucky, anyway. I’m waiting for one of them, or all three, to sit down and tell me things. Clayton and the Edge are deciding who will sign for room service. Then they talk. The interview first appeared in Relix Magazine and then was changed around for several other publications.

I’m looking at the Relix piece and remember the buzz. There was a string of press people scheduled to meet the band that day. We patiently wait in the hotel lobby ’til we were tapped to meet the band. It was like meeting royalty. They were a few years away from major rock stardom, but were on the way. Constant touring and rounds of press interviews were simply part of the plan. Mullen said, “We play five dates in a row that are 200 miles away from each other, so we don’t see much of anything.”

U2 shrugged off any attempts to label them as a certain type of band. The Edge explained, “I would never want to label the band. We’re a three-piece band with a vocalist. We use bass, drums, and guitar. The three primary colors. We approach it in that type of way because each instrument is individual.”

The press did label U2 with a psychedelic tag and grouped them alongside Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. Mullen continued, “We tried, right from the beginning of the band, to avoid any boxes. I think we succeeded.

The hotel room is getting crowded and noisy. A publicist stops by to check on things. I worry if I’ll hear the interview when I play back the tape and how I can get the band to provide quotes that will impress my editors. Clayton offered, “We grow and we’re going to change. The reason that some people like Boy and not October is because it’s a different album. For others, maybe some of the reasons they didn’t like Boy changed for October and they could relate to it better.”

Everything stopped for the briefest moment when Bono walked in. He smiled and headed right back out. I sure would have loved to have a sit down with him. At least I’m able to exploit that moment now and title this U2, a hotel room, and me! - Abby F.

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Feed: All Plugged In and No Place to Go

nobody@vox.com(Abby) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:05:14 -0700

Feed

Is it really necessary to keep every possible line of communication open? Many believe so and eagerly sign up for any new or novel method for keeping in touch with people and information. Search engines and the WWW, email and webcams, lol @ new codes for conversation, text messaging and IMs, MySpace, Facebook, and Eons. Something for every generation, today. I won’t be left behind. I’ve bookmarked, registered, befriended, twittered, pinged, and checked my blog logs. RSS Feeds, trackbacks, pingbacks. Let’s not forgot the pop-ups and ads embedded in email pages. Social networking, consumerism, and information retrieval at its zenith. It’s so del.icio.us.

Creativity, technical genius, and big business join forces to offer a future full of possibilities. Revolution. Evolution. What’s next? Imagine if all those born and those young enough to adapt were given a new way of life. Instant gratification en masse. A strange new world, perhaps, ultimately a brave one. Mathew Tobin Anderson shows us such a world.

Titus and his friends are typical teenagers. They hang together and share good and bad times. The shared adventures are enhanced by a feed, a transmitter in their brain, which allows them to retrieve just about any bit of information and share it instantaneously with one friend or the whole group. Titus and friends head off to the moon to celebrate spring break. They depend on the feed to secure a hotel reservation and help them in almost every other way. The ability to read, write, and think for oneself is sacrificed for the sake of the feed. Ignorance, in this case, is bliss. At a party, Titus spots a beautiful girl. They connect through the feed when suddenly it all goes wrong. Titus, some of his friends, and the beautiful girl, are hacked.

The beautiful girl is Violet, who, unlike most of her contemporaries, received her feed when she was seven. While Titus and his group recover, things don’t go as well for Violent. Her feed is damaged. Titus never questioned the severe dependence on the feed or the things it took away. How can you miss what you never had? Violet knows and attempts to reach out to Titus.

Feed is a novel for young adults, but don’t let that tag get in your way. It’s a compelling story that goes beyond a simple tale of a futuristic society. Feed won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and was a National Book Award finalist. These are very significant honors. The slang spoken by Titus and his friends had me off to a slow start, but didn’t hold me back for long. The story was so compelling, I couldn’t put the book down.

After the publication of George Orwell’s 1984 there was much trepidation that the predictions in the book would come true. Think about how much of 1984’s plot is real life today. Frightening? Can we truly dismiss Feed’s premise, then, as a non-possibility? How many of us send text messages to a friend or colleague who is sitting in the same room? or have kids who check their cell for instant updates from a friend one row over in the same classroom? When we make an online purchase it’s often cross-matched so offers of related products display on screen. How many of us are on the street with a small phone device attached to our ear? Make these connections and soon it’s not much of a stretch.

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About Me

nobody@vox.com(Abby) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:45:37 -0700

Now: I’ve returned to school, grad school at Queens College, for a degree in Library & Information Studies; completed the paralegal program there, last year. The urge to be creative prods me to take up writing for publication, again. This time, I can handle a myriad of topics; the top 10 list includes music and culture, cats, librarianship, and the law & the paralegal perspective. Love my family (hubby, mom, the cats, and non-annoying relatives). I’m a non-violent supporter of humane treatment of animal and master of my corner of the universe.

Then: Nothing finer than the British pop and the hard rock music playing on the radio. Enthusiastic youth acquires an impressive knowledge of those who make the music and those who play it on the radio. My enthusiasm fuels the desire to join the biz. When the moon was in the right house, I sought out a number of jobs, some call them unpaid internships, in music related situations. Diverse opportunities in radio: I scripted public service announcements for on-air broadcasts, assisted with a ton of paperwork during one station’s application for FCC license renewal, chatted in front of an open mic and announced records, read the news, and wrote news stories for broadcast. Writing was the key. Started with the tiny local mags and didn’t look back. My interviews, features, profiles, and reviews landed in publications with bigger and bigger circulations. The climb up the ladder stopped. Fear of success crashed through the front door and became my roommate. Time for change.

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