Thursday, November 01, 2001
Are you guys watching baseball this series? As a baseball fan, I have to tell you--I have never imagined, far-less had the priveledge of watching two such exciting baseball games. Last nights game. Wow. The Yankees are my new back-up favorite team (my heart forever belongs to the Cardinals).
Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. Score 3 to 1, Diamonbacks. If the Diamonbacks win, this will be a 3:1 series--very hard to come back from. One runner on first base. Tino Martinez comes to the plate and pretty soon, it has two strikes. Full count: 3 balls, 2 strikes. It is almost over folks. Normal teams do NOT come back from this. So Martinez hits a 2 run, home run.
Tied game!! We go to extra innings.
Bottom of the 10th. Score 3 to 3. Two outs. Jeter comes to the plate and pretty soon has, yet another full count. And then it happens: Home run. The Yankees win.
Wow. It leaves me speechless.
____
This morning was my first morning of writing for the Nanowrimo challenge. Challenge is correct. At first, my idea for this thing was to just bang out 50,000 words. I was basically just going to paste in all I wrote for a month and hope. Then excitement grew. I would try and actual novel. I knew it wouldn't be any good--this is all about just getting words on virtual paper, not being good. I do not call myself a writer: journaller yes, poet, perhaps. But prose writer--no way. I've finish one short story in my life period. I don't have dreams of being a novelest. I think of being a better poet--even being a published poet, but novelist, no. But this idea of a November Novel--it has peaked my interest. You do not become a better writer by reading. or thinking about it. You become a better writer by writing. and this would be writing a lot.
I thought I'd try a heavily autobiographical theme--journal style thing. Mix real stories from my life with whatever fiction was needed to make them cohesive, funny. But thinking about it, coming up with stories from my life, characters--there was a ton of material. I knew I could do better. Yesterday an entire storyline for a novel popped into my head. I would do it. It was a perfect theme for this thing.
So I sat down this morning, tea with cream and suger on a table next to me. Email dispensed with, mind clear. Computer room clean. I started to put words to Wordpad (add little copyright symbol thingy, thank you Microsoft).
Well, it ain't as easy as journal writing. I struggled to not edit. I stuttered. My prose sucked. I thought I had a scene clear in my mind, but quickly realized I had words to sketch a scene in mind. I did not have a visual. For a lovely two minute period, I closed my eyes and atually saw the scene--poetry prose started flowing. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Trying to free-write and work a story is hard for me. I've never done it on computer. I write fine on computer otherwise.
When I'd finished, I had 859 words. One hour spent. Far less than the 2,000 I'd hoped for. My emotions alternated between: "I will never be able to do this in a million years" and "you know, you've got the start of something here." The words I had gotten down could be looked at as crap--or they could be looked at like a whole bunch of lovely starting points for the next 30 days.
It'll be interesting to see what I let them be. ¶ 8:22 AM
Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. Score 3 to 1, Diamonbacks. If the Diamonbacks win, this will be a 3:1 series--very hard to come back from. One runner on first base. Tino Martinez comes to the plate and pretty soon, it has two strikes. Full count: 3 balls, 2 strikes. It is almost over folks. Normal teams do NOT come back from this. So Martinez hits a 2 run, home run.
Tied game!! We go to extra innings.
Bottom of the 10th. Score 3 to 3. Two outs. Jeter comes to the plate and pretty soon has, yet another full count. And then it happens: Home run. The Yankees win.
Wow. It leaves me speechless.
____
This morning was my first morning of writing for the Nanowrimo challenge. Challenge is correct. At first, my idea for this thing was to just bang out 50,000 words. I was basically just going to paste in all I wrote for a month and hope. Then excitement grew. I would try and actual novel. I knew it wouldn't be any good--this is all about just getting words on virtual paper, not being good. I do not call myself a writer: journaller yes, poet, perhaps. But prose writer--no way. I've finish one short story in my life period. I don't have dreams of being a novelest. I think of being a better poet--even being a published poet, but novelist, no. But this idea of a November Novel--it has peaked my interest. You do not become a better writer by reading. or thinking about it. You become a better writer by writing. and this would be writing a lot.
I thought I'd try a heavily autobiographical theme--journal style thing. Mix real stories from my life with whatever fiction was needed to make them cohesive, funny. But thinking about it, coming up with stories from my life, characters--there was a ton of material. I knew I could do better. Yesterday an entire storyline for a novel popped into my head. I would do it. It was a perfect theme for this thing.
So I sat down this morning, tea with cream and suger on a table next to me. Email dispensed with, mind clear. Computer room clean. I started to put words to Wordpad (add little copyright symbol thingy, thank you Microsoft).
Well, it ain't as easy as journal writing. I struggled to not edit. I stuttered. My prose sucked. I thought I had a scene clear in my mind, but quickly realized I had words to sketch a scene in mind. I did not have a visual. For a lovely two minute period, I closed my eyes and atually saw the scene--poetry prose started flowing. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Trying to free-write and work a story is hard for me. I've never done it on computer. I write fine on computer otherwise.
When I'd finished, I had 859 words. One hour spent. Far less than the 2,000 I'd hoped for. My emotions alternated between: "I will never be able to do this in a million years" and "you know, you've got the start of something here." The words I had gotten down could be looked at as crap--or they could be looked at like a whole bunch of lovely starting points for the next 30 days.
It'll be interesting to see what I let them be. ¶ 8:22 AM
