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NaNoWriMo

October 27, 2011 in Books and Literature, Ideas, Just for Fun, Personal with 4 Comments

National November Writing Month starts this upcoming Tuesday. For those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, its a 30 day challenge in which you try to write a 50,000 word novel. For several years I have wanted to try to do NaNoWriMo, but I have been preoccupied with school and the semi-brutal holiday shopping season at work for me to actively focus on it. This year is different: I have free time–well, sort of. I don’t have school so I just need to focus on making sure things are running smoothly in my department at work during this month and trying to get ready for DATG.

So why would I do this? For the challenge, and to finally be able to say that I have written a novel. I know its not going to be pretty, and that there are going to be a lot of crap written, but quantity over quality is the game here. Out of the 50,000 words that are going to be written I am bound to find some gems in there. Who knows, maybe with a little polishing my month long experiment can actually amount to something!

So what will I be writing about? Well, I got the idea from my friend Zach when him and I were talking about time travel and he mentioned something about how wild would it be if someone went back in time to live a second life at the same time of their younger self. This spun to traveling in time for a specific purpose and changing the time stream and pivot points in that time stream. Out of that conversation I came up with the idea of people known at catalysts, who their seemingly ordinary choices let to the creation of the time machine. These people are spread throughout time—some of them live ordinary lives, others are semi-important and others must make choices that will affect other’s lives, but each of them plays a role in setting the ball in motion for the creation of the time machine. There are three forces at play here: the catalysts themselves, the time travelers helping them/watching them to make sure everything is going along what is supposed to be and then there is a group who fear the time machine and see it as evil and do everything in their power to stop it from ever being created.

Hopefully I will be so focused on my novel that I will be just like this lady after I get to the 30,000 mark:

NaNoWriMo enthusiasmWish me luck.

 

 

 

Another Spring- Kenneth Rexroth

October 6, 2011 in Books and Literature with 0 Comments

The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full. 

The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains. 

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak. 

O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever 

Slide unconsciously by us like water.

One of my favorites and I thought I would share. The last three lines always hit me hard. How about you?

Thou Art God!

August 19, 2011 in Books and Literature, Random Musings with 1 Comment

Anybody can see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman that she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. A great artist can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is… and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be… more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older that eighteen in her heart… no matter what merciless hours have done. Look at her. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me- but it does to them. Look at her!- Michael Valentine Smith, Stranger in a Strangeland

 

Summer In Town

August 17, 2011 in Books and Literature, Just for Fun, Random Musings with 0 Comments

I really enjoy the poems at the end of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. This one is my favorite and I thought I would share it with you.

 

SUMMER IN TOWN

Conversation in murmured tones.
With an inpatient gesture
She upsweeeps her hair–the whole sheaf of it–
From the nape of her neck.

As she peers out from under her heavy comb
She is a woman in a helmet.
Her head, braids and all,
Is thrown back.

Outside, the sultry night
Threatens to turn inclement.
Pedestrians, shuffling their feet,
Hasten homeward.

You can hear abrupt thunderings
And their grating echoes,
While the gusts of wind
Are making the curtains sway.

Not a word breaks the silence.
The air is as sticky as it was before
And, as before, lightning go rummaging.
Rummaging, rummaging all over the sky.

And when the morning comes
Sunshot and sultry
And once more starts drying the puddles
Left on the street by last night’s downpour,

The fragrant lindens,
Ages old but still in full blossom,
Have a glum look about them
Because they haven’t slept themselves out

I hope that you enjoyed and perhaps you will pick up Dr. Zhivago and read it. It’s a wonderful read.