One dark stormy night, I began NaNoWriMo…

Have you already kicked off then?

For those unawares, November is host to simply the best mass literary get-together of all time. Or at least, in my life time, it is. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month is that time of year we can squish a whole entire novel, or at least 50,000 words of it (yes, FIFTY THOUSAND) into a mere 30 calendar days. And how do we manage to fit it in amongst the day job and the ironing and catching up with X-Factor or however you spend your weekend? Why, with mass support of at least 100,000 folk around the globe all taking part.

That’s what I simply love about this. Now, I’m pretty motivated once I set my mind to something. Scrap that, once I’ve set my mind to something, I’m positively stubborn. So if I’d ever had said before ‘I’ll write a novel in a month, I will I will’ I would have.

But honestly, the idea never popped into my head, and had, it I would have poked it back down into a darkened crevice.

But take me back a year. Someone simply said ‘Are you starting NaNoWriMo tomorrow?’ ‘No,’ I reply, ‘What’s that?’

I regret to say, that in the ten years of it’s existence, I’d never even heard of it before, come to think of it, not even during my creative writing course at university – although I’m particularly good at not hearing vital information during seminars.

But with a quick read up on the web, I decided, ‘You know what, I’m only going to bloody well do it!’ I tried to quickly recruit a friend for moral support, but due to their work commitments and lack of self belief, they sadly never made it past 100 words and I was left to tackle the task alone.

I stuck with it though. I’d had no time to plan, prepare or plot but still galloped away head first. Luckily, the mantra is ‘Quantity, not quality’ which is perfect, as I had nothing more than an artist living in a flat and the last Stephen King novel I’d read rolling around in my head.

The best bit of advice I was given through all the pep talks from the creators, was ‘tell everyone you know that you’re doing it.’ It’s easy to give up on yourself, let yourself down and decide you’ll finish your novel next year, or at least after Christmas. Inevitably, once you start thinking like that, you’ll never progress past chapter five.

So, full steam ahead I told my family, my friends, and proceeded to update my facebook status daily with my ‘out-of-fifty-thousand’ word count. That way I’d have to let down 100+ people as well as myself.

Luckily, I managed to get through the extremely terrible horror tale in good time.

The chief idea is to keep on writing, don’t read back, don’t edit just keep going. All that matters is you produce a beginning, a middle and an end and you make that hefty target. A hefty target that’s still 20,000 or so words off decent novel length, but come on, this is in a month.
Hopefully then, you’re left by November 30th, with a huge file on your hard drive that you can call your very own novel. It will most likely, be pretty awful.

But it’s the start. The start that the majority of us never manage to make. You can edit it, re-edit it or (please don’t) delete it at your leisure. But you got through it. You made words and you made so many of them you made the equivalent of a book. It’s how almost every novel starts out. So yes, it’s terrible. But it’s terribly beautiful too.

The piece I wrote last year, however, was simply terribly terrible and I haven’t bothered to edit it, or even read it back. I knew from the moment I wrote that my main character’s art studio was upstairs (in his one-floor flat) that it was so riddled with mistakes and boring passages that I don’t have the heart to give it any more attention. At least not for some time yet.

This year however, I spent a good couple of hours over the course of the last week preparing and planning and am attempting another first.

I’m going to write a black comedy. Or try to. I can’t say how comedic it’s going to be yet, I’m hoping that alongside my 2k a day word target I’m going to find some time to do a little reading and research too.

But my inspiration? This blog. Back in September, at the very start of this blog, I decided I would write a blog a day. And I told you, in entry one, and I said it so many times (as I did last year with my novel) that I didn’t want to let anyone down by not doing it. I made it to the end, and produce a few snippets along the way.

In particular, I did a few ‘Character Creations’ from photos I found on the web. One of these led me to another idea, which evolved and grew and eventually became the plot for my novel this year.

I’m so glad I started this blog, and that I discovered NaNoWriMo. As always, if you want to write, to be a writer, the most important thing is to just get started. Make those words. You never know where your first sentence might take you – just don’t give up.

If anyone wants to add me as a writing buddy on NaNoWriMo, my username is ebishop24

Take care, and look after your typey fingers,

E x

The Big Knit 2009

Hi again.

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but now I’m not doing a post a day, I’ve allowed myself the time off to busy up with other daily going ons.

I thought I’d take a moment however to share with you a few pics of the hats I made this month for THE BIG KNIT. I wrote a post on this last month, Day Seventeen: The Big Knit 2009 so you can read up about it there also if you so wish.

In a nutshell, by knitting these little hats for Innocent Smoothies to decorate their products with, they will then donate 50p per drink sold (with a hat on) to Age Concern and Help the Aged. To help keep our older folk warm, happy and safe this Winter.

I like the uniqueness of this little charity effort, and it suits me more than sponsored marathon etc. So armed with some yarn scraps from my dear Mum, and a pair of knitting needles, I whipped up 50 different little hats over the course of the last month.

Here are a few pics.

The decorated smoothies will be available in Sainsbury’s stores around the UK during November, so instead of buying your usual soft drink, pick up a healthy smoothie, treat yourself, and help towards a worthy cause at the same time.

Hopefully I’ll be back here again soon!

Day Thirty: Onwards to October.

So, this is the last day of September, and as such, should be the last day of my blog.

I didn’t even realise this when I got on with yesterday’s poetry post. I was so busy getting back into it after a couple of days off, that even writing ‘Day Twenty-Nine’ in the title didn’t set any alarm bells ringing.

So where does this leave us then? Well. I didn’t start the blog for any more extravagant reason than because I simply wanted to. I wanted to put words on page. ‘Everyday for a month’ was just an incentive to not give up.

Although I did miss a couple of days (and not through choice) I still came back with a small poetic vengeance and I guess that also equates in me not giving up.

I doubt I will continue daily, as there are now other things I need to devote my time to, but should I return here again then it will most likely be more of the same; I’d like to see more characters, more poems, certainly more short stories.

In all, one month seems so very short. There was no intention to produce mass quantities of perfect prose in that time, just to simply make words. And words have been made. By and large, not even interesting ones. But the ball it is a-rolling.

Onwards and upwards then to October. I’ll be hoping to bring you a post on the hats I created for THE BIG KNIT 2009, and may well advance some of my character ideas to fit into my novel this year.

I’ll be taking part in NaNoWriMo again this November, so that along with The Big Knit in addition to work should take me up to December, and I don’t even need to mention the dreaded C-word that December entails…I’m almost too scared to go into shops at the moment.

The next couple of weeks I hope will see me concentrating on my novel plot and details, and sadly much of that I won’t be sharing. I’m all well and happy to share ideas, but once their complete, or at least in some whole shape. Perhaps by December I’ll give you a excerpt from my first draft.

So this is it then. Summer has finally left us behind, and I’m sure October promises to be as wet and blustery as ever.

I’ve come out of this month with a huge smile on my face, enjoyed times with very good, close friends and even bought a cardigan and scarf in preparation for winter. I’ve gone from a 23 year stint as a brunette into a ravishing redhead that’s received compliments from everyone and the world is looking like a brighter place too. And with my brand new specs, a little clearer also.

And most importantly, I’ve gotten back into writing. For everything that’s been said and read here, the main point, as I keep saying, is that it went from head, via fingers and interwebs, into the great wide public world. Writing daily is so important for someone who wants to create with words, and I think my brain has been well and truly stimulated.

It’s been a pleasure, so for those of you who’ve bothered to come here and read this, a huge thank you.

Maybe not quite tomorrow, but hopefully soon,

Otter.

Day Twenty-Nine: Iambic Pentameter and Heroic Verse.

Very quickly then, yes, I know I missed a couple of days during this blog, and preceded those with a couple more terrible posts. Simply put, a combination of real life and lack of internet hasn’t helped me be my most creative. I’m back with a vengeance now though.

I was going to get right back into the swing of things today with another poetic form, but may as well take the time now to explain to you a little more about meter. Especially to first explain Iambic Pentameter. You probably understand it more than you realise you do. We often speak in rhythm without even knowing it.

What does it mean?

Iambic Pentameter. Well, we have the iamb. This foot refers to a rising rhythm, so if we take our beats two at a time (creating the ‘foot’ in question) we start softly and rise. Note the stress in the following line;

a cat a dog a bird a horse

The ‘a’ is soft, rising for each of the animal names. Say it out loud a few times if you don’t here it straight away. There are three other feet, but we needn’t concentrate on those today. Back to iambic pentameter.

Pentameter, meaning literally ‘measure of five’ in Greek, refers to the number of feet per line. Five iambs create lines with ten syllables each, or five feet, as each foot has two syllables – the unstressed and the stressed.

Got that?

For example, if we take a line from W. B. Yeats; ‘When you are old’, we read;

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book”

Again, reading aloud will help you note the stresses on syllables 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10.

I’ve left this so long because the other forms I’ve already discussed, don’t rely on these patterns of metre. Although they may incorporate them, it’s not essential that they do so, their structures relying on rhyme alone.

Heroic verse is the prime example of where we find iambic pentameter, and in rhyming couplets too.

I’ll attempt a little something now to try and explain all I’ve just said.

These words begin to mean so much when read
Aloud, we note each sound, some live, some dead.
Softly and sharp each sound is poignant now
We read with care, learning to take a bow.

Okay, so that was rubbish, but it does follow the rhythm, which is the main thing. It takes a while and a whole lot of practice to not only master the metre but then bring that and it use it to emphasise the content. The rhyme also adds another challenge, but the more you practice, the better you get. Sadly, my mind isn’t tuned into words today – perhaps my few days off have put me back to square one.

At the very least though, I’ve made a new start, and something is undoubtedly about a million percent better than nothing.

Practice practice practice. And on top of that, read read read.

Top notch advice, that.

Otter.

Day Twenty-Six: More of the same…

Early doors today. So, I’m about 10 hours earlier than usual with the post today, and unfortunately it’s only to tell you that I’ll be travelling and out for the rest of it.

It’s such a shame the daily blogging has gone to pot lately. I mean, a) every day for one month is exactly difficult, and come November I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) aimining for a minimum of 2,000 words a day.

Difference there is, every day I come back to my laptop and just carry on from where I left off the day previous, so, for me, it’s surprisingly easy to get going again.

I think with this, without a single, solid aim, and with a bunch of other stuff thrown at me, it’s not been quite as easy. Here’s hoping anyway, because you can’t afford to miss many days of NaNoWriMo. I still need to work out a plot and some finer details for that, but I guess that’s the job for October.

As for the rest of September….well…isn’t time flying?! I can’t, and don’t want to, believe this year. It’s been the craziest I’ve ever experienced, and not necessarily for good reasons, very emotionally draining at times.

But enough of that, this blog is does not sing to that tune!

Hopefully after the weekend, I’ll be back with a vengeance. There’s only one way to find out of course, and that’s to keep reading.

Otter.

Day Twenty-Five: Sorry, with more on the way.

More sorries, that is, I’m afraid.

Well, I don’t even know where to begin. I had just written a post telling you all that I’ve been so overwhelmingly busy that for the second day running I just haven’t had the time to turn to poetry and provide a proper entry.

And then to top it off, as these things always seem to go, I managed to seemingly delete the entire post/internet error, and the automatic draft save seemed not to have saved. You can guess how much that’s impressed me!

Sadly, personal life is taking over everything at the moment, and I’m not going to be near a pc/laptop tomorrow unless I can get on one in public, so even if I do, a quick five minutes will only see another entry similar to this one I’m afraid. The best I can offer at the moment is to hope that by Monday I’ll be back on track.

I wish there was more I could talk about, but this space isn’t really for personal things, and sadly I’ve not even caught up with the news yet today so there is literally nothing for me to talk about :S

Hope you all have pleasant weekends ahead of you though, and don’t forget to make someone smile too, it works wonders for everyone

See you when I see you,

Otter.

Day Twenty-Four: ‘ooh ‘eck.

Only ten minutes left of the 24th of September here in the UK, so I best hurry.

I’ve been hella busy today, and haven’t been able to squish a proper entry in. I am here though! I made it! I’ve not failed yet!

So yeah, there’s not much of any worth here, but I figured better something than nothing, I don’t want to miss any days out…a blog a day is a blog a day after all…

But I do have small news, you know how I said last week I planned on becoming a redhead? Well I went ahead and did it and I’m sooooo glad. Loving being ginger right now!!

Back to poetry tomorrow all being well and I’ll try and keep the schedule on track too!

Much love,

Otter.

Day Twenty-Three: A taste of Japan – The Haiku

Fitting for today’s poetic form, this blog will be on the shorter side of things.

My two previous poetry entries have been on closed forms (poetic forms of set line lengths) and this is no exception.

I would like to venture into telling you about other forms, sonnets and odes and heroic verse and so forth, but the emphasis with those lies in their metre. The emphasis or stresses on syllables. I’m afraid at this time of day my brain is as tired as my eyes are and undoubtedly my examples would fall short of a good model. Even on a clear and bright and wide-eyed day, my Yorkshire accent often leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to syllable count and metre.

So for tonight I’ll bring you the haiku.

I’m sure many of you have heard of this poetic form before, and it is quite stiff in it’s structure. Concentrating on the English variety, we’ll see that they have three lines, of specific syllable count, 5, 7 and 5.

The Japanese, from which form originates, count their sounds in ‘on’s rather than our syllables, and often their haikus are much shorter as a result. The Japanese also tend to write the entire piece on one line.

Typically, they feature a theme of nature, engaging the senses and do without verbs where possible. I’ve written two here. Neither are completely perfect, but together cover most of these points.

In my accent, they fit the 5-7-5 syllable count, for you they may not quite, but it can be hard to please everyone.

Red feathered leaves fall
And greying rains wash away
Summer’s last remains.

and

Quiet promises
Cause smiles and endless joy
Of togetherness.

I’ve never looked into writing haikus much before. They’re very limiting form makes them quite a pain to include much emotion. From my blogs you’ll have seen I’m quite the rambler, and while in their own right haikus are very beautiful, not everything in life, or poetry, need be quite so concise.

A little more on poetry tomorrow,

Otter.

Day Twenty Two: Another French fancy – The Villanelle

Let’s hear it for the Villanelle.

This, like yesterday’s Rondeau is another closed form. Thus, it is set in its structure and cannot technically be lengthened or shortened.

It’s a much more difficult form to use, mainly because of two lines that are to be repeated throughout the poem, and used as a couplet at the end.

It features five, three-lined stanzas (a tercet) and a final four-lined stanza with just two rhymes, and also two refrains.

The first tercet is the most crucial one in working the rest of your poem, both the first and last line will become a refrain (used again as lines in various spots) and also rhyme. Using A1 and A2 for the refrains, the rhyme scheme is as follows.

A1 b A2
a b A1
a b A2
a b A1
a b A2
a b A1 A2

So, as you can see, the first line is also the last line of stanza two and four, the third line is also used as the last line of stanza three and five, and together these two lines also create the final rhyming couplet at the end of the last stanza.

Got all that?

Here’s my first attempt at a Villanelle. Although not my first ever try, it is the first in some years, and remains here unedited for the time being.

Sometimes all a man needs is to be free
But he forgets when troubled with life.
The obvious isn’t always easy to see.

For some, things are easy, but not for he
Clear cut and sharp as the blade of a knife
Sometimes all a man needs is to be free

Worried, he struggles back at home with she,
He was never ready to wed a wife
The obvious isn’t always easy to see.

Bound by work, and children, three
Quietly he suffers his days in strife
Sometimes all a man needs is to be free

But listen quietly and you’ll hear his plea
While he plays a melancholy tune on his fife
The obvious isn’t always easy to see.

Time off he desires, relaxation is key;
He’s taking a holiday from children and wife.
Sometimes all a man needs is to be free
The obvious isn’t always easy to see.

Lets see what we can come up with tomorrow!

A good night to you all,

Otter.

Day Twenty-One: Poetry week – The Rondeau

Welcome to my poetry week.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled, and as the Rondeau was a structure I remembered yesterday, I figured what better place to start than there.

An especially notable poem of this form in John McCrae’s ‘In Flanders Fields’. I suggest reading it if you’re not already familiar with the piece.

Although a perfect example, this typical French form is usually used for more light-hearted, merry subjects.

The format is a simple enough, generally fifteen lines long, with a mix of two rhyming lines (a & b) and a refrain (R) as follows:

R-aabba aabR aabbaR

I have to admit, this poem I’ve just written has come from almost nowhere, and as it fits, I won’t edit it for now. For some reason I’ve written it with a male point of view. The female in question is entirely fictional, although I’m sure she’s lovely!

I’ve stuck with 8 syllable lines, as that is what McCrae uses. It isn’t specified in The Ode Less Travelled that a syllable count is essential, but it adds to the challenge, so I suggest trying it.

Here we go then;

At the party I saw a sight;
A pretty face in darker night.
Ne’er have I seen a face so fair,
Crowned by the blackest raven hair
The stark contrast brought such delight.

My feelings rose to such great height
As I caught her eye, shining bright.
She danced with grace and certain flare
At the party.

A moment more would soon ignite
A flame to burn and to excite;
But no courage for me to dare
Would show its face in hot night air
And so I danced alone that night,
At the party.

Criticism awaits. Another form coming up tomorrow,

Otter.