I have a confession. It’s a deep,dark secret that I haven’t really talked about here before.
I am writing a book.
Yes, you heard me right. I’m just over 30,000 words into my first draft of a young adult novel about a girl who doesn’t know she’s a witch.
Please don’t laugh too hard, okay? :)
I’ve been writing fiction for about a year and a half. I haven’t mentioned it because saying that I’m writing a novel is like saying that I’m going to climb Mount Everest. Lots of people SAY they’re going to do it, and some people try to do it, but very few are successful. As someone who doesn’t have the greatest track record at finishing things I start, I don’t think I was convinced I’d really ever actually finish the book. Yet here I am, telling you I’ve written thirty thousand (!!!!) words, and I really think I can finish it. It may even be a halfway decent read when it’s done.
Writing a novel is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I love the process, but there are days when it’s just excruciating. I regularly doubt my concept, my plot and my writing skills. There are days when eking out even 250 words feels like the hardest thing I could ever do, because every word I write feels wrong. But there are also days when the writing feels really right, and the characters surprise me, and I surprise myself.
I have pledged over at Jo Knowles’ LiveJournal that 2011 will be my Year of Being a Writer, and I have pledged on Kaz Mahoney’s blog to write at least 250 words daily, so I’ve got a lot of writing to do! I’m not the fastest writer in the world (I just might be be slowest), but I’m pushing on and loving it, even on the really hard days.
Whoa. Feels good to get that out there. Thanks for not laughing too much. :)
I first saw the trailer for the Fantastic Mr. Fox in the theater in 2009. I fell in love with the look and feel of the animation, but when the movie actually released I was in the midst of preparing to move across the country. The story of Mr. Fox fell off my personal radar until it released on HBO this past fall. I stumbled upon it one afternoon and absolutely adored it. The stop-motion animation is beautifully done, and the story is fantastic. It’s appropriate for children, but there are enough adult jokes to appeal to all ages. If you haven’t seen it you should definitely check it out.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but until I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox I’d never heard of Roald Dahl. I mean, I’m sure I probably saw his name somewhere in the credits for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or Matilda, but it never registered. Now that I know who this amazing author is, I just might have to read everything he’s ever written. In addition to a number of classic children’s books, he’s written short stories for adults, some of which were filmed for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (I’m also a Hitchcock fan). He also has a pretty interesting history, and was a Flying Ace for the Royal Air Force during WWII.
For more info on Roald Dahl and Fantastic Mr. Fox, check out this wikipedia article, and these Making Of shorts about the movie. The one I’ve embedded after the jump includes a visit to Dahl’s house and talks about how director Wes Anderson actually duplicated Dahl’s furniture in miniature for the film. There is also a “Making Of” book that looks really cool too.
It’s pretty obvious that in 2010 I was a serious blog slacker. My slackage was due in part to simply being busy, between the move, the new city and the day job. The other part was that I just didn’t know what to post. True to its name, this blog has been a through a couple of iterations, wandering from one topic to the next – kinda like me. Over the last year I started to feel like maybe I was “blogging wrong;” that my blog needed to have a defined topic with defined and targeted content. I’d fallen for the idea that the point of blogging was to cultivate a readership and to develop a brand. The problem is, I don’t just have one thing that I love over all others. I don’t have a brand. I’m just me, with all my various interests and competing passions.
While I might not have been blogging much over the last year, I have been doing quite a bit of reading (and lurking) in the blogosphere, and I’ve come to realize that there’s no right way to blog. There is a wrong way – to try to be something you’re not. Well, I’m not going to do that. I’m bringing this blog back to its roots, and I’ll be writing about anything and everything that appeals to me. From this moment on, this is a blog about photography, books, writing, pop culture, cool technology, Seattle and life in general. Oh, and anything else I might come up with. At times it may lean more toward one topic than another (I’m working to finish a novel, so there will probably be quite a few posts about that), but I’m not going to limit myself anymore. Crazy no-plan blogging, here we go!
As for personal branding, I kinda like Maureen Johnson’s take on the topic. If, like me, you’re struggling with all the new “instructions” on how to be a person on the internet, you should check out her manifesto.
Thanks to all you authentic bloggers out there for helping me find my way back.
January 6, 2011, at 8:13 am
