50 Words - Marriage Dont's

My marriage is full of don'ts.

Don't talk so much
Don't disagree
Don't have an opinion
Don't think you're too smart
Don't be too sexy
Don't touch in this spot. Don't touch too much
Don't do anything that your husband doesn't like

And all will be right with his world.

50 Words - Love is Never Enough

I hope you all are having a wonderful National Poetry Month. To celebrate the month, I am going to publish the rest of these little 50 word pieces that I have written.  Some could be considered poems. Some are little stories. Some are just a flow of thoughts. What they all are is a little snippet of how I truly felt. I think that's one of the things I've been missing in my blog journey. I'm good about sharing the physical aspects of my life but not so much the thoughts and feelings that make me ME. I wrote this one while I was still married. I'm happy to say the suffering is over.

I never thought love alone was enough of a reason to get married.  This experience has taught me the wisdom in that thought. I had no reason outside of love to walk down that aisle. For that I will suffer in an uneven relationship built on nothing more than love.

50 Words - Positive

My voice is not positive because my outlook is not positive. My outlook is not positive because my input is not positive. My input is not positive because you are not positive. I am looking to you to set the tone. I can't create what is not in front of me.

50 Words - Just a Memory

He touched her and she melted. 

He kissed her and her knees buckled. 

His hand traveled between her thighs, followed by his mouth and everything about her belonged to him. 

For just a few moments, life escapes them and they are everything to each other.

She wakes.

Just a memory.

Why I Can't Write YA Books

With all the reading I have been doing, I’ve been thinking more and more about the kind of books I want to write. One genre that I could eliminate quickly was Young Adult. With every YA book and YA TV show that I watch, I’m amazed at situations that are being written for these young people. The sex scenes alone are more sensational than what most adults twice their age would experience.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Below are my top 3 reasons for not writing YA books.

1. I don’t want to think about kids having sex. I know it happens. It happened to me during that time but its a little creepy to be an adult imagining how a 16 year old (or younger) would deal with sex. I’ve often heard people say they wish the Twilight series had more sex. Many thought it strange that Edward was so sold fashioned and wanted to wait. I think that absence opened the door for the Grey’s storyline-like going from one extreme to another. Why don’t we think it’s strange for a middle aged man or woman to describe in detail the boy of a child performing sexual acts?
2. I don’t want to think about the horrors that can happen to a child. Again, I know it happens but I don’t want to be the one to describe it in detail. I recently read a book that described the rape of one teenager by another. I’m grateful the author spared us too many details but the visual of a 17 year old in a bathroom washing the blood from her body after her attack is still in my head.
3. I can’t relate to what kids today want to read. When I was a child, I was a child. Now that I am an adult, I am an adult and I think adult things. I enjoyed my childhood and I have no desire to relive it. I don’t regret any of it. I don’t want to want to go back and be more popular. I don’t want to go back and date better jocks. I don’t want to go back and be rich even though the money would have been nice. My brand of YA would probably be very boring.

When I finally do get my writing mojo together, you can be assured my main characters will be 30+. Even writing a 21 year old seems beyond me. But we’ll see.

What do you think? Could you write a sex scene for a teenager? I do admire those of you than can step outside of yourselves and weave a good YA tale.

Week 1 Update

*This was supposed to be a 1 wk check in. Now, it’s two. Time is flying!*

The first week of November has been a busy one so far. Even though I haven’t done as much as I would have liked to by this point, I’m happy with the progress.

Nablopomo

This is my first year attempting Nablopomo. This is also the first year that Blogher has hosted the event. I am going to attribute the technical difficulties to the fact that they are new to the process. I signed up. I have my welcome email telling me what to do. I set up my page, added a profile picture, posted my first post and added my blog to the November blogroll. all was well. The following day, all the links to the site seemed to be broken and my login to the site would not work. If you’ve spent any amount of time on the Blogher site, you know how congested and ad heavy it is. It is also very difficult to find the right person to email with a problem. Eventually, I gave up. I didn’t want getting bogged down in technical difficulties to keep me from the actual task of writing.

So, you can find me on Blogher (I’m #1085 on the blogroll) but I think my involvement with Blogher won’t go beyond that. What really upset me was that a user on Ravelry had the same issue and actually managed to get her username reestablished. So, the Blogher team is full aware of the issue, but no information to that was given in the update email. And that’s another thing. I’m still getting the emails, but the site tells me it doesn’t recognize my email address. Really Blogher???

Nanowrimo

I have barely done any novel writing this month and I’m actually not upset about it at all. With this blog and my November Prayer Project, I have actually been writing quite a bit, just in a different form. And I’m happy with that. November is about writing and my progress in that is evident. I still check in on the Nano site whenever I can to see what my connections are up to. They’re not writing either, it seems. But I know that will change. There are a couple of them every year that seem to slack in the beginning but then attend a few write-ins at the end and manage to catch up. It’s really amazing that they can do that. Who know, may I will too. :)

How is your writing progressing this November?

Slowing Down

I didn’t get a word written yesterday. I just couldn’t bring myself to write anything. We even lost our server and internet connections at work yesterday and couldn’t get much work done without them. I could have used that time to get a little writing in but no. At home, I chose to finish “The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Stieg Larsson instead of write. The good thing is that I’m still ahead of the target word count but my lead is shrinking. In a week, Thanksgiving madness starts so I have to get back ahead or the last week of Nano will see me being a madwoman. Wish me luck.

How are you all doing at it?

Updating You

Hello all!

Nanowrimo is going well. I now have 14,512 words. Two years ago my ending word count was a little over 13,000 so I am thrilled beyond belief that things are going so well. I slowed down a bit this weekend but I’m hoping to get back in gear during the week. The Nano revolution has spawned all kinds of spin-offs. While I can’t see myself ever doing the knit a sweater in a month challenge, I just may have to try to blog everyday for a month. One of the bloggers in my reader feed is doing this for the month. It’s too late for me to do it this month but I just may do this in December. This will give me the platform to share a little bit of what I wrote during Nano and let you see what I am going to do this year to get ready for Christmas. I have no idea what’s in store for Christmas but I’m looking forward to planning it considering it’s the first Christmas for me and my fiance. Hopefully I won’t bore you all to death. Please come back and join me and add me to your favorite rss reader so you don’t miss a word.

Hope your month is shaping up well. Temperatures are dropping and Thanksgiving is around the corner.

Welcome to Nanowrimo

Another November and another foray into the world of Nanowrimo. I’m doing pretty good today. Currently I’m sitting at 3622 words which is pretty good. My goal per day is 2044 to account for the non-writing days around Thanksgiving. I hope some of you are joining in. Let me know if you are so I can keep up with you on the site.

Happy writing, my friends. Too bad the 79 words of this post don’t count. Oh well, back to writing.

Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo has officially started and I am officially behind--yes already! Good luck to all of you participating this year.

Catching Up-Southern Writers

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Back in April, I attended the AEC Conference on Southern Literature here in Chattanooga. It’s held every two years, with the Writer’s Conference held in the alternating years. I attended the Writer’s Conference last year for the first time and for the first time, this year, I attended the Conference on Southern Literature. I absolutely loved it. I am a big reader, have been since I was young using mail order programs to cement my habit.

Being able to sit back and listen to the writer’s talk about the background behind their works and to read from their works makes a big difference in the types of books you would read. I bought seven books during the conference, some of which I would have walked by in the bookstore. Each of these took on a life for me when hearing the writers. I can’t wait to read them all.

I started with All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones. It’s a collection of short stories that draw you in and captivate. I think the very southern Elizabeth Spencer will be next. She spoke and all of a sudden I felt like I was back in Mississippi sitting at the feet of some of the women in my family, hearing them comment of life like only a southern woman could.

Check out some of these writers.

Top to bottom, the books I purchased:

Richard Bausch Someone to Watch Over Me
Edward P. Jones All Aunt Hagar’s Children
Elizabeth Spencer Landscapes of the Heart
Elizabeth Spencer The Voice at the Back Door
Jim Grimsley My Drowning
Rita Dove Selected Poems
Rita Dove Sonata Mulattica

Too Much Going On

There has been a lot going on in my world the last couple of weeks. The main thing is that I am gearing up for Nanowrimo 2008. I will be attempting to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It's going to be a push considering I'm starting the month off with Stitches 2008 and ending with hosting the family for Thanksgiving. But I will be writing and I will be striving for that goal. You'll see additional changes to the blog as we approach the start so check back often.

Chattanooga Festival of Writers

I attended my first writer's conference this past weekend. It was a great conference and I walked away having learned a lot more than I expected.

The main portion of the conference consisted on four session times with three discussions to choose from during each session. I attended "The Memoir:Telling Your Story" (John Sedgwick), "Writing the Short Story" (Ben Fountain), "Freelance Journalism: crafting a Career, Finding Your Niche" (Nancy Henderson, Sean Price, Nancy Hatch Woodward), and "Tips to Keep the Reader Reading" (Will Akers)

As you can see I chose to attend talks that covered just about everything you could write. And there were other sessions that I wish I could have fit in but with seven sessions choices and only four time blocks, I couldn't do it all.

The festival itself started Friday night with a reception dinner and keynote address by Ben Fountain. Saturday was the main day with breakfast, two sessions, lunch with keynote address by Allen Wier, the final two sessions and a book signing. I avoided the signing as my budget is limited at the moment and all the authors have so many good titles to choose from. I was sure I would be tempted to purchase one of everything, so I stayed away.

As far as gems of knowledge I pulled from the sessions I attended, I'll post those tomorrow.

Links to some of the authors:
www.willakers.com
www.nancyhendersonwrst.com
www.johnsedgwich.com
www.allenwier.com
www.lollywinston.com
www.nancyhatchwoodward.com
www.katorihall.com
http://english.unc.edu/faculty/kenan.html