But the Microsoft paperclip has been very helpful lately.

And if it’s November, it must be time for NaNoWriMo, that is, national novel writing month. in the past, I’ve done a bit of blogging during November over at Random Acts of Writing, but this year, I’m planning on doing the NaBloPoMo thing as well, which is basically blogging every day for thirty days.

Will I blog about my new novel? Will I blog about the presidential race? Will I blog about my new(to me) oboe? Who knows, but I will be spewing out words, in some semblence of sentances and paragraphs during the month of November.

By the way, the November novel will be called, “The Church of Significant Progress and Quick Weight Loss.” I’ve managed to find a way to fit in most of the kvetches i have been having lately, just need to work in a bad oboist, as in someone who hasn’t played in 25 years and bought an instrument thinking she could audition for the local podunk symphony.

Every day, ususally in the morning, I write three pages, long hand in a cheap spiral notebook. Cheap as in I get them at Target for ten cents each every August during the back to school sales. Now people who know I write love to get me beautiful journals. Very pretty. But I can’t for the life of me write in them. Seems that a beautiful journal deserves beautiful writing. Which isn’t something I am any good at yet. Cheap ugly spirals, I can fill up one per month, no sweat. Haven’t filled a pretty one yet.

All this to say, I got a new notebook computer this week. And I’m trying to get over the fact that just because I paid more for the durn thing than I paid for my first born, that doesn’t necessarily put the pressure on to produce Pulitzer quality prose.

Right. Now where is the $20 used AlphaSmart….

Exit, pursued by a bear.
— William Shakespeare, Stage direction in “The Winter’s
Tale”

The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader
catch his own breath.
— Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries
any reward.
— John Maynard Keynes

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly
making exciting discoveries.
— A. A. Milne

8 Tips from CS Lewis on writing (from a Letter).

(1) Turn off the Radio.

(2) Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.

(3) Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd. hear
every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If
it does not sound nice, try again.

(4) Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things
or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you
are interested in writing you will never be a writer, because you will
have nothing to write about . . .)

(5) Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by
knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen
word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is
terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader
something that he wants to know – the whole picture is so clear in
your mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his.

(6) When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad)
throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much
of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things
begun and abandoned years earlier.

(7) Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of
rhythm, which still needs years of training.

(8) Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.

“Writing humiliates you on a daily basis.” – Kiran Desai

Yeppers, got one of the nicest, personal rejection letters ever for my novel. Still feels like kissing a cousin. (not that I speak from experience.)

You know, you think you want to write. You pour your heart out in blood sweat and tears, print it out, wrap it in a cover letter, SASE and send it out into the world. The form letters flow back.

And then this… First Millie, Now Jenna

A young adult book “based on the former grade school teacher’s experiences with charity causes in Latin America.” Like to be 25 and call yourself a former grade school teacher isn’t bad enough, didn’t Jenna and Bab’s Jr. get kicked out of South America recently.

I was sooooo born to the wrong parents to be a literary giant…