[NaNoWriMo] we Have Ignition! Final Count

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Nobody is ever met at the airport when beginning a new adventure. It's just not done.

_{- Elizabeth Warnock Fernea,
A View of the Nile, 1970}

Twenty-three and a half more hours to go, where I am. Good luck, everyone!

[NaNoWriMo] One Day and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

One day until the end of October, and the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. I mean, of course, we cannot start writing until midnight, but since when has that ever stopped us before? We're going to have a rolling write-in on LiveJournal, in a little place called the nano_tavern. I just mention it, in case anyone wants to join us there. The Trick-or-Treaters will stop coming by, somewhere around Ten O'Clock. I'm counting the older children, too, the adolescents.

And now, for today's quite (and yes, there will be one more of them, tomorrow).


Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
- George Bernard Shaw
(1856 - 1950)

[NaNoWriMo] Two Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

- Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist

(384 BC - 322 BC)

This is an excellent maxim to keep in mind for National Novel Writing Month. I think The Waking by Theodore Roethke is also good to keep in mind.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

[NaNoWriMo] Three days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.
Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off...
They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

- Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)

Still counting down; but I'm going to take at least the rest of the day to finish reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, so that I can start writing my NaNo with a clear conscience.

[NaNoWriMo] Four Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

- Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

Swain's World: Origins pitch

From The Desk of Liz Ensley (and cross-posted from MySpace):

Category: Writing and Poetry

Swain's World: Origins Pitch

Swain's World: Origins is a 50,000 word fantasy novel set in Year 21 of the New Age, on Yesvod . Orth is a a studious young half-ogre with a knack for academics who believes in the Ogre-Prydewing Treaty, and in a peace shared by all races. He wants the treaty's reinforcement, because because he believes that the best alternative is a peaceful one. He is prevented from attaining this goal because because the son of the old king, Ornst Quartax, is renegotiating behind the backs of the current administration to bring about an overthrow of Tavitt, and his family's return to the throne.

(And it's because of that, that Ornst is instigating a new Ogre-Prydewing war).

In a way, the pitch is the most basic synopsis of your book: the above is what I plan to write for my NaNo. It's going to have a lot mroe than that, of course, but I think the major viewpoint, the main character will be Orth. Yes, I could focus on the events around Orth, which are also important: but in many ways, Orth is a harbinger of what is to come. He's the very first half-Ogre with a Talent (that's what they call a certain, familial magical trait in my world. There are lesser mages, but the Greater Houses tend towards these Talents, in verying degrees).

In the legends of the Draco-morphs, there is a tale--not a prophecy, but something that has happened before--of the world. Something unusual occurs before something major occurs, to help balance things out and maintain the natural order--the world's survival. In this case, Orth is the key--but to what? Even Sage cannot say.

Currently reading : Eats, Shoots and Leaves By Lynne Truss Release date: By 1992

[NaNoWriMo] Insanity

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Growl. Not only do I hae to go and recheck the notifications manually to receive email notificatinos, every single time I go on-site: just now, I received ten straight notifications for Chris Baty's one new article on the NaNoWriMo site. *growls*

[NaNoWriMo] Five Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
- Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957)

It's almost time for the show to begin. Is the stage set? Have you adequate lighting for the project? That's what writing is, you know; it's a planned project which will take a good chunk of your life, during November.

One strategy, if you write a lot of email, is to write scenes in the body of an email and send it to yourself. You can copy and paste it into your word processing program later, and keep the email for a back up copy, in case of computer trouble. That way, too, you can keep writing, just about anywhere.

Remember, too; if you barely reach 50k by November's end, you can sign up for National Novel Finishing Month. Heck, thanks to past experience with my NaNos (NaNoose, lol), I'm already there.


National Novel Editing Month isn't until March, which leaves you plenty of breathing space between finish, and then attempt to edit, the Behemoth. The site appears to be down, right now--but have faith, True Believers!


NaNoFiMo: 35 Days and Counting.

The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations, they think ahead and create their mental picture, and then go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that bit, but steadily building, steadily building.
- Robert Collier

I have already signed up for National Novel Finishing Month. Knowing my past NaNo win, I will need the additional 30k or so to finish writing the novel.

[NaNoWriMo] Six Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

[NaNoWriMo] Seven Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

You cannot dream yourself into a character;
you must hammer and forge yourself one.
- James A. Froude (1818 - 1894)

[NaNoWriMo] Eight Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
De Profundis, 1905

There is still plenty of time to sign up for National Novel Writing Month in November. I'd ask you to join me, but I am not falling apart, yet. ;-)

[NaNoWriMo] Nine Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

- William Strunk Jr., Elements of Style

[NaNoWriMo] Ten Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.
- Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)
The Premature Burial

Eleven Days And Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

[NaNoWriMo] 12 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Pathetic.

I only managed to write one of three scenes that I wanted to get done yseterday. It was a measly 540 words. How am I going to manage NaNo if I can't increease my output?

~ # ~

Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
- Ken Hakuta

[NaNoWriMo] 13 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
- Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

[NaNoWriMo] 15 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
- Scott Adams (1957 - ), 'The Dilbert Principle'

~ # ~

Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
- Thomas Berger

][NaNoWriMo] 15 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

How does a newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings?

- Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses" ( $ ) ( ? ), In Philosophy




The quote is appropriate to National Novel Writing Month. Thirty days are spent in the creation of something new. Granted, revision and rewriting is left until after the month is done; but the writing is an act of creation, the birth of an idea. Whether it takes flight, or plummets, is up to your own level of experience as a writer: and National Novel Writing Month is, in itself, a full measure of writing experience, whether it is good, bad, or otherwise preoccupied within itself.

Now, please pass the coffee. I could use another cup. ;-)

[NaNoWriMo] 19 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

On a lazy Saturday morning when you're lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one. Are you awake, or are you dreaming? You see people and things; some are familiar; some are strange. You talk, you feel, but you move without walking; you fly without wings. Your mind and your body exist, but on separate planes. Time stands still. For me, this is the feeling I have when ideas come.

- Lynn Johnston (1947 - ),
Lynn on Ideas

[NaNoWriMo] 20 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

- James A. Froude (1818 - 1894)

[NaNoWriMo] 21 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

G. K. Chesterton, Defendant (1901)

English author & mystery novelist (1874 - 1936)

~ # ~

Truth is shorter than fiction.

Irving Cohen

~ # ~

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou
US author & poet (1928 - )


PS: Will Write for Chocolate

[NaNoWriMo] 22 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man . . .
- Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt)

Ha! It's proven! I have arthritis in my shoulder and knee, but I alsohave an athlete's heart. (I'd better give it back, at some point). Ihave to make an appointment (actually, two of them, with two differentdoctors for separate things) for a regular physical.
I should be all set for NaNo, though.

[NaNoWriMo] 23 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

[NaNoWriMo] 24 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.
- Henry James (1843 - 1916)

          I have an outline done (Actually, about six rough outlines done, for major and minor plots), which I am in the middle of arranging by writing each point on an index card, for re-ordering, before I commit it to the story. I have not done much on the pre-NaNo, these past few days, because I'm in the middle of that, but it will be worth the effort: telling the story that's in my head, and in a coherent fashion, is well worth the effort of organizing the story's elements.
          Have you ever had the feeling, when writing, that you're a chronicler who's trying to organize the events to tell folks what-all happened to these other people who went through some stuff, and persevered despite it? I've been at that level ,with this particualr story, for a long time: and I'm ready, at long last, to make sense of it all. ;-) Even if a lot of the elements in this book--in this series--are based off earleir events, ones tht occurred before this story begins, that particular series will have to wait until I'm done with this one, because the stories are not related to each other. That is all right: it gives me plenty of material to write, in the future, along with TLGM (when I get back to it).

[NaNoWriMo] 25 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

If you find yourself getting bored as you think over your ideas and purposes, modify them to recapture your interest.

- Leonard A. Podis
- Joanne M. Podis
Writing: Invention, Form, and Style (1984)

[NaNoWriMo] 26 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it.
- Lord Brabazon
(1884 - 1964)

Soon, now.

[NaNoWriMo] 28 Days & Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

- Oscar Wilde

(1854 - 1900),
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
1891, preface

I only managed to type around 725 words from what I wrote in the notebook this weekend, before becoming so tired that I had to sleep (early). I hope that doesn't happen during November.


Don't forget National Novel Finishing Month (NaNoFiMo). I know that I won't: I'll probably need that 30k to finish my NaNoWriMo.

[NaNoWriMo] 31 Days and Counting

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Stafford on getting started

It is like fishing. But I do not wait very long, for there is always a nibble--and this is where receptivity comes in. To get started, I will accept anything that occurs to me. Something always occurs, of course, to any of us. We can't keep from thinking. --William Stafford, A Way of Writing

May 30, 2004 in On writing |

I'm going to head over now and see if I can enlist. People are welcome to gripe here if they can't get in right away--that's what the comments are for. Comiseration. ;-)