Are You Talking to Me?

I admit it. I like Facebook. In fact, I like it so much I’ve been accused of being on it “all the time.” However, I beg to disagree. While I may check it more frequently than others due to being on my home computer more this year than I have ever been in my life, that doesn’t mean I am “on it” every moment of the day. I like to spend time with friends, to take photographs or a walk in my neighborhood, to attend seminars and exchange ideas with others. I like to learn new skills and explore new places.

And then there’s my cell phone. It’s not fancy. It’s an old flip phone; one that I can use to call people with or send a text message to, or even send a photo from time to time. Other than that, it’s just a phone. However, I only got it a few years ago in case I was either a) stranded somewhere because my car broke down or b) got lost and needed to call someone to get redirected or c) in case I was going to be running late and wanted to call someone on my way to meet them. Otherwise, for 29 years of my life I existed, JUST FINE, without having a portable phone.

All this being said, I do not have a problem with all this connectivity, HOWEVER, I find that nowadays people are on their phones – calling, texting, twittering or updating their Facebook status - and not really always aware of their surroundings or the people around them. They do it when they are at the register of a store having a purchase rung up or ordering food, they do it when they are driving in the car or sitting in a restaurant with a friend, and they do it when they are walking down the street with another person. It seems to me that all of us are just so involved with our technology that perhaps we are losing sight of the fact that we have friends who are right there with us and sometimes it’s nice to talk to the person you are with and only answer the phone or make a call if it’s an emergency. Perhaps we can put away our phones or not be constantly preoccupied with who might be calling us or texting us or getting in touch with us and remember we’ve got people right in front of us who want to talk to us, hang out with us and just spend time with us.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? I’m just curious…

No Stopping Me Now!

I'm in full writing mode now. The music's cranking, the fingers are moving fluidly along the keyboard and words are forming on the page. It's amazing. These folks at NanoWriMo say that you can have an outline for your novel, or you can just randomly type and see what happens. Well, I'm the latter. I tried to write an outline but I am not someone who can see the end. I can definitely see the beginning and I know some of the turns along the way, but the end, is well, daunting to me. I just don't know where my characters are going to end up.

Therefore let the adventure continue. I am just typing along and getting excited by the surprise of what starts to develop in front of me. I think this is going to be a good learning experience for me - the ultimate list maker and planner - in not only forcing myself to write every day (something, as a writer, I should just naturally do) but also to see what I can create on the fly and without so much pressure on myself to be perfect. To not have to map out, diagram and prepare for every situation, every event, every move I make, or even my protagonist makes, for that matter.

Maybe I will really amaze myself by the end of this month. Anyone else doing something in November that they are embarking upon for the first time? Want to share with me? I'd love to gain inspiration and hear those stories.

My Mission If I Choose to Accept It...

"Begin with the end in mind." Good advice from all my writing professors but somehow, when I sit here, at my computer and try to type a NOVEL, not a short story, not a poem, but a NOVEL, one that I have to write in 30 days (less, now that I started it 3 days into this adventure) is SO HARD.

When I saw the ad for Nanowrimo - National Novel Writing Month - on Mediabistro, I thought why the heck not? I have some time, I need to motivate myself to write more often, and I always say I'm working on my novel. Well, what better way to do this than to participate in a contest that entails you to write a novel in 30 days - 50,000 words long - and submit it to a panel who will not judge you for content but rather for quantity?

The next day, upon reflection of my hasty action, I'm thinking I may have had a nice plate of crazy yesterday. But, that being said, I am going forth with this task. I know I can do it - even if right now I feel like ripping my hair out of my head and screaming at the top of my lungs - because I'm a writer, I like to tell stories, and at least, at the end of the month, I can feel like I've accomplished something.

I'll leave the worrying about editing the mess I've created until December. And that's per the instruction I was given from the nice folks at Nanowrimo.

Now I'm going to go forth and write! Feel free to join me in this excursion...it's not too late! For more details on the insanity, visit National Novel Writing Month.