NaNoWriMo

It occurred to me as I was preparing for NaNoWriMo this year that I should have mentioned this event in one of last month’s postings.  For those of you who have never heard of it let me give you their definition of the event as it appears on their website.

“National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 p.m. on November 30.”

That my friends, is the challenge in a nutshell.  And it is a challenge, a gauntlet thrown in the face of every writer and would be writer.  To begin a novel on November 1 and to have it completed in only 30 days.  50,000 words in 30 days!  Not the most difficult thing to do you say, hah, try it and then let me know how you feel.

There are things you can do to make it easier.  You can start thinking of plot lines and plot twists as well as characters and their personalities.  You can begin planning where the story will go but if you are taking up the challenge then you do not want to start the actual writing until the 1^st.

I have been a participant since 2009, I have not finished a novel every year but it gets me writing and thinking.  I believe it to be a great exercise to help build both writing skills and more importantly it helps me to build discipline.    I can get lazy some times when it comes to my writing.  This exercise forces me to write almost every day.  If you don’t the chances of finishing in 30 days becomes nearly impossible.  The discipline of sitting down and writing on a consistent basis is a hard one.  It’s too easy to make excuses and then go and do something else.

My soon to be released book, “Voodoo Street”, started life as a NaNoWriMo project a few years ago.  A little proofing and polishing later and we have what I hope will be a finished novel for all to enjoy.

Why not give NaNoWriMo a try.   You might like it!

Get Out There and Live

Boy the month of October has been a busy one for me.  Every weekend has been booked and planned far in advance.  October 5^th and 6^th I competed in an SCCA Solo event.  For those of you who do not know, the SCCA is the Sports Car Club of America and one of the major sponsoring organizations in Auto Racing.  And solo is a type of racing where you compete one at time on a road course laid out with cones, usually in a large parking lot.  Cars are classified as per engine size and modifications made to the car so as to make things fair.  Then the cars are timed and awards given out at the end of the day.  This is a great way to get into motorsports which is both relatively safe and cheap!

On October 10^th through the 13^th, New York Was host to the NYC Comicon.  A great event if you are into Comic books, Cartoons, Video Games or any other type of pop culture.  I was there for 3 of the 4 days and had a blast.  I purchased some books I needed to complete sets and had a chance to meet some very interesting people.

 On the 20^th, I returned from one of my favorite places to visit in October.  Salem, Massachusetts.   They bill themselves as the “Witch City”.  We were there with some friends to enjoy the sights, sounds and of course the libations for the weekend.  If you have never been to Salem around Halloween, then you don’t know what you are missing.  The costumes are unbelievable.  If you can be there for Halloween night you will see some costumes that will leave you amazed.  Every year I see costumes better than the year before.  Unfortunately this year I could not make it for Halloween but the weekend before was loads of fun too.

On October 26 I will be attending the Photoplus Expo at the Javits Center in New York City.  This is one of the major Photography Shows on the East Coast.  My daughter and I attend every year and love seeing what’s new in the world of photography. 

What do these four (4) events have in common?  Actually very little but they do give me a wealth of ideas and experiences to use in my fiction.  Write what you know about, how many times have you heard that refrain?  It does make sense, and besides it’s fun to experience things in life.  So get out there and live, and don’t forget to write about it after!

Research on the Web

Last month I wrote on the subject of Informational Resources in General and the Internet in particular but forgot to mention one thing that I think is widely acknowledged but ignored constantly.  And that is that not everything you read on the internet is necessarily true or accurate.  I know, hard to believe isn’t it? 

This was brought to my attention recently when I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers and she stated that she uses Wikipedia as a major source for information for everything.  I asked her if she knew what the philosophy behind it was and she had no idea but did compare it to the Encyclopedia Britannica.  She was a little shocked to learn that almost anyone can add to a wiki.  As they state on their own website, “Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone having access to the site.”  This doesn’t necessarily make it any less valuable as a resource but one must keep this in mind.  Unlike the Encyclopedia Britannica which uses experts to write all of its entries, Wikipedia uses layman.  In all fairness independent studies have shown that it is very accurate and that the people who add entries are for the most part very confidant.

But while Wikipedia is very accurate there is no way to police the hundreds of millions of websites that currently reside all over the Web.  People do have their own agendas and they will write what they want when they want to push their personnel views.  In some cases entries are erroneous but the writers believe them to be true.  Sometimes faulty research makes for faulty entries. 

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use the web as a resource.  As a matter of fact I use quite extensively but you have to use common sense when weeding through the plethora of websites available.  So what can one do?  Compare notes and never use one site as your sole resource.  Look for sites that are written by “experts” and not just interested hobbyists.  Use the Web in conjunction with other resources such as Books and Magazines.   Multiple sites and a little common sense will take you a long way when it comes to accuracy.

As I have mentioned before I used the Web to research some points of information for my soon to be released novel entitled “Voodoo Street”.  It certainly made my life easier!  So I will continue to use the web, but I will proceed cautiously.

Research

 

Today there are no excuses for a novel or short story to have inaccurate information or settings.  At one time research meant hours upon hours in the local library looking through the card catalog for any books or magazines that pertained to the subject matter we were writing about.  Depending on the city you lived in the books and periodicals on hand could be quite sparse.  Trips to neighboring cities’ libraries and University libraries were not uncommon as we searched for additional research material.

Research has certainly become easier in the year 2013!  Now we walk over to our laptops and desk top computers and flip a switch.  That one action opens the world before us.  One can Google almost any topic and get back 1000s upon of 1000s of hits.  Not all great hits to be sure but a little weeding will solve that.  And if the net doesn’t offer up enough answers one can then find many periodicals and books on the subject that one can purchase.  In some cases for a pretty good price!  Articles, websites, pictures, there is no end to what is available on the net.  Of course we still have the libraries, but the card catalogs have been replaced by computers, and in many cases if your branch doesn’t have what you need you can order it from another.  I personally still enjoy going to the library to do some of my research.  Many times I go there with my laptop and sit for hours doing my online research as most are now wired with wifi.

When I was writing “Voodoo Street” I needed to get some history on Voodoo as a religion.  While I still spent hours on the research it certainly was easier doing it from the comfort of my home office with a fresh cup of coffee at hand.  A few keystrokes and a whole new world of knowledge opened up before me.  In addition while I had a good working knowledge of the area in Brooklyn where my story takes place, my descriptions were made that much easier by pulling up some pictures of the area using Google and Flickr.

One caveat, just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s true.  Many times people will start a website or blog with a personal agenda.  Not necessarily to confuse an issue but sometimes to persuade others to come over to their way of thinking.  There is a wealth of research material available but one has to be careful and use common sense.

 So here’s to accuracy and the ease of research.

Write what you know!

I think I have always been interested in the paranormal. My interest certainly became more focused in my junior year of high school when I took an elective course call “Parapsychology”.  In this course we not only looked at different paranormal events and phenomena but we also looked at different ways to research and examine the events in a more scientific vein. 

From here I remember taking out every book my library had on any subject that I felt pertained to the unknown.  In truth there weren’t many and those they had were pretty outdated.  But periodic trips to Manhattan to visit the big book stores and the few occult book stores I found in the “Yellow Pages” helped to quench my thirst.

This interest in the occult also included reading any fiction that involved paranormal mysteries.  To this day this genre is still one of my favorites.  Of course today we have the internet, this is a huge help in researching any paranormal event or topic.  However the biggest problem here is separating the truth from the B.S.  Unfortunately there seems to be a lot more B.S. then truth but with a little knowledge and some common sense you can weed through the B.S.  In addition 100s of podcasts have popped up with everyone having their own opinion.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well they say when you write you should “write what you know”.  That’s what I am doing.  The project I am working on now deals with the paranormal.  The plot line on which my book Voodou Street is built revolves around the occult topic of Zombies.   Relying on the subject matter that I know I can make my book more believable.  Certainly this is every authors wish.  If the story doesn’t ring true no one will read it.  A lesson I learned very early in my writing career.  This background knowledge also makes it easier to write the story.  I spend a lot less time researching and a lot more time writing.  Not to say that I’m not double checking things, after all no one can remember everything but it certainly makes the writing go quicker.

My upcoming novel, Voodou Street is coming along nicely.  We are in the 2^nd revision stage and think it will be ready this fall for publication.  More information will be released in the coming weeks.