NaNo Narcosis

This post is going out a little later than usual, I know, but it's not like anyone cares enough to look at my blog before I post "New blog post!" on Facebook and Twitter, anyway.  Between finishing projects, studying for finals, watching Netflix, and staring at the ceiling as my roommate played Assassin's Creed until 4:00 in the morning, I literally had no time to write so I apologize for my excuses.  I also apologize for the shortness of this post but after the verbosity of some of my earlier posts I don't think you'll mind too terribly much.  It's just that writing an entire novella in one month can make a person feel like they need respite from writing.

I won NaNoWriMo with a grand total of 50,068 words!  In more comprehensible terms, that's just over 90 pages in Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, 12-point font, one-inch margins, single spaced; or 175 pages double spaced -- the equivalent of 35, five-page papers.  Of course, when the only objective is writing as many words as possible, quality tends to be slightly less than that of a paper written entirely the night before it's due.  Still, it's 50,068 words I didn't have at the beginning of the November.  Not only did I meet my goal of surpassing last year's word count that plateaued at 40,000 words, but I actually like my story!  This surprised me more than anything.  I'm the type of person that once I set my mind to accomplishing a task or goal there are very few things that can prevent me from doing so, so I knew I could win; it was just a matter of how much I wanted to kill myself by the end of the month.  Come November 30, I didn't want to kill myself.  Some of my characters may or may not have been so lucky.

Now that November's over, what's next?  Well, once I've had sufficient time to forget about my story, I'll let loose my inner editor and keel over backwards, stunned by the atrocious writing.  But that is what I've been looking forward to most since October 31.  I want to transform the raw, unfiltered ideas into a coherent story.  Who knows?  Maybe one day I'll even get it published.  But I won't get ahead of myself; all I can do is edit, revise, and become a better writer.

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No sonnet this week, I'm afraid.
To all my fellow college students, good luck on finals!
To everyone else, have a great week!  -NLD

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Unpublished material, ©2013 Neal Digre

A Manner of Speaking

I have been super swamped with final projects and studying for finals so I haven't had the time or brain capacity to write a full blog post.  Excuses, excuses, I know, but I feel like a geology lab final mapping project, a computer science planetary gravitation animator program, a Japanese vocabulary quiz, and a Japanese final exam are valid excuses when condensed into a three day period.  It's been a while since I last posted a sonnet, though, so I'll tag in a sonnet I wrote earlier this year.  I'll get my NaNoWriMo debrief out once I'm not up to my ears in schoolwork.

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I started writing this sonnet over a year ago but only finished it a couple months ago.  That is mainly because of the long periods during which I didn't work on it but also because it just took me that long to get it right.  The original idea I started with over a year ago was to write a sonnet using only idioms.  So here it is:



A Manner of Speaking

Though silver streaks this cloud contains, please hold
Your horses -- specially Charley.  Someone beat
Him for a bucket kicked in moment's heat
And kept his eye for on the rest.  All told,
Should canny cat possess my tongue then cold
My blood will run till thoughts I think on feet.
So hungry for coherent words I'd eat
Your horse and pay with arms and legs I sold
For less than heads and tails.  But Charley brings
A gift of verse; don't look him in the mouth.
Yet still I'm on a limb, no room to swing
The canny cat against the clock.  Should things
From wrong directions rubbed on you go South
I'm leaving you with this: a piece of cake.



How many idioms did you count?  Leave a comment with your answer.  The first one to get it right gets a virtual high five!  Woo!  Once finals are over I'll do my best to get the backlog of posts I say I'm going to post posted.  That's all for now.  Have a great week!  -NLD

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Liked this post?  Didn't like it?
Leave some feedback and let me know why!  I'm always seeking to improve.
Thanks for reading!

Unpublished material, ©2013 Neal Digre