LIBRARY

I recognized her. She was in sitting at a table in the library, wedding books stacked high beside her arm. 

I hoped she had found a decent person to marry and would have a happy life, but I felt certain that would not happen.  

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AUDIO BOOKS AND THE NEW YEAR

As I stood in the library, staring at my options for audio books to keep me company on not one, but two round-trips to Central Florida in the space of two weeks, I kept coming back to Dearie, the biography of Julia Child by Bob Spitz.  It was 20 CD's! This far surpassed my total travel time of about 16 hours for the two round trips.  But, I had wanted to read this book and it did seem like the perfect opportunity.  I would be alone on both trips, so there was no one else to complain about a French Chef marathon.  

It took me weeks to plow through the 20 CD's.  Upon returning from my second Central Florida trip, I played the tape constantly wherever I drove in town. Thankfully, over the holidays, our public library extends its loan period an extra week.  With a renewal of two more weeks, I sighed when I put in the 20th and last CD.  I had finally made it through the entire 90+ years of Julia--and more.  The book covers quite a bit of history of Julia's parents' family and their relocation to Sacramento, California.

I'm rewarding myself for my tenaciousness!  I did not even have to sit in the car parked in my driveway to finish--although I was tempted!

Are you a driveway-moment person who listens to CD's in the car while parked?

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Housing Young Writers in Detroit

Looking for ways to build community in sparsely populated neighborhoods, a non-profit in Detroit is offering writers opportunities to secure a house for almost no money in exchange for an agreement that the person will live in the house for a minimum of two years. 

Check out their indiegogo campaign to learn more:

www.indiegogo.com/projects/write-a-house-renovation-of-the-peach-house#description

Building the Literary Arts in Detroit

"The writer-in-residence program where the writer gets to keep the residence" wants to renovate their first house.

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THANKSGIVING REDEAUX

itscertainlytime.blogspot.com/2002/11/thanksgiving-log-or-future-reminder-of.html?m=1

A look back at Thanksgiving past. . .

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THE TO DO LIST THAT HASN'T FAILED ME YET

11/14/11

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AUTHOR - NEVER GONE

Doris Lessing: your stories live forever.  
October 22, 1919 - November 17, 2013

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THE FUTURE

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AND NOW FOR A BRIEF PUNCTUATION

Have you seen these tips for punctuation from NaNoWriMo?  Quick and easy.

I'm probably still going rogue on dashes, which I believe should go where I want to put them--grammatically correct or not.

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NaNoWriMo Anyone?

I gave it a go last year and made it almost through the entire month, first in the summer boot camp and then in November.  The Thanksgiving holidays were the deal breaker for me.  Preparations during the week and then travel--I couldn't catch up.  Still, I have the alarm set on my phone to go off daily as a reminder to write, even if it's not for the challenge. I got everyone in my family excited about the mystery plot I had half-created. I say 'half' because it had no ending.  I had dozens of ideas of plot twists and crazy characters doing nefarious things, but I hadn't given consideration before I started about how it would all be resolved.  I know some writers say the characters take over and the book writes itself, but after a few mornings of writing, mine just kept doing outrageous stuff without moving the plot forward.  I was embarrassed to confess that when my family asked 'how does it turn out?'  I had to admit I didn't know.  The other downside is then they each started suggesting plot twists, character motives and endings.  This only confused me more.  

My recommendation:  just keep the plot a secret.  You need to appear more mysterious to your family, anyway.  

Use a good text writer.  Eliminate the clutter and distractions!  You may use it for more than crafting your great American novel. Here are some resources for distraction free writing.  

Here's a great post with a link to the NaNoWriMo main page to get you inspired if you've decided to accept the challenge.  There's still time, even though November 1st has passed.  There are some great links for writing to use any time. 

Start writing on November 1. Keep writing. Don’t stop writing until you hit 50,000 words, or December 1, whichever comes first.Where do you write? Not on the site! In your word processor, notebook, or even typewriter, you iconoclast, you.
Update your word count by clicking “Update Word Count” in the topmost menu. Watch your word-count graph climb your novel as if it were Everest.

How about it?  Are you up for it?

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DIVE IN

Trying not to get bogged down n tools for writing, I came across this which may be an answer to writing collaboratively or getting feedback without as much hassle.  Check it out and see what you think:  

Editorially, a collaborative writing and editing platform.

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