Halloween

Well, my favorite holiday has come and is almost a memory for one more year.

Maybe it's just like this in the younger crowd that would be out drinking anyway, but at some point, Halloween stopped being such a harvest festival and started being more like a drink in costumes event. I'm not complaining, mind you, I just find it interesting.

Also, at midnight tonight NaNoWriMo will begin. (If you're confused, reference my previous post.)

On the subject of writing... what's that? Writing is the subject of my blog? Oh, yeah. Anyway, on the subject of writing, I wanted to compete in a Halloween short story writing competition this year. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything that had to do with Halloween and wasn't an overdone cliche until it was pretty late in October, so most of the contests were done or were at least done taking entries. Oh, well. I'll revise it and maybe find one I'd like to enter next year.

It was interesting (to me, anyway) that the story turned out to be one of the tamest stories I've written in recent memory. I have to wonder if that points to a deeper meaning with me. Something like: When it comes to Halloween, I'll always be a kid. Or something like that.

Well, I didn't get to go out with my friends this year, again. Trick or Treating was kind of a miserable failure at my house, too. I wonder if maybe I shouldn't just find some way to celebrate this ancient festival on my own since I've spent quite a few that way in recent years.

That was a pretty rambling and meandering thought train... (with a fair bit of what sounds like complaining. Didn't really mean it that way.) I guess I'll call it quits now.

Happy Halloween!

Writing While Distracted

For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month. I will be attempting the most ridiculous act of schedule juggling ever by partaking in this year's event. The reason it is a crazy endeavor is because my wife and I are expecting our first child within the next week. This means that I will be attempting to write a 50,000 word novel while dealing with all the things that come with a new baby in the house. To make it even more stressful, I've never done this before. (The baby part, I've done NaNoWriMo in the past.)

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is more or less a month long writing exercise aimed at teaching yourself to write no matter what. I have to say that I've learned a lot from it in the past. I think that some good writing comes out of it, too. It is by no means all good writing, in fact, I'd call some of it downright terrible. However, there are a few gems that come out of it. If you fancy a challenge and find your own writing getting stale or even if you aren't a writer but want to give it a shot, head on over to the website and check it out.

I don't know if I'll hit the 50,000 word mark this year, but I'll give it a shot. Since I've been known to write up to 10,000 words in a single sitting, it's very possible that I'll do it even under the stress of having a new baby. The results will probably be more babbling than good writing, but that isn't really the point. I write in bursts, it seems. I'm hoping that this will break me out of my latest dry spell and doesn't come with one right on its heels.

So I think the part that I'm the most curious about is whether I will hit my word goal even if it means writing incoherent babbling. I'm not intending to write about being a new dad, but that might be what comes out of it. I might be more successful that way.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

First!

I guess I must have an interesting life, because a few people have suggested that I keep some kind of record of it. This will most likely devolve into something that resembles incoherent and insane ramblings, but might just come with some insight into the world around us.

Here you will hear about my life and things that bug me, make me sad or happy and sometimes I'll tell you about the actual subject of this blog: writing.

Additionally, I will (once in a while) publish a short work of fiction here. It will most likely be something that has received enough rejections that I'm discouraged with it, so I'm sure it won't be any good, but maybe someone will like it.

Whatever this becomes, welcome to my blog.