Blogging Nanowrimo Part 3: The End

Well, it's the end of the month, and I'm officially a Camp Nanowrimo 2013 winner.  My novel was less than perfect, my blog posts were really quickly written, but I'm really happy that I did it none the less.

If you wrote a novel as well this month, I hope you have succeeded.  If not, I hope you enjoyed reading my blog posts.  Whatever you did this month, I hope you had a lot of fun doing it.

It will be business as usual on this blog for August.

Until next year...

The Poetry Project Ireland

Just an interesting website I thought I would briefly share

http://thepoetryproject.ie/

Blogging Nanowrimo: Part 2

My cousins were visiting last week, and I fell really behind on my word count. So I have spent the last couple of days playing catch-up.  The thing about Nanowrimo is when you fall behind, it can seem really daunting to try and get back on target. Every time you get a bit closer to where you're supposed to be, it's the next day, and now you have another 1,667 words to catch up on.

Even if you have kept it up and have been consistent, the middle of the month can be hard.  The romance of the first week is over, and you still have a long way to go. So, I thought that the theme of this blog could be how to keep motivated.

Blogging Nanowrimo: Part 1

So, it's the first week of Camp Nanowrimo, and I'm currently at 7,523 words.  Here's what I've learned so far:

Happy (Camp) Nanowrimo

Camp Nanowrimo

November is National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo for short).  So, every year since 2001, thousands of aspiring writers have tried to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  In 2011, Camp Nanowrimo was born.  It operates on the same basic principles as Nanowrimo, except it takes place in the summer. 

I'm going to be doing Camp Nanowrimo this July-and blogging about it.  (Because what does one do after writing 1,667 words a day? Write a blog a post about it.)

There are a whole bunch of exciting changes taking place; you can set your own targets (but I'm sticking with the classic 50,000 words) and write in a wider variety of formats.

I'm really enthusiastic about doing it this year.  I did it last year in June and it was a great experience.  I would encourage anyone who is interested in writing a novel (or script) to participate.

Sign up for Camp Nanowrimo!

Book review: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
(my own photo)

"There is a force that wants you to realize your destiny..."

A shepherd called Santiago keeps on having the same dream; a child takes him to the Pyramids and tells him that he will find treasure there.  He goes on a quest to find the treasure, but gets more than he bargained for along the way.

There were several aspects of the novel that I really enjoyed.   The plot moved at a nice pace, and I thought that the story and writing style managed to keep me engaged throughout.

That being said, I did have a few issues with this novel.  This book has a really clear message about fate, destiny and interconnection. I personally don't agree with it, but that isn't my main problem. Coelho seems to be a fan of "telling" his message, as opposed to "showing" it.  I think that the message would have been far more compelling if he had chosen to write about it differently, especially since he starts to "tell" his message in no uncertain terms really early on in the novel.  Maybe this doesn't bother other people as much.

Another issue I had with this book was the fact that so many characters were so fatalistic.  Maybe this is just my personal experience, but people are rarely completely willing to accept that destiny will decide everything, and that they should just go along with it.  Even people who are generally deterministic still try to control their futures, even if it is just an instinctive desire to preserve life. Some of the characters, particularly the more peripheral ones, didn't seem fully-rounded to me.

Chance of finding it in my imaginary bookstore? 60%