A New Little Poem

My NaNoWriMo results, plus a story that led to a little poem.

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NaNoWriMo is over. I did not reach my goal of 50,000 words. I didn't write anything during our trip to Seattle, and I haven't written much since. I still have a strong desire to finish, but I've realized two things. 1) 50,000 words is really going to be about the halfway mark in the story, meaning I now expect the finished draft to be in the neighborhood of 80,000 - 100,000 words. 2) It's going to take a while to write all that. I'm still debating what to do with these realizations, how to fit the novel into my life, and at what intensity it should be.

When I started NaNoWriMo one of my concerns was whether or not it would interrupt what had been a rather steady flow of little poems I had been writing since last August. Sometimes (alright, quite often) when I leave one thing to do another, I never return to finish. So I was quite pleased when on the bus ride home the other day something amusing happened, and before I knew it'd written another little poem:

O.J.'s Going to Jail

Over the radio the quote
Was spoken with the cheeky host
A trifle gleeful in his tone,
"Now O.J.'s saying," he began,
"'I didn't know it was illegal.'"
On our way home, we working folk
All turned to one another, snickered,
And placing buds into our ears
We did enjoy our Friday ride
Away from all our weekly woes.

Writing Desk

Writing Desk, originally uploaded by brweaver.

I'm (nearly) half-way through my first novel. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, which has really been a fun challenge. The idea is to write 50,000 words during the 30 days of November, which is a tough goal.

So far I've been quite pleasantly surprised by a few things:

1) That the story seems to be there. The more I write the more it all sort of flows out. I haven't hit any major road blocks or any abnormalities, and aside from being slightly behind in my writing I'm doing pretty well.

2) I didn't plan this book out to the letter. I have a rough idea of what happens, and how it ends, but not much more. I'm hand-writing it cover to cover in a journal, and it's so surprising to me how characters come to life and the details sort of figure themselves out just by following the logical trajectory of who my characters are what they would do and so forth.

3) Writing largely from my experience as a homeschooler, with the distinct coming of age experience homeschoolers have as the focal point, I find myself surprised how nearly all of my characters shift in and out of likability. They can be so charming in one scene, and so obnoxious in the next. It feels good to write them in a way I can only describe as honest.