Back From The Hospital!

Okay, I’m back from the hospital, actually I came home on Saturday but was in too much pain to write any new posts, but thank God for Vicodin!  Only 5 days to go until Nano ‘08!  I hope I’m ready.  I have the first three to four scenes of the novel in my head but after that the muse better do its thing.  Good luck to all you other November novelists, I know your out there.  I’ll try and post the ups ans downs of writing a novel in 30 days.  After this is over I wanted to try and post a running story here, like a chapter a month or something and get some feedback from all of you.  But that will have to wait until at least December and I still need to come up with an idea.  For any sorts fans out there check out citimets24’s blog about all things Mets and other sports.

Surgery and Nano

Well, tomorrow’s the big day.  I go for my surgery – I’m having a skin graft done to get rid of an infection.  let’s just say that the location of the surgery will require me to write my Nano novel lying on my side.

I won’t be posting again until the weekend.  I’m not sure how many days I will be fortunate enough to dine on hospital food.

Nostalgic Writing Tools

As i was organizing my notes for my new novel for Nanowrimo this November, I started thinking about all the different machines I used for writing over the years and which ones I liked the best.  So I decided to take a trip down memory lane.

My first tools for writing when I was a wee little lad was those marble notebooks we all used in school and a couple of pencils or pens.  I still use that format in the beginning stages of plotting a new story.

My second writing tool was a portable electrtic typewriter that my mother bought for me on one of my birthdays.  I really felt like a writer with the sound of the typewriter and the carriage sliding back into position.  The downside was there was no electronic means of saving your stories and getting all tangled up with ribbons and correction tapes.

The third writing tool was another birthday gift from dear old mom, a Brother Word Processor.  It had a typewriter attached to a monitor and that was the first time I had to learn about drop down menus and editing on screen.  It was great!  No more correction tapes, but you still had to change the ribbon on the typewriter but you could use it as a printer when you were satisfied with the editing and you could now save your literary creations on floppy disk.

My fourth and current writing tool is my laptop.  Wow, what a difference using word programs and saving your writing on hard drives or on thumb drives or burning them to a disc.  Online dictionaries and thesauraes, cutting and pasting your revisions.  Also sometimes I like using programs like YWriter to organise scenes and characters. 

We’ve come a long way from pens and notebooks but I still miss that portable electric typewriter.  Although I wouldn’t trade my laptop for any of those other machines especially during Nano month where every second counts as you have to use all available time to reach the goal of 50K in 30 days, so a laptop is great as it allows me to write my novel in cafes while I get my caffeine buzz with mt cafe mochas.  What are your favorite writing tools or methods?

My NEW NOVEL IDEA

SUNSET OF THE LOST EMPIRES BOOK 1 – ILLUSIONS OF FAITH

A disgraced older knight fights for his redemption as he is played as a pawn between two kingdoms. A monk’s young apprentice begins his novitiate in a dark monastery. One must find a lost race in time if the kingdoms have any hope of surviving an unseen darkness while the other must rescue a princess whose very soul holds the key to an evil plan decades in the making.

Nano Wrimo A Novel In A Month!

If you’re like me and have been lazy with finishing that novel then the challenge that NanoWrimo provides may work for you.  The challenge is to write a 50k novel in 30 days in the month of November.

I’ve completed two novels in the last 2 years and I’m ready for a 3rd this year.  Interested?  Then check out the website nanowrimo.org, use the link in my blogroll and begin the most insane literary adventure of a lifetime!