pushcart news: my short-short 'snowrise' was nominated by per contra. i'd go and celebrate, if people in my 'real life' knew or cared about puschart. or maybe i should go and celebrate by myself.

my new entry is up at the canadian writers' collective

i'm not an action writer, or a writer of action, so naturally, 8000 words into my novel i feel my characters are not doing much. they kind of hang around. they did do things in the beginning, but not anymore. they think about the past. they observe things. that's bad. according to my outline the next several segments should have action, but for today, even my outline says "A. contemplates; M. is idealistic...etc".

for now i am letting them be. when i know them better, during my second draft, they might break into some action. or maybe it is their day off of sort. i want to ride through this seeming slump as fast as i can. i want to be on my second draft already, where i can start paying attention to details, rather than making comments on my margins, in point form.

but maybe there needs to be a sort of lull. i will have to see as i reread the manuscript. after all, A. still doesn't know that her husband is having an affair, and her husband still doesn't know that A. just discovered a lump in her breast.

my word count is right on target. today i wrote 1000, which is 500 words above my self-imposed limit.

gratuitous sex by matt maxwell. read it. hilarious.

his photography is not to be missed either. stunning.

another 500 words.

things are evolving. distinct forms / voices emerge for each of the characters. my characters surpise me.

if you think this is weird, well... Anton Chekhov liked it when his characters surprised him...

i'm not sure why i am attracted to the nano tee-shirt. it is not even my colour. i'm not even materialistic. most of my tee-shirts are from thrift stores. i don't care for logos. can anyone tell me why i want that tee-shirt?

in nano news: 4157 words. staying well within my personal goal. today i wrote two segments.

it is already obvious that each chapter, i.e. each flash, will end up longer than 500 words after revisions. probably between 1000 and 1500.

i will need to do quite a lot of research for this novel. looking forward to it.

Elizabeth McCracken, in Writers Ask:

In graduate school, I wrote a short story that some said could have become a novel. I incorrectly believed my critics for a while. I wrote the first chapter of that story as a novel, then I realized I'd already written the version I meant to write. Novels that come out of successful short stories are frequently bad books. That's been my experiences. They were conceived as short stories: a short story is not just a shorter novel. You do character development differently. The characters are not conceived of as novel characters. I 've read too many bad novels published by good writers, based on really good short stories.

two things. one, i feel the same about short stories and flash. many comment on my flash, that they could see a longer story there. but flash is conceived differently, and making it longer, doesn't mean that it will evolve into a short story.

two, several years ago i read 'where the heart is' by billie letts, and the first chapter was great. the rest was mediocre. the author revealed in a note at the back of the book that she wrote the first chapter as a short story, and then an agent at a conference encouraged her to make it into a novel. there are probably many factors involved in this novel not being so great, but it certainly felt that she ran out of steam and was trying hard just to write something, after that first short story.

i had to google the title to remind me who the author was, and it seems there is a movie as well. so i googled the movie, and of course i remembered vaguely wanting to see it, as i like natalie portman.

i wrote another 500 words instalment last night. i feel in control of the structure, and of the narrative. i am allowing for it to evolve, nothing is set in stone, but is fluid and flexible. but the point is i don't feel lost within it. it is a mosaic. pieces can be rearranged, moved around to create the whole, but i am aware of each piece, and each piece is manageable and can stand on its own.

my characters surprise me, and i like it.

i am also aware of my characters as real people, almost for the first time in my writing.

in my short stories i do not know my characters that deeply. they do something, and i might not know exactly why -- and i also like it. it is a different process for me.

i know i won't be able to write 50 000 words this months, and my goal is 500 words a day, for the total of about 20K by the end of the months. i like the energy of november, though -- a frenzy of writing around the world.

just finished my second 500 words. i'm just basically getting the structure down and the ideas. i want to have a complete skeleton before i start my writing course at humber. i don't think i mentioned this here, but i signed up for the humber college correspondence writing course, and i even got a $500 scholarship.

it is a 1:1 mentoring program, 30 weeks or 85K words, whichever comes first. my mentor is rabindranath maharaj. i am supposed to be working on my short story collection -- i have about 20 stories and flash that i want his feedback on. however, i plan to use up my entire quota of 85K during the 30 weeks. so the draft of this novel will be handy to work on.

holy cow, i have an idea for a novel and i am excited about it. i've been convinced for a long time that novels are not for me. flash is. short stories, maybe. novel? no way.

no, i'm not doing the nanowrimo this year. after winning last year, i.e. completing the 50k draft in which very little happens, i feel if i do it again, i will have to win... but... i don't have the time. i'm realistic here. but i might get myself tha nano t-shirt. it was sold out too fast last year. haven't checked the design yet.

but the novel idea just came to me, and developed almost by itself in the span of 45 minutes, while i was waiting for my daughter to fall asleep. it might be crap, but there is so much happening in it, i will need to weed stuff out, and i am excited about writing it, and this is the most important thing. so i will doing my own 'nanonano', as in mirconano, but smaller, and it will stretch for a couple of months.

it will be another one of those 'flash novels'. that's the only thing i can write, i think. small, digestable (or not) chunks.

okay, checked the t-shirt and it is so cool, i might even do the nano for real. i mean, i want the t-shirt. but getting it without doing nano will be cheating, of sorts.

i need tranquilizers to fall asleep. i'm hyper. (but not drunk)

and don't miss my totally unrelated, totally short entry at the canadian writers collective. but i will post in at midnight.