You Are Such A Winner!

Nanowrimo --- 50,000 words in 24 days! Wooo hooo!

Congrats to all the writers!

You Are Such A Winner!

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-such-winner.html

Go NaNo!

It's that time of year again....Halloween and then the start of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in one month. This is my third year participating, and damn it, I'm getting to 50,000!

Sign up and good luck!

www.nanowrimo.org

Go NaNo!

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2009/10/go-nano.html

So Where Have U Been?

I wish I could say I was "Out to Lunch" or "Gone Fishing", but the truth is I've been under the weather and over-whelmed by life in general. And you moms know what THAT means....everything else falls apart at home. Everything. The kids, the housework, the laundry, the cleaning, the shopping, the cats. Then everything falls apart at work. Seems to me that one little me is holding up an awful lot.

Not that I'm complaining...exactly. I could be dead.

Of course, I threw my hat into the Nano ring and I've hit 19,000+ words, but with only a week to go, I doubt I'll hit that 50,000 goal. But that's ok. I'll probably continue to work on the story as life unfolds until the next Nano. My girlfriend Anne is doing it too and it reminded her mom of the times we wrote together as kids. I'd write one night and she'd take the story and write the next...and back and forth. I think many of our stories revolved around Bobby Sherman, Beatles and hockey players, but hey, it was all good clean fun.

We also went to visit our ol' pal Abe Lincoln in Springfield a couple weekends ago. We thought we'd take a picture of the old capital where Obama gave his speech. So in the cold and wind, we tramped down to the old Capital and took our pictures. As we headed for the train station back to Chicago, the cab driver asked us about our stay. Anne mentioned that we walked over to "that building" to take pictures where Obama made his speech.

The laugh was on us. We took pictures of an old church.

Well, the thought was there -- and now we have another reason to go back. I love it there!! Not only did we appropriately celebrate Anne's birthday, but we finally made it to the Lincoln library. It was just grand. We spent our time in the research/reference section, where there is free access to genealogy records. It was just great.

And we even took time away from our continual laughter to NaNo for an hour or so.

We are nothing if not disciplined.

So Where Have U Been?

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2008/11/so-where-have-u-been.html

Writing According to Lara

Oh, now, don't be thinkin' that you are gonna get some good advice on how to write, how to get a literary agent, or how to get published. Naw. That's on someone else's site who knows what they're doing.

I know why you've come here. You come to commiserate with the bottom of the literary heap, or get a confidence boost as to how far you've come in comparison. I know it, you know it. Let's just get past it, shall we?

No, Batman, I don't know what I'm doing. I see all these people on NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) with synapses, outlines, notes, research, story boards ... and I think to myself....WHY? I mean why can't I just write and write and write for 30 days, see what I have, keep the good stuff, pitch the bad and fill in the missing pieces? But only if I wanna?

When I was a kid, I wrote and wrote and wrote everyday without NaNo! I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing. I wrote during study hall, I wrote instead of eating at lunch, I wrote when I got home. Then I got up and wrote some more. Did I write for anyone in particular? No. At the time, the only thing I wanted to write about was hockey (Anne will tell you there was a Barnabas Collins/vampire fascination, but let's not complicate my trip down memory lane, ok?) Specifically, the Chicago BlackHawks Hockey Team. ALL MEN! Phil Russell and Dale Talon and Keith Magnuson and Darcy Rota and Danny O'Shea. All I needed to do was create a couple of 20 year old women and I was off to the races. Well, a PG sort of off to the races. But it was hot to me and every 100 handwritten pages or so, I wrote something that sounded like real people having a real conversation in a real place that I created. It was heaven.

So this is how I will approach NaNo for this year. I shall not worry about tomorrow. I will just write and hope I can remember that childhood enthusiasm that sustained me day after day, week after week, month after month, now that I'm older....but perhaps not as wise.

Writing According to Lara

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2008/10/writing-according-to-lara.html

NaNoWriMo

I've gone and done it. Signed up for NaNoWriMo. 50,000 written words in one month. 1 me, 2 jobs, 2 kids, 3 cats, 1 house and 50,000 words.

Of course it IS Anne's birthday month, so time out for the celebration is necessary by taking a lovely Amtrak train to Springfield and drowning ourselves in Abe-lore. This time we are going to make it to the Lincoln Library before it closes. Two years in a row we've tried and 2 years in a row we've failed. The third is a charm.

I have also told myself that I am painfully missing participation in the Thursday Thirteen meme -- so I must add that on the list of to-do's. You know that "exercising" is on that list as well, but somehow never gets accomplished.

I'm gonna work on that.

NaNoWriMo

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2008/10/nanowrimo.html

Failure is NOT an Option

NaNoWriMo update:

Still hovering around 3,000 words. However, and this could be a ploy to avoid the actual competition of NaNo, but I've started 2 other stories. One at a respectable 3000 words and another at a measly, but nonetheless productive, 1500.

So, in my effort to keep myself bouyant, I have added all the stories together into a genre hodgepodge and came up with a total of close to 9000 words written since the beginning of November.

Not anywhere near the 20,000 I should be at, and spaced between a romance, chicklit and a fictional short story, but still. 9,000 words.

I heard a story about a women who went to medical school at 40 years of age. She was criticized for being too old and was told she couldn't keep up physically with the challenges. It took her several years and when she was 46 and a physician with her own practice they asked her how she did it.

She said, "I just figured I'd get older either way and gave 100%."

Point well taken.

Failure is NOT an Option

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2007/11/failure-is-not-option.html

Crash and Burn

Ok. According to the www.nanowrimo.org website, as of this moment I have 24 days, 1 hour and 53 minutes to write about 47,000 more words to hit the 50,000 mark. There has been approximately 171,000,000 words written so far by the entire collective.

That is one shitload of words.

I contributed about 3000 to that pile and I figure I must write 1,958 words PER DAY to reach the 50,000 goal. Yes. I know what you are thinking. Not a chance in hell.

I seem to write way too slowly and have precious little time to devote to the pursuit. However, I am not deterred. I shall march bravely on, like a little Kamikazi novelist, knowing that at the end, I will crash and burn.

My new, more realistic goal is 25,000 words by 11/30/07. Then next year, I'll start writing in August like everyone else and hit that 10,000 word mark in 3 days like all the others!! There are all these people posting that they've hit 10,000, 20,000 words since 11/1. I can't even spit out that many words talking in that time frame. And trust me, I'm an expert talker. Something tells me they were typing and formulating and plotting way before 11/1/07. I registered 10/31 and started typing 11/2/07, not knowing what the hell I was writing about.

I'm rather proud I've gotten this far! So onward I march, even sacrificing my very nice long nails for a shorter version, quicker on the keyboard.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.

Crash and Burn

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2007/11/crash-and-burn.html

What Have I Done -- Parts 1 and 2

Is it hormones? Is it menopause? Is it the looming specter of empty nest syndrome? Or is it a woman who, after surviving an abusive marriage with the help of dear friends and 6 years of psychotherapy, has finally starting rediscovering who she is and what she wants to do?

I don't know. The flip side shouts that perhaps the meds aren't working as they should.

But over the last week, I've done some fairly uncharacteristic things. And I have more in the works. I'm relatively free of my ex, although those emails still keep coming in, which I will share with you again soon, I have a good job that I like, I have dear, true friends, my kids are growing into healthy adults. Sure the shit hits the fan and I take a nose dive, but I'm starting to do things just for me. I do have leftover Ex baggage which manifests itself in my little voice telling me I can't, I shouldn't, I'm not smart enough, I'm not organized enough, I don't have the time, the stress will make me eat more, eating more will make me fat-ter....etc. You get the point.

But I've stopped listening -- most of the time.

I didn't listen when I signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) which is National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days. I've done 1324 words as of today and have no idea what else I am going to type! I'm looking forward to the challenge and just hoping I can make it to 30,000 words. I'd be happy with that! There's always next year!


Then, I signed up through the Manilow Fund for Health and Hope (www.manilowfund.org) to attend a charity event next year which includes a "how do you do" with Mr. Manilow himself. I saw the ticket on line, I waited 48 hours, a ticket was still available and I took it. I can't believe I did it. It so isn't "me".

But I've decided these things -- NaNo and Manilow -- are good things. I'm breaking free of the victim I was and seeing things through totally different eyes. Don't get me wrong -- it's taken a long time to get here. A Long Time. But it is so worth it.

For any of you healing from abusive relationships, get therapy. Talk to your friends. Don't isolate yourself. Try new things. Realize you are going to backpeddle sometimes, but that's ok. Progress will be made.

You are worth every single thing you do for yourself -- silly or not!

What Have I Done -- Parts 1 and 2

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-have-i-done-parts-1-and-2.html