Happy Blog-iversary to me! And a few words on my next novel...

2.20.2008

Today is my One Week Blog-iversary. So I am pretty excited about that.

You can pretty much expect that I will chronicle the anniversary of my first blog weekly, then monthly and finally yearly when that time comes. That’s just how I roll. If my boyfriends could deal with it, you can too. In fact, I think the thought of somehow forgetting one of our monthly anniversaries actually strikes fear in my Cute Boy now. He actually got all pale and ashy when he realized he had made plans to play music with his buddies on our 6 month-iversary. God, I really hope I am not that intimidating. Or maybe I do…

In other news, I am writing a novel. In November. Which is National Novel Writing Month, in case you were unaware. But anywho, I am going to do it.



I used to write “books” all the time when I was younger. I wrote my first piece when I was two. I kid you not. Okay, I didn’t actually write it. I dictated it to my agent (my mother) who wrote it down on blank sheets of paper, three-hole punched it and bound it with red yarn. I illustrated these little babies too. Meaning, of course, that I cut out pictures of Disney characters and pasted them in manners depicting my plotline all over the crisp white pages of my first tome. This was my creative “process” for awhile…at least until I could write on my own and realized I had no illustrative talent - cut and paste or otherwise.

Then, between the ages of 8 and 12 (okay, 14), I had American Girl Dolls. And I loved me some American Girl. It was like this intense competition between every other 8-12 year old girl over who could have the most (90 dollar) dolls, clothes, accessories, books, mini-dolls, horses, beds, “best friend” dolls, etc.; but I digress…

At some point during my AG obsession, they came out with a line of “Just Like You” dolls – you know, the kind where you select the skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. Well, actually no etc., that’s all you get to choose.

So anyways, these “Just Like You” dolls came with six books (an introduction, school, Christmas, birthday, something heroic, and something with a moral lesson), as all AG dolls do, but the “Just Like You” dolls came with six BLANK books. So, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, my next foray into the authoring world came about as I pieced together the story of my “Just Like You” doll (who just so happened to have blue eyes, red hair and light skin – entirely unlike myself, but that’s another blog post for another blog-iversary)’s fictional existence.



I basically stopped writing after that. Not entirely sure why. It may have had something to do with the fact that I was in school and reading and writing became this required foolishness, which left me little time to do the reading and writing my heart truly desired.

But now, I am going to write a novel. I’ve known for a while now that I wanted to write again. I go through books like it’s nobody’s business and every time I set one down, I think to myself, “I could’ve written that.” Of course, it’s never when I’m reading Chuck Klosterman or Wally Lamb, but I digress…In addition to my unwavering certainty in my own novel-ing abilities, my Boy and my buddy, Ryan (Cute Boy’s roommate), have been insisting for quite some time now that I write something – anything! I guess they just think I am that witty.

So anyways, that’s why I started this blog – to write something (anything!) every day. And it’s great, I love it, I can’t wait to write something every 2.5 hours. But now I feel it’s time to get back to my novel-ing roots. I’m going to be planning/strategizing/outlining for these next 9 months and then, in November, I am going to write it. That’s right – I am going to write the whole thing in November (well, 50,000 words at least). That’s the way NaNoWriMo works. The pressure to bust out a novel in a mere 30 days helps you to be less inhibited, less structured; it just lets you be free, creative and get words on a page.

So I’m feeling pretty splendid about that. It brings me one day closer to making my living by getting up in the morning and spending all day at my Macbook Air (fingers crossed) , writing, writing and writing some more…


Until then, back to real life and my real job. Le sigh…

5 comments:

Maxie said...

OMG! I had an American Girl doll too... Well I had 8 of them, but we won't talk about that... anyway

I named the "just like me" one Jasmine...and I wrote in the books too! Her life was pretty freakin fabulous. I wonder where she is... somewhere in my house.

Angela said...

I did NaNoWriMo in 2007, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I'm still editing and finishing my novel, and I've been posting a chapter at a time into a private blog where my friends can read it. It's pretty rough, but it's so much fun writing it!

Unknown said...

When I was a kid, I wrote my "literary masterpieces" longhand, and gave them to my aunt to type up.
She kept copies of everything to "blackmail" me with should I ever make it big.

My goal is just to research and outline a novel this year. 2009 can be the year of writing frustration. This year I aim to just get used to writing something everyday -- hello blogging.

Good luck!

Unknown said...

Yenna! You are SUCH a splendid writer-slice. I cannot wait to see what comes out of your brain and into the pages of a novela (as Steve Martin calls it)..

Love, yackalyn

BB said...

HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY! I know it's belated. I'm a bit behind with my Google reader. But I wanted to say it anyway :)

I used to write when I was a kid too. When I was about 8, I started writing and illustrating 'books' about a Christmas fairy, and my mum encouraged me and told me to send them to publishers (I know. I was 8. I got rejected). But when you're 8, my God - a rejection letter is exciting. So I had an idea of how publishing worked at a young age. And the teachers picked up on my plight to become an author (cringe) and I was then asked to write stories and plays, and read to the kids at school.

What happened then? God knows...I'm still trying to finish a novel!

Nano is GREAT fun (when you sign up you'll have to give me your username so we can be friends on the site). I attempted it last year and the year before but failed. Mainly because November was busy for me and of course, you have to do at least 1.5k min per day and if you miss a day, catching up is hard.

But I'm taking advice from you this time...I'm going to prepare. I WILL DO IT! :)