A Novel in a MONTH??!!

What have I gotten myself into?!

So I have been on a self-flagellating roll lately and really under the weather about the whole me-as-a-writer thing.  I mean, I submitted an essay and a poem to Christian Science Monitor, and no reply, which means that they are not planning to publish me.  And if I were a Pollyanna, I would just brush it off, and submit something else somewhere else, but I am not. What I am is an Eeyore. And a very pessimistic one too.

Then somewhere I don't even remember where, I saw some information about the site NaNoWriMo http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/ , and I decided to check it out.  This is an organization that encourages their users, who are struggling like me and not-so-struggling writers, to write a novel IN ONE MONTH! They've declared November as a National Novel Writing Month, and in their own words,
 "National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30."

So I decided to register with them and take on the challenge.  I made my profile and novel description: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/641593 . And that's regardless of the fact that I will be working in November, probably teaching Advanced Grammar and Writing class and being buried under the piles of students' essays, housework, and wifely duties.  Hey, what doesn't kill me - makes me stronger, right?

What's the most fascinating is that people actually DO finish their novels in 30 days, and they DO publish them (albeit after numerous editing). With the REAL publishers like RANDOM HOUSE and HARPER COLLINS!  And even though my novel is not a romance, but bravely self-appointed into the genre of literary fiction, I hope it will find its publisher too.

What I need now is a writer's prayer.  And Holy %^&*, I just found one online:
http://www.inspirationforwriters.com/writinglife/prayer.html

AMEN

If My Novel Was A Manga!

I've had a twisted novel plot haunting me for years, and at times I revisit its dark and perverted world.  The plot is pretty simple:

In a totalitarian society controlled by government, where a person's life is worth nothing and basic human rights are nonexistent, an unremarkable government worker gets arrested on false charges of political crime.  His wife is summoned to the secret police service and is given a choice - if she performs "certain duties" willingly with the commandant, who is secretly obsessed with her, he will let her husband go.  She keeps refusing, her husband's interrogation and torture escalates in monstrosity and  cruelty in order to break her spirit and force her into the arms of the devilishly handsome but corrupted and twisted commandant.   In this sick and perverted story, the rules of right and wrong are challenged and discarded with each passing page, leaving the reader increasingly aghast and disgusted, but unable to turn away.

And then, I started reading a shojo manga called "Black Bird", which is as twisted, sick, and sexually perverted as shojo manga can be.  Anything goes - handsome villains, sexually insatiable vampires, killer demons, as long as a teenage girl is involved in the middle of all the blood and gore and sexual tension.  


So I thought, "What if my novel were a shojo manga?"  How free would that be!  Here I am, trying to rationalize the setting, the politics, the characters' reasoning, mentally fighting with the future critics who will try to find fault with any weakness in the plot.  Now, if my novel were a manga, everything would magically fall into place! 


 Wife - a damsel in distress.
Commandant - a handsome, cruel villain.
Husband - a useless, but cute and pitiful good guy.
Setting - a fantasy totalitarian world in an undetermined country and future.
Sexual tension - escalating exponentially.
Blood/torture - elaborate and lurid.

If only I could draw! >_<