Monday, October 31, 2011

12 hours until I sell my soul to NaNoWriMo

Well folks, this is it. My end has finally approached near. I have approximately 12 hours left with you, but goodbyes are not necessary. Good riddance is not required. And for the love of God, please do not start singing so long, farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, adieu.

Dead? No. More like face down, bloody, burnt, and rotting from the inside out, 6 feet under the dirt in the depths of Hell. Is that how I should describe it? Nah, this next month is just going to be a very exciting, yet extremely challenging experience for me. It'll be heaven minus the eaven with a bunch of ell o-v-e. 



For those of you who are lost wandering the river Styx of this entry, I'm surprised you are with me so far. Starting the first day of November I am doing this thing called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I don't want to enthrall you with the details, so here is my own personal brief synopsis of it. Nanowrimo is a nonprofit organization, where every year in the month of november you dedicate and dictate that month strictly for writing. You write about 2,000 words a day so by the end of the month you have 50,000 words. You accomplish this by doing no editing whatsoever. You just keep writing. And there's deadlines. The deadlines are what is going to kill me, you see. I am really bad at deadlines, and I've never been able to finish something I've started. So this will be a real challenge for me. I don't care if I don't win the competition, I'm basically doing this for myself so I can actually finish writing a novel. 



Details for nanowrimo: http://nanowrimo.org/ 
I guess you can wikipedia it as well. 

So for the next month, I am going to be balancing out school (studying, homework, etc) and work with writing 2,000 words a day--let's not mention the new band I am called Play Onwards where we have 2 shows in november and need a few originals by then. I feel like this is going to be really hard.

And let's not forget, I have to write poetry practically everyday. Now, I'm not saying that's a problem, I am just saying this is going to be a lot of writing. 

I'm extremely excited for this, despite all of the stress. Despite the lack of the sleep and the hours spent cooped away in my room, isolated from my friends. This will be a new thing for me. A challenge. I am really excited to stay up late hours of the night typing away on my computer (I wish it was a typewriter). 

My novel is a rather complicated one. I don't want to give away too much on here for fear someone might steal the idea, but I will give a very brief synopsis. 

Basically it's about these 3 friends who are attending this college. They are part of this bigger group of friends that always hangs out, go to concerts, study and eat together, until something happens that tears apart the group. The main three friends last together but watch as their friends fall apart. Until the main character falls off the deep end and starts hanging out with another girl who they've never met. Things happen, and the main character discovers something HUGE that changes the entire novel. Another thing happens, even bigger than before, that puts her in danger of her life. Something that unites the big group of friends back together. They discover secret journals that the main character kept hidden and have to figure out what they mean, who this other girl is, and what she discovered in order to save her life. 

So, there's...wow, now 11 hours and 20 minutes left until the writing begins. I'm ready for the coffee and the coffee stains, the notebooks filled with ideas, and the hours of literary abandon. Let's not forget the carpal tunnel I'll probably receive from this. Wish me luck!


Monday, October 3, 2011

Compass To My Heart


Follow the compass to my heart.
Will you get lost,
like I do everyday? Do you lack direction like
my feet that run and walk
and glide on roads
not even written in maps?

Some days we take the wrong
battered and beaten path,
dusty and worn or
clean and barren, and end
up in places we never intended
that were made for us, alone

Follow the footprints in
the sand on the shores of my soul
before the ocean swallows the
memories. 

Sometimes the miles
we travel over time
can never
compare to the
distance in each other's 
hearts

through uncharted waters, dark blue
and deep and damned in god-knows-what,
and burned bridges—black like the
ashen faces of every heart
we once loved—
follow into the depths
the golden compass to my poor heart

let the northern wind
guide you, and the southern
sea swallow you
and let the eastern sunrise
consume you
and the western sunset
take you home

because some men will never
stop to ask for directions,
but most women will