Monthly Archives: November 2013

On the Anniversary of the Day of My Birth

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Today is my birthday.

At around 2:00am this morning, I turned officially 35 years old, thus entering, as someone at work (helpfully!) pointed out, whole new age demographic on surveys.

In my mind, though, it actually happened about six months ago, back in June.

I always make the point of pre-aging myself.  This is both to smooth the transition from one year to the next and to prevent subsequently mis-aging my myself, similar to how people often continue to write the old year for months after New Year’s.

Today is also the day I’m supposed to have the draft of my novel-in-progress completed.

That, on the other hand, didn’t happen.

I’ve already decided to forgive myself for that.  It was a self-imposed deadline in any case, so the only person I’m really letting down is myself.  But I refuse to feel let down.

In writing, as in all aspects of life, one only gets out of it what s/he’s put in.  I can honestly say I’ve put a lot of effort and heart into my WIP, and have worked away on it, if not speedily, than with dogged consistency. I’ve been no slouch, so if it’s going to take me longer than I thought to get ‘er done, well, such is life.

The only truly downside is that I’d originally planned to share my novel’s opening on my birthday.

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On Suspense in Storytelling, pt. 2 – Unpredictable-Unputdownable

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Every story, by definition, contains suspense in one form or another.

The most common form is the Predictable-Yet-Still-Desirable (from pt. 1), wherein the reader/viewer already has a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen before it happens, but wants to see it anyway.

This may be either to feel the satisfaction of having been correct in his/her predictions, to see exactly how it happens, or to be already emotionally prepared to vicariously undergo a universal human experience.

Somewhat less common is a second form of suspense, which, ironically, is probably the form that more readily comes to mind when one hears the word “suspense”: the unpredictable-and-thus-unputdownable, which keeps the reader glued to the book, and still reading long after s/he should have gone to bed.

All stories by their very nature contain the precursors of this type of suspense.  How could they not?  Stories come to us described by blurbs designed to hint at the plot and its major turning points, but ultimately give nothing away.

They’re the very definition of suspense, for who knows what might happen between the lines of that enticing paragraph on the back of the book or DVD case?

Not all stories, however, retain that suspense.

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On Military Fiction and Other Stories About War – A Remembrance Day-inspired reflection

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Remembrance Day

When I was younger – perhaps being around 13 or 14 years old – I developed a fondness for military fiction.

I’m not entirely sure why this was.  Even though my father spent 30+ years in the military before retiring, his preferred genres at the time were westerns and historical fiction, so I wasn’t influenced by his reading preferences.

Nor nor was I by his specific profession, for he served in the Navy, yet I was reading primarily about the activities of the Army.

I remember picking up a novel about the Vietnam War at the library.  It had an eye-catching cover, and once I started reading, it wasn’t long before I was utterly absorbed.

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The First Syllable in “November” is “No”

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I kind of hate November.

First of all, Movember?  A very worthwhile cause, but moustaches are creepy.

And the end of Daylight Savings Time?  I despise Daylight Savings Time, both the start of it and the end of it, for I find mucking with the time twice a year very jarring to my circadian rhythm.

My birthday is in November, on the Scorpio-Sagittarius cusp.  I quite like my birthday  but resent having my birthday month tainted by icky ‘staches and disruptions to my sleep.

And then there’s NaNoWriMo….

Unlike my fully realized feelings on Movember, DST, and my birthday, I’ve yet to work out how I feel about National Novel Writing Month.

For one thing, I’ve never done it.  Nor am I doing it this year.  Nor am I even sure I want to someday.

Let me re-phrase that last thought: I feel like I do want to do it someday, but I’m not sure if that’s because I relish the challenge it offers or because I feel like I should want to since it’s such a renowned event in the writing community.

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