NaNoWriMo
Julie, Julia and I
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 08/15/2009 - 05:34Last night, Kim and I went to see the movie Julie Julia. It is about cooking, and blogging, and this is my review of it. Well, not exactly. It is my chance to use someone's famous name to talk about myself in hopes that someday, I will get discovered for what I am passionate about, and maybe get a book deal, or maybe even a TV show or even have a movie made about me. But, that is what the movie is about as well, so I guess it all fits.
One sign of an effective book or movie is whether or not you could see yourself in the same situations as the main characters. The movie I saw most recently before Julie and Julia was the latest Star Trek movie. Yes, it touched on universal themes, rebellious youths learning to channel their energies to overcome some great evil. I could relate to that part of the movie and enjoyed the escapeism, but it was very different from my lifestyle sitting in a small rented house in Woodbridge, CT.
Julie, Julia, however, masterfully captures the hopes and dreams of so many bloggers, like myself, busy pecking away at their computer keyboards and hoping for some sort of recognition for their passions. It ties back to Victor Frankl's great book, Man's Search for Meaning. The desire to be recognized for our passion is as basic to our own stories as the hero myth of Joseph Campbell is to so many great stories in literature.
The movie explores how blogging relates to our marriages, our families, our work, how we see ourselves, and how we support these explorations, financially and through our circle of friends.
Julie is presented as a frustrated writer. All her friends are having wonderfully successful careers while she is working away at a miserable job in a cubicle. She's written half a novel and can never finish anything. Well, through the discipline of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I've written one and a half novels, although I never completed editing the first or getting it published. I had a horribly successful career on Wall Street, but now I spend more and more time on my writing and less and less time consulting to the financial services industry.
Julie decides to put a PayPal button on her blog. That was years ago, and I think I did that at one point as well. However, I never received the recognition Julie has and never really received any Paypal donations to speak of either.
Now, so many bloggers are scrambling to find other ways to monetize their blogs. I've written about this from time to time, and spent a bit of time yesterday talking with a person who is planning to launch a new scheme to help bloggers monetize their blogs. He wanted to know what really makes bloggers tick, so that he could be more effective in recruiting bloggers and setting up a system that would be more successful for himself and the bloggers he hopes to recruit. He is wise in reaching out to bloggers to get a sense at what makes them tick. If he really wants to get a sense, he should go see the movie Julie, Julia.
Another theme explored in the movie is narcissism. Bloggers often get a bum rap by people who don't get blogging. They are accused of being narcissitic. To a certain extent, this is true. Yet it may not be as bad as it seems. In elementary school, one of the important reading skills is learning how to relate a story back to ones personal life. This is a skill that many bloggers have mastered. See, I'm relating the movie back to my life. When you get older and start learning creative writing, you are told to write about your own experiences and things that you know and have experienced. This is done wonderfully in Julie Julia, and drives my writing as well.
The problem with narcissism is when it does not relate to the world around it and somehow share in the human condition. That is what differiates between the narcissist as self absorbed jerk and the narcissist as the great writer. I'm probably still too close to the narcissist as self absorbed jerk, which is the problem with so many bloggers. I believe we all need to strive to be more in touch with the people around us if we wish to be great writers. We also need to strive to be more in touch with the people around us for plenty of other reasons as well, and that drives much of my political activism.
In the end, Julie and Julia have both won the recognition they have sought. Meanwhile there are millions more bloggers out there, pouring their hearts and souls onto their keyboards in hopes that some day, they too, will be recognized for their passion. All it takes is a blog and a dream.
#NANOWRIMO – Subtle Differences, The Silent Serian, To The Clubhouse and Liza’s Party
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 02:21National Novel Writing Month, commonly referred to as NaNoWriMo, is still a few months away but ideas are fighting in my mind for their chance to be written.
I’ve been interested in NaNoWriMo for several years. Back in 2006, my daughter Miranda Hynes wrote her first novel as part of NaNoWriMo. Subtle Differences explores discrimination in a young adult fantasy. She published the novel on Lulu press.
Then, in 2007, I wrote my first novel, Family Markets, as part of NaNoWriMo. It was a story about fraud and market manipulation in stock markets in a virtual world. It sits on a hard disk waiting further editing. It was Miranda’s first year of college and she attempted NaNoWriMo, but it was too close to finals and she couldn’t write a novel at during final weeks of classes.
In 2008, I set out to write another novel as part of NaNoWriMo. I started off with a story about foreclosure and bankruptcy, but it was a little too close to home and I had problems separating the novel from real life. I set the idea a side, and started over with a science fiction work about human genetic modifications and the problems with monocultures. It is a good story, but changing course in the middle of the month left me too far behind to catch up and after a few days, I set aside the effort. Five chapters and various notes sit out on my hard disk in case waiting for me to get a chance and a desire to restart the effort.
I am not sure if Miranda wrote her second novel,The Silent Serian, as part of NaNoWriMo 2008 or if it was part of a different effort, perhaps from 2007. She has published this on Lulu as well. It dives deeper into exploring human relationships as another young adult fantasy book. I strongly encourage people to buy and read a copy of this book.
Now, a few months before NaNoWriMo 2009, ideas are fighting in my mind for their chance to be this year’s novel attempt. Leading the list is “Liza’s Party”. On a mailing list of group psychotherapists some friends of mine got into a discussion about Pygmalion. The ancient Greek myth is about a sculptor named Pygmalion who creates a sculpture so beautiful that he falls in love with it and the gods bring it to life out of pity for him. It is a great theme to explore both in literature and in therapy. In literature, it is perhaps best known for the play, Pygmalion which was later turned into the musical My Fair Lady. In therapy, it may be interesting for people to explore their roles in the Pygmalion myth, either as the creator, the created, or perhaps even the gods granting the wish of the creator.
For me, I’ve been kicking around a twenty first century remake of Pygmalion. Riffing off the names from My Fair Lady, Liza is the created. Hank, meets Liza through an online personal and with the encouragement of his friend Pickles, tries to form Liza into his idea of a proper twenty first century lady. Beyond this, I’m likely to vary from the original story as I introduce a female friend of Liza’s, an online therapist for the female friend, and any other characters that fight their way into my thoughts.
Yet today, another idea was emerged, fighting for its place. It takes Virginia Woolf’s novel, To The Lighthouse, and twists it around the story of bankruptcy and foreclosure that I couldn’t write last year. Instead of the lighthouse, it becomes the clubhouse.
The Woodbridge Country Club went bankrupt and is in the process of selling its property to the town of Woodbridge. The town, through a manager, is trying to put the club back together as the Country Club of Woodbridge. We’ve joined the club with a swim and tennis membership. We’ve been in the pool just about every day since it has opened. We’ve chatted with the lifeguards who used to work for the private club. We’ve gotten to know the golf pro, who is really spearheading this effort, even though we, ourselves, are not golfers. Yesterday, we had dinner in the clubhouse.
Instead of the Ramseys at their summer house planning a trip to the lighthouse, we will have some Yale professor, perhaps one whose area of expertise is the work of Virginia Woolf, arranging a trip to the club to go swimming. When we return to the club, years later, as it emerges from bankruptcy, we find the character based on Mrs. Ramsey has died of cancer. The character of Andrew replaced by a young man from Woodbridge killed by an IED. “What does it mean then, what can it all mean?” a modern day Lily Briscoe must ask herself as she walks around the once bustling country club.
But it isn’t November yet. It is two in the morning on a clear, cool, full moon lit August night. I should be sleeping. It is time to send Lily and Liza back to their rooms in the corners of my mind where they can plot with other potential characters about how to tell their stories when the time comes.
What about you? Will you write a novel this year?
Words and Music
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 06:31In a couple hours, we will be in the car on our way to Cape Cod. We spent yesterday packing, and doing all the odds and ends that need to be handled before we could leave. The house sitter will arrive soon to make sure the pets are properly cared for.
Unfortunately, the local libraries were all closed, so Kim had to resort to a local bookstore for her beach reading material. She didn’t get a chance to check out any books on tape, so I made my own.
Librivox is a site where volunteers read books in the public domain and save them as MP3 files. You can download a great variety of books. The first download I tried was Buster Bear by Thorton Burgess. I burnt it to a CD-RW using Microsoft Media Player. It plays in some audio devices, but not in the car. I then downloaded Anne of Green Gables. I used Roxio to burn the first few chapters and wrote it on a CD-R disk. This one played nicely in our car, so I burnt the remaining nine CDs. Kim labeled them for us, so for the cost of ten CD-R disks, we have Anne of Green Gables on CD. We will probably listen to this during a bit of the drive to the Cape.
For my reading, I received an electronic copy of the novel The Silent Serian by Miranda Hynes. This is Miranda’s second novel. It is a young adult fantasy novel and a great read. I read the first four chapters immediately, and will try to finish it when I have more computer time. I’m also trying to spread the word about it, so please, digg the book, share it on Facebook and other sites, and be sure to go out and buy a copy yourself.
I have also been listening to the musicians selected to be in the Emerging Artists Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. I’ve downloaded some of the songs and may try to burn a CD for the road trip. I wanted to get a review up by now, but it will probably have to wait until I am back from Cape Cod.
However, as I started searching out the emerging artists and looking at their websites, I found a link to most of them on SonicBids. Each one that I’ve checked has an Electronic Press Kit where you can listen to, and in some cases download some of their music. I’ve now listened to songs by everyone who is supposed to be performing and I need to organize my notes into something readable.
Soon, we will hit the road listening to a great collection of words and music, and I’ll try to get some posts from Cape Cod up when I get some time.
NaNoWriMo Feedback
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 22:10One blog that I’ve been enjoying reading recently is Subjective Soup. It is written by a recently retired teacher and is one of the more thought out and better written blogs I visit. The other day, Patricia wrote a blog post Fellow Writers, Where Do I Go From Here?, about her first National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) effort.
I started to write a comment for her blog post, but it turned out to be pretty long, so I’m posting it as a blog post here.
In 2006, my daughter Miranda Hynes, wrote her first novel, Subtle Differences as part of NaNoWriMo. She was thirteen at the time, and the novel was amazingly good. I encourage friends to go out and get a copy and read it. As she wrote it, she pondered what she would do with it after she finished it. I encouraged her to check into various publishing possibilities, and in the end, encouraged her to publish it at Lulu. Lulu is one of the top publish on demand presses and is a favorite of NaNoWriMo writers.
So, my first recommendation, think seriously about self-publishing via Lulu.
Whether you decided to self publish, or revise it for resubmission to the publisher you contacted, you need to look at revision. The three recommendations seem pretty straight forward, but I do have comments on the recommendations.
First, don’t be too quick to reduce your parentheses. Yes, they might slow down the reader, and that might not fit the market that the publisher you contacted is interested in. However, I’m a reader that likes to read slowly. I like complicated sentences with lots of parentheses and sub-clauses. This may be just a stylistic consideration and you need to find the style that works best for you. Before you take the words of a publisher’s review too seriously, read many of the famous author’s rejection letters.
NPR had a great story on this a couple years ago, Famous Authors' Rejection Letters Surface.
The second comment about having shopping telling what is happening, instead of showing it goes back to perhaps the oldest recommendation to creative writers, “Show, don’t tell”. I haven’t read your novel, so I can’t comment on where you are telling instead of showing, but that is a key thing to work on.
Back to my own experience: After my daughter wrote her novel in 2006, I did NaNaWriMo in 2007. I finished my novel and it is sitting, somewhat edited on my hard disk somewhere. I may get around to going back and revising it someday, or it may just stay where it is. However, one thing that I did do was to share it with people that I trusted as I was writing it. I received lots of feedback. Much of it was useful, but I needed to filter out what was useful and what wasn’t.
I’m on a mailing list of group psychotherapists, and several of them read the novel and gave me incredibly helpful feedback. I believe that my characters are much richer because of their feedback. For each character, spend time trying to think about everything about them. Why are they acting a particular way? What happened in their childhood that shaped them to be the way they are? Where is the complexity and ambiguity that they face? Most importantly, and this is perhaps where I have the most problems, how are the experiences in the novel changing them? If you look at any character, can you tell me who they are at the beginning? How they are at the end, and how the story changed them? You don’t need to put the early family history of each character in the novel, but you need to know what it is. If it isn’t clear to you, it won’t be to your readers and the characters will tend to feel more stereotypical.
So, find some people that you really trust. Get them to read your novel and help you grapple with these aspects. Don’t worry about the parentheses so much as about how you show people what is happening and how you show people the complexities of your characters.
I hope this is helpful. I look forward to reading what happens next.
#NaNoWriMo update
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/11/2008 - 20:28So far today, I’ve only gotten out slightly over a thousand words on my novel. To pull this off, I’m going to need to increase this substantially. Yet the novel is taking on a life of its own. The other night, I had a dream, in which people’s feet were turning black and swelling up. It struck me that this must be part of the plague predicted in the novel.
As I work on the biology of the novel, I frequently ask Kim for pointers to make sure that I’m still making sense, and at least on somewhat solid footing scientifically. However, today, I started writing about the travels of one of the characters. I won’t say whether or not he is a key character, because many of the characters are fighting for my attention to be key characters.
With this, I’ve needed to research a little bit, the history of the potato and the coffee bean. I also need to be much more up to speed on the geography and history of Ethiopia, Yemen, Turkey, Indonesia, perhaps some additional places in Africa, such as Kenya, Uganda, and the Congo, although those stops may play minor roles. Then, I need to be much more versed in Columbia and Peru. In need to be able to write much more intelligently and coherently about radical Islamic clerics as well as early to middle archaic Peruvian culture and archeology. I could get lost in all the research.
So, if this sounds interesting and you’re an expert in any of those areas, please let me know. I can always use good sources and informed readers.
