Skip to main content

NaNoWriMo 07: Day 15

So I hit 25k today! What a great feeling it is to reach halfway through the novel! It's true what they say: you begin to start hating the novel, you start to think that the novel is crap.

I've been tempted many times to just give up the whole damned thing. Many a time I stared at the empty page, mocking me with my inability to go on. Many a time there was when I pulled my hair in despair when I wrote my characters into a corner. (Don't be surprised when next you see me, I have less hair!)

I mean, seriously. My protagonist lands up in a hospital after he knocks into an elephant god by mistake when he gets lost in the city. He then proceeds to get the living daylights beaten out of him, but because he's the hero, he survives.

But then no matter how many times I give him a chance to escape from the hospital (so that he can continue the damn plot), he just refuses and stays in the hospital! The nerve! I've finally got him out, but not without some coaxing and navel-gazing.

But on the whole I'm glad I stuck with the novel. To quote a cliche, it may be a piece of crap, but it's my piece of crap.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Chet15/11/07 11:26 pm

    Ted

    I was in a similar situation when I hit 25K. It also didn't help that I've been unwell. Anyways, I was wondering how to proceed with the story, and decided to soldier on, and lo and behold, my main character and one of her allies took me firmly by the hand, took over my AlphaSmart and showed me the way.

    My NaNovel is also my piece of crap.

    Together, let's keep cra ... er, nano-ing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun15/11/07 11:33 pm

    Amen to that! Let's keep soldiering on for out little pieces of cra- er, NaNovels!

    I'm still waiting for MY character to take over my ibook with his pals and show me the way. But I think he's too full of himself at the moment and won't be bothered to help anyone but himself. The nerve of some characters!

    ReplyDelete
  3. sharkgila16/11/07 6:11 am

    25K! Go go go!

    ReplyDelete
  4. bibliobibuli17/11/07 11:13 pm

    go go go!!!!

    (i'll stand on the sidelines handing out chilled bottles of mineral water and wet towels as you all rush past)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm going to Clarion West!

So yeah! I'm going to Clarion West this year! If you didn't know, Clarion West is a really awesome science fiction and fantasy writing workshop that runs for six weeks in summer every year at Seattle and is usually taught by a faculty of award-winning authors and editors. Many students who attend this workshop also go on to have illustrious writing careers of their own too. I've been meaning to attend this workshop (or its sister workshop, Clarion UCSD, which is the original Clarion workshop but runs in San Diego around the same time) for years now but never had the courage to apply. Many reasons as to why: didn't think I'd have money for the most part, didn't think I was good enough, didn't think I could leave work long enough, didn't think I could leave family behind, etc. But something sparked inside of me late last year. I felt I should at least give it a go this time round. So I did. They requested a sample of my best work and an applicatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...
5 comments
Read more

REVIEW: Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami.

UPDATE: My Wind/Pinball review can be found here . ISBN: n/a Publisher: n/a Paperback: 160 pages In Murakami fan circles, simply owning a copy of Pinball, 1973 is a mark of hardcore-ness. Like Hear the Wind Sing before it, Haruki Murakami does not allow English translations of Pinball, 1973 to be published outside of Japan. Back in the 80s, Alfred Birnbaum translated it into English and Kodansha published it as a novel for Japanese students who wanted to improve their English. While the English edition of Hear the Wind Sing continues to be reprinted and sold in Japan (and available for a moderate sum via eBay, see my review ), Kodansha stopped its reprint runs of the English edition of Pinball, 1973 and has now become a collector's item, fetching vast amounts of money on auction sites and reseller stores. Last time I checked, the cheapest copy went for USD$2500. Of course, Murakami addicts or the curious can always download a less than legal PDF of the book, painst...
18 comments
Read more