Let's write a novel

2001-10-26 8:40 a.m.

Protoplast has issued a challenge and I have taken her up on it. In fact there's money riding on it! NaNoWriMo, translated means November is National Write a Novel Month. We're going to see who can write a 200 page novel in a month. Of course, most of it will be utter crap because there's no time for revision. I'm psyched, I've got a grand idea of a young adult kung fu sci fi novel. If anyone's interested, I might be able to post chapters in my Yahoo briefcase and give people access. If you want to get in on the action sign up on Proto's guestbook.

I've been writing novels since I was in junior high. I read everything in the library, reading lab and in my house. My parents were going broke buying books for me. I was very shy (yeah, I know, hard to believe)so I devoured 1-2 novels a day. Then I started finding books and read whatever I could get my hands on. Stuff would get left at the bus stop, classrooms, hallways and I'd read them. By the way, I don't recommend giving a 14 year old girl a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Hells Angels." So when I ran out of books to read I decided to write my own. Some of the stuff I wrote in jr. high is fantastic. The plots are hokey but the language is fresh, crisp and often hysterical. I can't do that as well any more. I got my BA in Fine Arts focusing on creative writing and wrote a few novels, some plays and a radio show in college. I can't write anything short. My creative writing teacher would give us assignments and say "I need at least 10 pages by tomorrow. Sydney, no more than 20!" However, it takes me a long time to finish a novel. My last one took me a year to write so this will be a real challenge.

I have a Halloween party to go to on Saturday but I don't have a costume. I was sick last weekend and missed out on a time to sew. I don't think I could sew anything decent in one day. I really suck as a seamstress. I like Ms. M's idea of going as a rejected Britney Spears dancer. I hope she posts a picture! I have some cute cat ears and some cheeta tights so I could go as a cat but that's rather obvious and unoriginal. Oh well, I work well under pressure. I also had an idea of making some big wings and going as the angel of death or painting myself green and going as a fairy. I'll let you know what I come up with and will probably post a couple pix.

Went to kung fu last night. I hit the beginner class again hoping for another private lesson but we had about 10 people who were all advanced or intermediates (no beginners?). We spent the entire hour working on a monkey line. Basically one person fights off a line of 5 or so attackers. You move around so you keep lining the attackers up that way you can take them out one at a time rather than fight a group. We worked it very slow with light or no contact so we could focus on picking our targets. We still had an array of bizarre injuries even without contact. Tim kicked me in the back of the head when we were getting up from being "unconscious" on the ground. Marta suddenly lost her balance and fell on her butt for no apparant reason (kung fu ghosts?) and someone got poked in the ribs pretty hard. Oh well, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I got some good technical advice, yeah me hitting a big guy in the stomach probably isn't going to slow him down, but if I hit him in the face that ought to work.

The best self defense thing I've learned is the palm strike to the nose. Anyone can do this, if someone is messing with you take the heel of your hand and bop them in the nose with it. It only takes 15 pounds of pressure to break a nose (and no, you're not going to ram the cartiledge into their brain and kill them)and even if you don't break it, it hurts like hell and makes their eyes water. And if you miss, hitting them in the mouth or by the eyes will still stun them.

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