The Office of Letters and Light Blog

Embrace the Geek

Last week, I went to the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo for the first time. It was, in fact, my first real “con” experience, at least of that scale. I’d contemplated going before, but when they announced a full reunion of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation I was finally sucked in.

It feels appropriate that it was TNG that got me to a con, since that show was really my first foray into geek culture. These days, I sort of dabble in the pool of full-fledged fan geekery; I don’t read comic books or dress up for movie premieres (except for the brown coat I wore to the opening night of Serenity), but I will get fanatically attached to certain TV shows and am pretty literate in internet geekery.

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I Had an Onion On My Belt

It’s hard not to sound like an internet hipster when I talk about the web. I’ve been a part of message boards and online communities since 1998 or so, and I am a bit prone to rolling my eyes when someone tells me about some newfangled thing they’ve just discovered online that I’ve been doing for the past ten years.

But I had a recent, slightly horrifying realization: I am in danger of going from internet hipster to internet fuddy-duddy. This occurred to me the day I said something along the lines of, “I don’t know about this Tumblr business. What can it do that Twitter can’t?”

Replace Tumblr with, oh, 8-tracks and Twitter with records, and I’m a grouchy old lady wanting to know what’s wrong with how we did things in my day.

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Add Some Magic to Your Life

I’ve always been a library lover. Getting my first library card was a momentous occasion, although I proceeded to confuse my mother and the librarian by spending weeks selecting the most random assortment of books possible. (They eventually figured out that I would only pick books that were perfectly square. I wish I could remember my logic for that decision!)

I’ve moved on to books of all shapes and sizes, and the library has been a stalwart companion over the years. These days, I spend a lot of my time working with libraries through our Come Write In program. We partner with libraries all over the world to help give writers a space to find each other, and explore their imaginations, free of charge.

That’s a little bit of magic, I think. A building that offers you the whole world, for free. We’re going to keep working with librarians all over the world for Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo, and now Camp NaNoWriMo, too. And we’re going to keep going to libraries, too, because everyone needs a little magic in their lives sometimes. 

So celebrate National Library Week with us, and remember that you belong at your library. Stop by your local library for a little bit of magic, and maybe tell them about Come Write In while you’re there.

- Sarah

Photo by Flickr user duncan

I’m Having Trouble Adapting

As has been previously established on this very blog, I have not been terribly successful at Script Frenzy in the past. I am hoping to break that streak this year. I figured what I needed was a strong outline, since that definitely works for me in the noveling realm, but I lack the lead time that I usually need to create one of my in-depth outlines.

The solution, it would seem, is obvious: adapt one of my existing novels into a screenplay. I’ve got ten to choose from, after all (actually, that’s a lie—I’m fairly sure my first NaNoWriMo novel is lost to the ages, as it was written on an old computer that’s no longer around, and I wasn’t very organized about my digital files back then), and what’s a better, more thorough outline than a near-complete novel? The only thing lacking is an ending; of all my novels, only one has what you could legitimately call an end. Still, that’s fairly easily solved once I get to that point.

The next question, then, is which one to adapt. Do I choose the most complete story, which is also the most structured of my novels, but has a slightly confusing alternating point-of-view? The most cinematic story, with an easily-written logline and the most obvious mass appeal? Do I pick the one with the richest setting, to take advantage of the visual medium, or do I go for the one with the main character I like the best?

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The Sacrificial Mitten

Sometimes, there are things in life that are just meant to happen, and much though you might try to change the course of destiny, you can’t.

I lost my mitten again. I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good this time. You see, I left it in a cab in New York City on my way from LaGuardia Airport to my hotel. And I’m okay with it being gone, for two reasons. First of all, that mitten obviously longed to be free, and I was oppressing it by forcing it to live in my pocket. It was obviously an adventure-seeking mitten, and I was lucky to get an extra two years of mitten-y love after it made a break for it a few years back.

And second of all, it became clear over the course of the week that the mitten was my sacrifice to the gods of New York City. And based on the rest of my trip, they deemed my sacrifice worthy.

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A Book-Loggy Year

Back in January, I wrote about my New Year’s Resolutions here on the blog. Public accountability, after all, is a great motivator, and I was hoping that by declaring my intentions to all of you, I’d be a little more likely to stick to the resolutions.

My big resolution was to keep track of all the books I read in 2011, and thanks to the suggestions in the comments, I ended up with a GoodReads account. When I set that account up, I set my reading goal for the year at 100 new-to-me books. (Re-reads don’t count.)

I am here today to admit that I failed. I’m at 78 books right now, and I’ll probably manage another 5 or 6 before the year is out (mmm, holiday reading), but there’s no way I’m going to make it to 100 books. I had a couple of lags in my reading—the month I spent in Vancouver waiting for my sister’s baby to arrive, the time after I dislocated my knee and couldn’t get to the library, pretty much all of November—but I’m confident that I can make it to 100 in 2012.

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I wrote a novel. Now what?

My friends, I have got a wicked case of the Decembers.

It happens every year. NaNoWriMo ends, and once the TGIs are all O, I’m left trying to remember how I filled my time when I wasn’t writing a novel. (Or, let’s be realistic, updating my word count on the site, tweeting about my novel, talking to other people about writing a novel, and doing very important things in order to avoid working on my novel. I’m pretty sure I spent more time doing all of those things than I did actually writing in November.)

I always say it’s like riding a really scary roller coaster. When you’re on it, you’re not sure why you thought it was good idea and you’re a little worried you might barf. Then you get off, and your immediate response is, “Oh my god, I’m so happy to be off that crazy thing.” (The “Thank God It’s Over” party is aptly named.) But then you go back to riding the carousel or whatever, and it suddenly seems kind of boring in comparison to the thrills-a-minute near-death experience of the roller coaster.

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Conversations with Your Novel

I’ve got a bad case of the Week Two Blahs.

My novel taunts me from another window. “Hey Sarah!” I hear it saying. “I kind of suck! I’m getting a little rambly and nothing much of anything has happened in about three chapters!”

I try to ignore it, knowing that it’s wrong—I just introduced my love interest and had a dramatic injury! Things are happening!—but it’s hard, in Week Two, not to listen to your novel. “Your main character just collapsed in front of her future love interest’s house and you couldn’t even make that interesting! You’re terrible at this! Maybe you should go knit something and play with your cat, because obviously there’s no point in you ever writing anything again!”

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The Official NaNoWriMo “Agony Aunt” Is In!

You may know author Maureen Johnson from her 2009 NaNoWriMo pep talk, or from her young adult novels. (I just read The Name of the Star last week and it was crazy good. I recommend reading it in a well-lit location, though, because that book is spooky.) Or perhaps you follow her on Twitter, where she is notorious for her hilarious and frequent tweets.

Imagine our delight when Maureen applied for the position of Official NaNoWriMo “Agony Aunt.” We were quick to accept her application, and below is her first column in which Auntie MJ solves all your novel-writing problems.

She’ll be posting columns daily on her Tumblr throughout November, and we’ll be following along with great anticipation to see Auntie MJ fix your character quandaries, fill in those plot holes, and possibly solve world hunger while she’s at it.

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Natalie Goldberg on NaNoWriMo

Author Natalie Goldberg’s books on writing are some of the best in the business. We love her and her no-nonsense approach to writing. So you can imagine how delighted we were to receive this fabulous video full of advice on NaNoWriMo from Natalie Goldberg herself!

Not only do we have this video to share with you, but to get you even more inspired, we’re giving away three copies of the digital version of Natalie Goldberg’s classic on writing, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life. Wild Mind is an inspirational, practical, and often lighthearted guide on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, and how to make sentences come alive—all very important to keep in mind this November!

Want to win a copy? Tell us about what inspires you to sit down and write, and you’ll be entered to win! Please include your NaNoWriMo site username in your comment so we can get in touch with you more easily.

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What’s Your Noveling Achilles Heel?

Ask just about any writer, and they will be able to name their literary strong suit and their literary weak spot. Actually, they’ll probably all be able to name the weak spot, and only the somewhat confident ones will have the strong suit. (Writers are kind of a self-deprecating bunch.)  

Up until very recently, I was quite sure of both my greatest strength and my weakest link. For all my writing flaws, and there are many, I think my dialogue is pretty great. There are times when it’s a little too witty and self-aware, sure (and here’s that self-deprecating side!), but overall I write it quickly and I think it’s pretty snappy.

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It’s Recruiting Season!

Way back in the day when I joined NaNoWriMo, things were a little different. The year was 2002. There was no Facebook, no Twitter—heck, there wasn’t even a MySpace. Many of us were still connecting to the internet using dial-up, and laptops were a little harder to come by. (I was not wearing an onion on my belt. This blog post is making me feel about a million years old. 30 is the new 20, right? I’m still young and hip, I swear!)

We still had the website, of course, but things weren’t quite as slick then as they are now. And with only about 13,000 participants, the regional forums weren’t as hopping as they are today. So when I decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo, I figured the best way to ensure I wasn’t doing it on my own was to attempt to recruit pretty much everybody I knew.

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