Try 100words.com!

When I neglect my blog, this is what I'm doing--writing 100-word entries for 100words.com. I learned of this site in November 2008 in a NaNoWriMo forum. I'd just earned my MFA and learned how word limits inspire better writing, forcing you to pick the best possible word, not a fuzzy approximation.

So far, I've completed 10 "batches"--a month's worth of 100 words. Some are diary entries that tell details, thoughts, and feelings about a day's worth of living. Others are instances from the middle-grade novel I'm revising. Recently, I'm writing memoir entries--100 words for each year of my life.

Check it out!

Letter to the Editor

Last month, my six-word bio was published--today, my 100-word letter to the editor was in the paper:

A letter in the Feb. 3 Chicago Sun-Times equates financial success with hard work, and lack of such success to "loafing."

Sometimes, maybe--but financial success is also tied to choice of career. A prime example is day care. Day care teachers typically earn pitifully low salaries, often barely above minimum wage--but what job can be more important--or demanding--than nurturing young children?

Teachers in Catholic elementary schools work very hard but do not have the highest of salaries; neither do employees of nonprofit social service agencies.

These professionals are far from lazy. Success--and one's value to the world--is not just measured by income level.

February vs. March

I have always hated January and February, the subzero windchill and slick ice and mounds of snow that Chicago likes to bestow as after-holiday gifts. November and December are warmed by the Hallelujah Chorus and Joy to the World and neighborhood houses glowing with red and green, with Santa Clauses and angels. But after Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest have signed off, it's back to ordinary time, and winter is drab again.

So every year I look forward to March 1 the way kids look forward to Christmas Eve--I want spring and leaves on trees and dandelions and sunscreen.

But yesterday, when I said to someone, "I can't wait till March 1," I stopped. Wait a second. Do I really want to rush time this year? When spring is over this year, my son will packing up for college; this will be my last February with my son around. End of August, when days are still long and trees still green, he'll be off on campus, starting a new chapter of his life--and I'll be starting a new one of my own.

Sure, I plan to enjoy living alone--as always, I have plenty of writing projects lined up; I've begun to practice on Red (my violin) again; I'm contemplating volunteering at Open Books where you can read to a kid once a week. Never mind my actual 8 to 4:30 job--never mind hanging out with friends and family!

Still, this chapter of my life--raising my son--has been a good one. Our homelife is happy and peaceful--a blessing that only those from disfunctional families of origin can truly appreciate--and my son is good company. So now especially I want to savor the times he steps out of his White Sox shrine room to share school gossip or sports tidbits with me, the times he'll still take a 7-11 walk with me. While I'm excited for my son and his new college life, and am confident my new life chapter will be a good one, too, maybe February is OK this year.

But, February? Listen up! Enjoy this year--next year I'll be rushing you again!

Revison Blues

I thought my novel "Roll Call by the Elephants" was publishable; I've shared it with friends who raved about it, and I've received "good" rejections, editors wanting to see more after reading the sample chapters. But there's the rub as good ol' Shakespeare would say--as I reread "Roll Call," chapter by chapter making notes, some of the chapters are quite good, but some are not--especially the one that deals with N. and B. breaking up. The story of their romance is weak, albeit realistic. Some guys do just dump you with no reason why, with little explanation--but that won't work in fiction because the nosy reader wants to know why. Why does B. just dump N.? In my original draft, N. and B. have sex and she gets pregnant and has a miscarriage, but later I decided that that just doesn't fit, so instead she keeps her virginity and wonders if that's why he breaks up with her. In addition to B.'s focus on his art, and not wanting anything to get in its way.

Now I'm wondering--should I go back to the edgier version? Which version best fits the theme--that people who meet as strangers on the job can actually become family, that friendship can help people overcome hardships. I think the recent version is best--so N. keeps her virginity for the moment and no miscarriage. But why does B. dump N.? Is it just because he's enamored with his art? Or is there something about N. he doesn't like? Or does he meet someone else?

This romance is a subplot and shouldn't take over the entire book, but I have questions to answer.

Victory!

Plot Problems

Is it OK that for my NaNoWriMo novel, "The Writing Class," I'm making my favorite library the site, and the time last fall, as election day nears, my main character an Obama supporter and campaign volunteer? The "real" writing class took place thirty years ago at a different North side library, and today there's actually a writing organization, Neighborhood Writers Alliance--wouldn't some of my writers belong to that group, not the imaginary one I'm creating? Why would there even be a class at this library when that other organization exists? Am I being lazy with my research? But there's different schools of thought on that--most agree that yes, you have to do research---but not during the first draft, now is the time to let your imagination fly. Besides--although publication is always a goal and dream, that's not what NaNo is about. NaNo is a time to stretch my wings and enjoy writing a massive amount of pages, letting my characters take over and letting reality and real-life considerations disappear, forgetting my pile of rejection letters and the well-thumbed Writer's Market and my other neglected drafts of novels. Maybe my 2009 NaNo work with be salvageable, adding to NaNoWriMo's official list of published works--or maybe only fit for the blue recycling bin out back. Either way, I have fun, grow as a writer, meet a challenge, enjoy reading forums from other eccentric writers, even go to a write-in or two. I will write as the muse directs and forget reality!

Week 1 NaNoWriMo

Shh! Don't tell anybody what I'm writing about for NaNoWriMo because I haven't told anybody yet, afraid that I'll unpop the cork too soon releasing all the fizz. But I feel the need to vent about my noveling experience--and why not vent in the blog I devised for just this purpose?

I'm not sure if I picked the best plot--and I'm not even sure I have a plot! OK, Chris Baty, I know you said no plot no problem--I just hope you're right!

I've always wanted to write about the dynamics of a writing group--the kind of characters it attracts (aren't all writers a tad bit eccentric?), the relationships that form, the secrets that get revealed. In what other kind of class do you discover who is gay and who is straight, who survived an abusive childhood, who still mourns a baby who didn't survive the maternity ward, who was betrayed by a spouse, who survived domestic violence...The list goes on. Sounds more like a group therapy session than a writing class, but there you have it--that's what makes writing groups so volatile. Once I was in a class with two people who had what might euphemistically be called a personality conflict--the guy actually wrote a story where the woman went bananas and commited suicide in an exceedingly gory fashion. OK, that's a little extreme, too strange for fiction, but you get the idea.

I also recall the nurturing environment of a class I took at a library years ago that ended when the grant ran out.

So, this is my fuel. What do I have? A cast of characters, each with his or her own stories bursting to get out, each wanting to be the next Shakespeare. I'm getting to know these people and their stories, stealing shamelessly from myself and (shh!) the people I know. But I have no idea where this NaNoWriMo novel is going!