NaNoWriMo is Here

Don’t know what it means? Don’t feel bad, I didn’t either. I know it always rolls around in November but I thought it was a challenge to bloggers to post at least one  post a day, no restrictions, no minimum, no maximum, just be dedicated enough to post at least once a day.

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For a part time blogger that can be tough but the point of the exercise is to create a new habit..or so I thought.

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I decided to look it up for once and I found out the NaNoWriMo really stands for National Novel Writing Month! It was started to encourage budding athors to pursue their dream of writing a novel, maybe not the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL, but who knows what’s locked inside if you never get started.

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Now reading novels is more my speed than writing them but that doesn’t mean I don’t embrace the idea of a month in which we make an attempt to post daily. One of the quotes I found says NaNoWriMo is all about writing something you want to write, just for you, without worrying about others sitting in judgment, so it’s an exercise in truly expressing yourself — which means, if you think about it, there really isn’t a way to fail!

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Pretty cool idea, huh. I know I try very hard to make my posts interesting. When I don’t have first hand experience I put a lot of research into the subject. Sometimes that takes more time than actually writing the post so when, after all that, no one sees it or reads it, it can get kind of disheartening. I’m sure all of the other bloggers out there feel the same way.

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Oh I know, you’re writing for yourself. You don’t care if no one else reads it. Don’t kid yourself. If you really didn’t care you wouldn’t put it out there for everyone to see. You’d have a private diary or journal.

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So hop on the band wagon. See if you can post something every day in November, short or long, good or bad, just post something so you can be a part of NaNoWriMo.

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Happy Writing!

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Anyone read any good books lately? I just finished

  • Knock Out…….Catherine Coulter
  • Delusion in Death……J.D. Robb
  • Queen of the Night….J.A. Jance
  • The Whisperer……Carla Neggers

There seems to be a trend in my choice of novels. Some folks like Romance, some like Thrillers, some like Horror(you’ll never catch me with a Stephen King Novel…way too scary), some like biographies and so on.

I think you can call my choices Mystery with maybe a touch of paranormal tossed in.

dresses 013aKnock Out is one of Catherine Coulters FBI “Thrillers” but this one has more than a little paranormal/psychic thread to the plot. Fiction yes, but it does get you thinking about the so called “Power of the mind”. Its plot moves fast as 2 story lines keep our FBI heroes racing between bad guys in a desperate attempt to save everyone.

dresses 014 copyDelusion in Death by J. D. Robb is part of a series featuring a female homicide detective (Eve Dallas) for the NY City Police department and her  super rich husband (Rourke) set in and around 2058. Each book in the series is a murder mystery as well as moving you through Dallas’s growth as a person. So far there are 34 books in this series.( J. D. Robb is a pen name for Nora Roberts.)

dresses 012 copyQueen of the Night a novel by J.A. Jance brings back some of her earlier characters. Located in Arizona there is the underlying theme of the Indian Reservations and Spiritual Beliefs. The novel is often sad when man’s inhumanity to man spills over to the youngest and most innocent of our society. But unlike “real life” there is someone there to rise to the challenge…good over comes evil but not without hardship and loss.

dresses 011 copyThe Whisperer by Carla Neggers also brings back characters and plot themes from earlier novels but each story can stand alone if necessary. What I like about Carla Neggers is so many of her stories are set in New England…the Maine Coast, New Hampshire, Southie, Jamaica Plain, Beacon St, Boston…all real places to me. Her stories, including this one always have a heavy does of Ireland and Irish Folklore along with Boston PD, FBI and spies. So I recommend her to anyone who likes a bit of fairies and leprechauns thrown in with their murder investigations.

I don’t have the chance to read as much as I used to and stealing the time for these 4 novels has been a rare treat. Since some of my stolen time was time I would normally spend writing, it seems only fitting that I share these books with you. What have you been reading?