wyrdbyrd
- Age:
- 43
- Location:
- Seattle, WA
- Hobbies:
- Reading, perfumery, beaded jewelry making
- Favorite noveling music:
- Electronica, jazz, ecstatic dance mixes
- Website:
- http://facebook.com/wyrdbyrd
- Occupation:
- Rebel
- Favorite books or authors:
- Abarat, American Gods, Discworld, Laurell K. Hamilton, Jim Butcher, Jaqueline Carrey, Philippa Gregory
Author bio:
I just completed my second NaNoWriMo and won my first. The one year I managed to participate at all, my word count was just ... sad. I could not seem to gather enough enthusiasm to write fiction, even despite arguments that non-fiction isn't "real writing". Oddly, I've been hearing for a few decades now that I'm a really good writer by a lot of people who haven't tried to pressure me into writing fiction.
Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein
I recently took a few memoir writing classes at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle and was very inspired to write a series of non-fiction essays about my alcoholic father. The project is in direct response to a relative I met in 2006 who told me that they knew almost nothing about my father and wanted to learn more. During the first 6-week long class, I submitted the entire essay from which I pulled my excerpt. The sheer strength of class reaction to it was so powerful that I couldn't continue my walk home from Hugo House without ducking into a park to cry.
I looked over my class assignments, took an average of the word count on five files and multiplied the result by 30 days: it was far closer to 50k than I'd ever been. If I could bust these stories out in a month, I figured that I could complete this challenge even with the exclusion of what I've already written. I wasn't agonizing over plot developments or characters writing themselves, but I did dredge up a lot of old ghosts. I think this was good for me in a number of ways.
I've been reading "Thinking About Memoir" by Abigail Thomas, which is thus far the most inspiring book about writing I've read since curling up during a storm to read a friend's copy of "Bird By Bird" by Anne Lamott. I was also recently gifted a copy of Chris Batty's "No Plot? No Problem!".
Now that I've wonI got myself a treat from the Office of Letters and Light store: a copy of "Ready, Set, Novel!" and a pack of badges. Next year I may well try my hand at fiction. eek.
