You!
I read about NaNo in the wonderful T&G article (yes, a hard copy), and thought it sounded like a good idea, but hard. Naturally, I hemmed and hawwed until the middle of the month (as a "Ha[lf]NaNo," one poster suggested) and jumped in, idiotically. One of my favorite aspects of NaNoWriMo is the wonderful community of the forums, and I thought it'd be nice to meet my homefront comrades. I'd love to know about all of you, what you're writing about, and how it's going. I'll start.
My name's Ryan, I'm 22, of Worcester, and I work at a law office downtown, a brief position until I go to law school next fall. I just finished up at Northeastern with a degree in journalism, and had worked at The Patriot Ledger, the South Shore equivalent to our beloved T&G, for two years. Having been away from storytelling for three months, the writing bug was stinging, and this competition has been a godsend.
My novel is a first-person account of a man much further in Alzheimer's than he realizes. Since waking up from a nightmare, he has been slipping in and out of time, memory and imagination, and is trying to find out which memories have been real or imagined, and if it really matters in the end if we're only animals at our core. A shipbuilder by trade, the craft becomes a metaphor for purpose in life and the rituals that make us as people whole. Problem is, I haven't quite decided which memories have been real and how to reconcile this at the end.
As you might be able to see by my pitiful word count, I also have a ways off, and thought meeting some Worcesterites in the same hell might be an appropriate form of procrastination. So, it's nice to meet all of you, and I congratulate all of you for your dedication and persistence, even with the constant internal reminder of your insanity in taking this commitment.
Ryan
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Nov 21, 2007 - 14 35
Welcome, Ryan, glad you decided to join! I take my hat off to you for jumping in, midstream, rather than doing the "sane" thing and waiting for next year to come around. The novel concept you've outlined is amazing, and I hope you'll take the time to work on it after this two weeks of madness. For now, just make words, and remember it can all be sorted out and polished later.
I crossed the half-way mark this morning (a thousand words before breakfast, a vow I actually kept!), but it's still looking dicey, what with the holiday obligations, and the family all around. I have jury duty next week--can I get a letter from the Office of Letters and Light to get me out of that? Or do they let you bring a laptop into the courtroom, as long as you change the names to protect the guilty and innocent.
Happy Thanksgiving, Worcester Wrimos!