NaNoWriMo Here We Go

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who do NaNoWriMo and those who do not.

What is NaNoWriMo? I'm glad you asked. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's a voluntary act of craziness whereby participants pledge to write 50,000 original words during the month of November.

What do you get if you "win". The right to say you did it. And you get to change your website badge from "participant" to "winner". That's it. No writing contract. No money. No fame. Just the satisfaction of showing yourself and the rest of the world that you can do it.

In other words, it is the literary equivalent to running a marathon.

Why am I doing it? Oh, well that's a whole other question. First, this is absolutely the closest I will ever get to running a marathon. I don't actually run IRL, but I am happy to take the metaphor and run with it.

Next, I have a project that I've been wanting to get on paper (or on disk, as the case may be). It's a story that I know well and have been meaning to write for a long time. This seems like the perfect opportunity to splatter my shitty first draft all over my screen.

NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality. As their website explains, "The Kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." For me, personally, it's a chance to tell my extremely vocal inner editor to shove it for 30 days. My goal is to let the writing take me where it may.

Last week, Mary Scruggs, a writing teacher from the famed Second City, talked to us at Off Campus Writers' Workshop (OCWW) about an improvisation game called "Yes, and …." One of the golden "rules" of improv is that you are to take what others say, acknowledge it and build on it. In other words, be supportive of your fellow cast mates and what they want to say. Mary pointed out that writers tend to hear our inner voices and respond with "No, no, no, no, no." What if, instead, we listened to our inner voices — our characters — and responded with "yes, and …"? Where could that take our writing? Would we go places we've never gone before? In other words, be supportive of your characters and what they want to say.

I'm looking at NaNoWriMo as one big experiment in saying "yes, and …" to my inner voice.

A writer friend who I have only met online, the fabulous Lisa Romeo, suggested that we partner up for this year's NaNoWriMo. When she asked, I jumped. First, I respect her as a writer and teacher, and if she thinks it's worth doing, then I believe it is. Second, it's always better to be accountable to someone. Who else would care whether I do this or not (except you, of course, Dear Reader)?

BTW, I won't be posting this month of writing here on Two Kinds of People, or even on my shitty first draft blog — SFD @ 2KoP. The whole point is to create a first draft, for me and me alone, a starting point. Then comes revision, revision, revision, editing, polishing and then … who knows. But first comes the shitty first draft.

So, tomorrow is day one. I've installed a little counter there on my side bar. That way you can all help keep me honest. Scroll back up to the top of this post to see one of the web badges designed for this year's NaNoWriMo. I'm not quite sure how that particular image relates to writing in quantity, but I hope this whole project doesn't make a monkey out of me. Here we go. Wish me luck, or tell me I'm crazy in a comment here.

Ed. note, 11/2/10: Last night, my youngest (12-year-old) son read this post and decided to join in the fun, signing up for NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program. He has pledged 50K words, too. Here's my post about it on SheWrites. Seth does not have his own blog (yet!), so feel free to leave your words of encouragement for him here and I'll be sure to pass them along.

Guest Post: 2KoP Writing Challenge Winner

For two years now, I've been telling you all about the two kinds of people who populate my world view. To celebrate the second anniversary of my blog, I issued a writing challenge to my readers to come up with their own Two Kinds of People essay. It was wonderful to read the entries and difficult to choose a winner. Thank you to all who entered and to my panel of judges, who chose a culinary essay by Murray Abramovitch.

The judges felt that Murray's essay best captured the spirit of the 2KoP blog: a solid basic recipe of good writing, seasoned with some interesting facts and quotes, and topped with a great big dollop of humor. (Please note that the opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or its owner. Also note that Murray is from Canada, and his quirky spellings and those of his countrymen are also not our fault.) Without further ado, please enjoy the winning guest post:

Important Distinction or Just a Truffle?

by Murray Abramovitch

Anything that simplifies life and peels away its many layers of ambiguity has to be a good thing. The two-kinds-of-people exercise, seeing the world in a binary way, is certainly a good thing because it is clarifying; like a rinse, it washes out the grey.

It is important, however, to stick to comparisons that are meaningful and not get caught up in splitting hairs, constantly splicing and dicing and dividing into neat but useless sections the world-at-large.

To this end, I have separated humanity into two very simple but important groups: those who like mushrooms and those who don't. This is a comparison with gravitas.

I am one of the latter group, one who sees a mushroom as a the fleshy, spore-bearing fruity body of a fungus. Mushrooms are part of a noxious family that includes puffballs, stinkhorns and morels. They thrive in the dark, dank and decaying habitats of forest trolls.

The best advice to unsuspecting diners who can't tell a Jack-o-lantern mushroom from a chanterelle is: do not eat a mushroom unless it was collected by a competent mycologist or become a mycologist yourself.

Putting their toxicity aside, mushrooms are fundamentally unattractive, rubbery and without taste unless heavily seasoned or sauteed. Like tofu, they simply take on the flavour of what they are cooked with. Portobello mushrooms in a Madeira wine reduction? Honestly, from where do you think the flavour comes?

Wrote William Alcott, uncle of writer Louisa May: "Strange that mankind should ever have used the mushroom. All the various species of this substance are of a leathery consistence, and contain but little nutriment. The condiments or seasonings which are added are what are chiefly prized. Without these, we should almost as soon eat saw dust as mushrooms."

Voltaire also knew what he was dealing with: "I confess," he wrote, "that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce … nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which (cooks) disguise perfectly good food."

Bottom line: there is no dish containing mushrooms that couldn't be improved by having the mushrooms removed.

At the other end of the gastronomic spectrum is my wife … from a mushroom's lowly perspective, my better half. She positively salivates at the prospect of eating a golden chanterelle, a meaty porcini, an earthy morel. Watching her dine is like seeing the screen debut of Romancing the Funghi. Or better still, a rerun of When Harry Met Sally. You know, the part when Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm to embarrass Billy Crystal in from of the cheap diner crowd and someone says, "I'll have what she's having." I can swear my wife's nostrils flare when she sees mushrooms on her plate … as if someone snuck all that is savory, silk, sexy and decadent into her food.

As for mushrooms being inert ingredients without character, she is one of those who claim that mushrooms "pick up the complexities of other ingredients and add their own meaty, rich and inviting flavour." They add dimension to any dish with their texture and contrast.

I do admit that some of the dishes featuring mushrooms sound enticingly exotic, maybe even Meg Ryan erotic: Morel Fondu; Enoki and Smoked Oysters; Porcini and Eggplant; Truffle Oil and Eggs; Shiitake Fettucini; Crab Imperial Stuffed Portobello; Maitake and Gorgonzola Cheese Penne; Mediterranean Mushroom Brushetta; and for dessert, my favourite sounding concoction — King Trumpet Strudel. But let's face it, any five-star menu will have dishes that are a delight to the ear as their taste is ostensibly to the palate. The truth that gourmands will not admit is that mushrooms are largely interchangeable in recipes.

I cannot be swayed. I am like Diderot who, in L'Encyclopedie wrote: "Whatever dressing on gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born."

So there you go: two kinds of people, one destination.

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Murry Abramovitch's short biography, in his own words: "After some 30 years as a marketing and strategic planning executive, I retired to focus on writing, sharing what wit I can muster and what meager wisdom I have gleaned over time. I have two blogs, one literary — The Literarian — and one business — View from the Corner Office. I invite you to visit the sites and trust you will find them both enlightening and entertaining."

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I invite you to leave your comments for Murray by clicking here. Have a mushroom to pick? Pick it with him. If you agree that he falls on the right side of the dung heap in this argument, let him know that, too. Thank you again to those who entered the first ever 2KoP writing challenge and, as always, thanks to my readers.

Confused by the Muse

Muse (myooz) — n.

1. GR. MYTH. any of the nine goddesses who preside over literature and the arts and sciences.
2. the spirit that is thought to inspire a poet or other artist; the source of genius or inspiration.
   
3. RARE a poet.
   
4. a musing; deep meditation.

muse (myooz) — v.

1. to think deeply and at length; meditate.
   
2. to think or say meditatively.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have a muse and those who are still searching for one. 

I'm a writer, right? An artist. So I'm supposed to have a muse, right? So, where is she — or he — or it? Where's my muse?

In my search, I looked back to high school humanities class and the nine classical Greek Muses of Hesiod's poem Thoegony. You know, those chicks with funny names, who are dressed for a toga party:

• Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry — cool name, but not my muse.
  
• Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry — somehow, Calliope sounds more lyrical to me, but maybe something gets lost in translation.
  
• Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry — um, yeah, not my genre.
  
• Urania, the Muse of astronomy — with Chicago's light pollution, I can barely see the stars.
  
• Clio, the Muse of history — who needs all those dates?
  
• Terpsichore, the Muse of dance — too hard to pronounce; besides I'm a klutz.
  
• Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred song — I'm pretty sure she's busy inspiring our angel-voiced (sadly, outgoing) cantor Erin Frankel.
  
• Mepomene, the Muse of tragedy — life's tough enough without her.
  
• Thalia, the Muse of comedy — now that's a muse I could use.

Even before the big nine came along, a guy named Pausanias talked about three other muses:

• Melete — the muse of practice;
  
• Mneme — the muse of memory; and
  
• Aeode – the muse of song.

While practice, memory and song seem more directly related to the kind of writing I do, these ladies still leave me cold. Maybe if they were half-naked Greek gods instead of goddess, I'd find them more attractive, but I doubt it. They would still be nothing but a bunch of marble stiffs.

So, what is it that inspires me? I could say my kids, which is sometimes true; but more often than not, it's the words themselves that get me going. I love to play with words. Just thinking about Muses led me to amused and bemused and museology, which I was disappointed to discover is not, in fact, the study of Muses, but rather the science or profession of museum organization and management. You have to admit, museology a pretty succulent word for such a dusty (albeit noble) profession. 

I've been reading Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story by Barbara Abercrombie, who tackles the Muse on the first page of chapter 1:  "Make up a new voice that will inspire you, a voice that will say whatever you need to hear and will drown out all the other, negative voices, both real and imaginary." That's when I realized I already have a Muse: Me. Well, the voice in my head, anyway, who sounds like me, only idealized in every way. 

The Me in my head is fabulously beautiful (thin, of course) and smarter than smart, with an IQ hovering around 200.  This Me speaks seven languages in addition to English, meets the world's most interesting and famous people (but graciously treats them like regular folk), and can sing and play a variety of instruments by ear. Did I mention ice skating (Olympic level) and dancing (practically professional)? More than smart, though, this Me is quick and witty, a brilliant conversationalist who always says just the right thing at just the right time. She's also charmingly, disarmingly modest — the kind of person you want to hate, but can't because she's just so darn nice.

It was about this time in my musings about Muses that I realized I have more in common with my literary hero, F. Scott Fitzgerald, than I ever imagined. Good old Scott once said: "Writers aren't exactly people … they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person."

And there you have it. A Muse is really nothing more than schizophrenia put to good use.

Click here to let us know how the muse inspires you. If you are a clinical psychiatric professional, don't worry, I'm mostly harmless. If you want proof, you can check out my much more grounded post on the Chicago Moms Blog called Set Summer Free. 

Photo credit: The Muse by Evil Patrick Shannon

The Best Words

 There are two kinds of people in the world: those who write poetry and those who don't.

Forgive my boast, but I am a great business writer. I can whip up a newsletter that will make you weep. I'm working hard on my creative writing, as well, learning everything I can and then revising, revising, revising … But, I'm no poet.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined prose as words in their best order, and poetry as the best words in the best order. I like this definition. 

I admit to being a little intimidated by poetry. I used to feel that I was missing the point. Recently, I have learned to take poetry as it comes — ponder it, enjoy it (or not) and accept it for what it means to me.

My favorite poet is Van Morrison (OK, songwriter, but now you're just picking nits):

We were born before the wind

Also younger than the sun

Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic

Hark, now hear the sailors cry

Smell the sea and feel the sky

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

I'm also a big Ogden Nash fan — you know, the poet who penned these seven immortal words:

Candy is dandy

But liquor is quicker.

Granted, it does sound a bit like a jingle for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (discus.org), but you can't deny that this little ditty conveys a beautiful truth with a stunning economy of language.

My friend Alice George is a real, live poet. And it turns out that real, live poets are even better than the famous dead kind because, in addition to enriching us with their own best words in their best order, they can teach and inspire the poetry in others. Such was the case for the first-through-fifth graders (including two of my own) who were lucky enough to have Alice as artist in residence at our elementary school this spring.

At one of the culminating events of the residency, Alice led an open mic poetry night at an awesome new(ish) performance/learning venue in Evanston called Boocoo. I was bitter with envy both exhilarated and humbled by the poetry created and performed by these children, who seem able to reach deep into their souls to describe the world with an exactitude and lyricism that eludes my poetry. (Be excited, OCWW members — Alice is on the docket for next semester.)

On past poetry nights, Alice has invited grownups to participate, but this night was just for the children. Since I have never been accused of being a grownup, I decided to share my poem anyway:

The Tantrum

Just a few missed warning signs
Before the blast
The fierce flash of light
The sonic boom.

The toxic fallout of the mushroom cloud
Envelops everything in sight.
No one is safe.

Soft tissue mottles over
Writhing muscles
Twisting and contorting the familiar
Into something unrecognizable.

Ugliness oozes from each pore
As rage pours from every visible orifice.
The genie is out of the bottle now.
Pandora is out of the box.
It’s too late for a cork or a levee or a bunker.

It’s in motion now
Careening violently
Sucking in every object and subject
In its vengeful path.

Just be still
Ride out the storm
Wait for the rain
Hope for the best.

A brief respite
Full of false hope.
All hearts pound as
The storm feeds on itself.

The banging of the shutters slows
To a more predictable beat
But the damage is done.
The family landscape is scarred again.

Finally, there is quiet
Not peace, just exhaustion.

Pulses steady
As survivors venture forth
Tiptoeing carefully on those eggshells
Lest the wrathful beast reawaken.

A final gust of tainted wind
Jarring but not dangerous
Shudders with uncomfortable regret:
"Sorry, guys, Mama is just having a bad day.

If, like my brother, you think my poem is cute but trite, slam me with a scathing couplet by clicking here; or give me an ode for effort. Better yet, try your hand at a poem of your own.

Photo credit: night poetry by kechambers via flickr.com.

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