Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Countdown: 4, 11, 21

October has always been a pressure month for me, filled to choking with exams, papers, art shows, projects, and other deadlines that try to squeeze the stuffing out of the days leading up to Halloween. This year is no different. Though I eschewed all art shows this fall, and scaled back from five jobs to three, I am still a very busy bee. However, this October brings three additional deadlines amid the usual chaos - all for which I am eagerly counting down the days:

4 Days:  I have four days until I finish my Vision Impaired training for the home therapy group that employs me. I already work with deaf and deafblind babies and toddlers; this current class is enabling me to work with visually impaired tots who are otherwise cognitively normal and need additional challenges, including pre-Braille training. Did you know that you could teach "pre-Braille" to someone still in diapers? I didn't either, till I joined this class.

11 Days: I have eleven days till I hand off my current manuscript, Castle 8, to a journalist friend who has agreed to give it a cold read. I cannot tell you how excited I am - first, that I get to see my friend, whom I haven't seen since visiting her in Jakarta several years ago; but also that I will get a thoughtful, honest response from someone who can tell me where my (literary) hangups are and what to do about them.

21 Days: Only three weeks remain until NaNoWriMo! I will do a specific post on this annual event later, especially as I know there is some strong debate in literary circles as to whether NaNo is everything it's cracked up to be; but I for one am very excited. I have already storyboarded the sequel to Castle 8 and am ironing out the details as we speak. I don't anticipate having a complete rough draft by the end of November, but if I cross that magic 50,000 word mark, that's roughly 200 pages closer to the end than I would be otherwise.

What about YOU? Are you considering doing NaNoWriMo this year? Let me know!

7 comments:

  1. Yep, I took a leap of faith and actually signed up for the whole 50,000 word one this year. AH! *runs and hides*

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  2. woo! go you!!! what do you think of NaNo's shiny new website?? i need to get to work updating my NaNo info.....

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  3. Not sure how I feel about the new site, actually... about the forums, anyway. It'll take some getting used to. :)

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  4. I really wasn't very familiar with the NaNoWriMo site, the Young Writers Program has its own site.

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  5. You know, I never used the forums last time so I don't really have anything to compare it with. The forums last year seemed very unwieldy and difficult to manage....at least to me. But like I said, I almost never used them.

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  6. I've never tried NaNo before, but thinking about doing so this year. Not sure, but I do like a really good challenge and I'm sure this would do just that! ;)

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  7. I know it would!!! I heartily recommend getting on the NaNo site and checking it out. :)

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