NaNoWriMo is almost here again! I'm getting myself in the mood and took part in my first tweet chat #WhyNaNo tonight. Lots of great ideas and encouragement from the NaNo community. I am also participating in my second writers' jelly in early November. No, not the wobbly, eating kind of jelly - this kind of jelly.That should help to keep the NaNo flame going. #gettingexcited!
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After what seems like ages (I dare not count), finally, the first draft of my novel 'Dancing with Shadows' is almost complete. Whoo, hoo!!! It's all very exciting as I see it take shape and the loose ends coming together. But, there's still a bit of work to be done, filling in the gaps (small things like characterisation, location descriptions, atmosphere) and fixing timelines, not to mention the research I put off until later. Well, later is now here!
I can't stay and chat. I have work to do! :-) My writing is chugging along in fits and starts. My crime novel from Nano 2007 is almost at complete first draft, but I am not quite there yet. A character from my Zambian novel meanwhile decided she needed to be heard, so I have been working furiously (at times) on that one, telling her story. It's quite exciting pouring out words almost faster than I can type!
In between I have been blogging, reworking some of my articles that have been lying around - either unfinished assignments from the writing course I have been doing for the last 3 years (!) or unpublished articles (unsubmitted or rejected). Might as well get them out there! My latest blog is posted here: http://kalemba.wordpress.com/category/life-in-zambia/lusakas-history/ Until next time! I have just posted a link on my writing page to a new article (at long last!) that I have published online at orato.com. The title of the article is 'Office etiquette for today's worker'. Check it out here.
My friend Maureen sent me this link below to a talk by the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the danger of a single story (you'll get it when you watch it). We are all guilty of making judgments about people and places based on a single story. Our stories tell our history, so we should be telling all the stories, good or bad or indifferent, and not just those that suit our purposes.
I have read Adichie's books (see my reading page) and have seen her interviewed, and the more I listen to this woman, the more I like her. She makes some thought provoking points. As do number of speakers that I have listened to previously on the TED site. If you get the chance, it is well worth a browse. http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html I found this poem via Facebook. Says it all really. For more from this author, click on his name to link to his website. I AM AN AFRICAN I can't believe that 6 months have already gone by! Many a self-imposed deadline has come and gone. I am still writing, if not as prolifically as I would like. I am determined to finish my first NaNo novel - 73,000 words and counting. I feel another deadline coming on! It has been a while since my last post. NaNoWriMo is over for another year. I managed just over 15,000 words - more than I expected. I really like my new novel and I was hoping to get some more written in December. For various reason this did not happen. However, I am hoping to finish my previous NaNo novel now. I have given myself a deadline of end of February 2009.:-) We will see how that goes! Let the games begin! Yes, it has begun. I managed only 322 words today, but it is a start. Hope to do much better tomorrow - I am meeting up with other NaNos at a local pub tomorrow afternoon for a writathon. Onwards and upwards! |
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