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Speed Writing (washingtonpost.com)

Speed Writing (washingtonpost.com).

Speed Writing
With One Month to Pen a Novel, a Faster Piece Is Better Than a Masterpiece
By Libby Copeland Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 13, 2004; Page C01

Genius is overrated. Art ultimately comes down to discipline, to the doers and the do-nots -- the fevered few who prime their canvases and practice their chords and the rest of us who come home from work tired and fall asleep watching "Desperate Housewives."

If, as some people believe, every single person has a novel inside himself, then a lot of people have been wasting a lot of time doing a lot of things other than writing. Chris Baty, a freelance writer from Oakland, Calif., with novelist aspirations, devotes the month of November every year to helping people get those novels out. He approaches the writing process like a crash diet; his goal is to get people each to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The results may be shockingly bad, and will in all likelihood never be published, but that's not really the point, Baty says.

Participants in National Novel Writing Month swarm Books-A-Million in Dupont Circle. The project challenges writers to crank out 50,000 words in 30 days.

Yahoo! News - April Fools' Editions Sink College Papers

Yahoo! News - April Fools' Editions Sink College Papers

U.S. National - AP
April Fools' Editions Sink College Papers
Wed Apr 7, 1:49 PM ET
By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH - Being funny without being offensive is tough to do, which is why three college newspapers that published April Fools' Day editions — those at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Scranton and the University of Nebraska at Omaha — are in trouble.

Carnegie Mellon's paper, The Tartan, voluntarily shut down for the rest of the semester after publishing a racially charged cartoon in its 12-page spoof edition. The cartoonist lost his job, and the editor in chief — who blamed fatigue for clouding editors' judgment — is taking a leave of absence from the Pittsburgh university until fall.

University of Scranton officials in Pennsylvania closed The Aquinas for parodying Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," college administrators and Georgetown University, a fellow Jesuit institution.

The Gateway, the Nebraska paper, apologized for its four-page edition titled The Ghettoway. One story, with the headline "Gateway cameras stolen during weekend," was written by Ono Udidn. Another fake byline: Mindjo Bidness. The news editor, who is black, told The Gateway for a story Tuesday that she thought the content was representative of pop culture in general.

This one brings back some memories.. when editor of my college paper, The Carolina Journal, c. 1970s, I put out a pretty wild and crazy April Fool's edition, intended for the students to take to the beach and on Spring Break, and have some laughs.. unfortunately, some took it "home," and parents didn't like the sexual and political "humor," from my early "Dennis Miller" period.. I even got a slam-bast editorial against me on the local TV station; which I went on the air to rebutt; oh wish I had a copy of that videotape today.. anyway, I was duely bashed and smacked around, but no serious damage done.. in my defense, I claimed satire was an honorable enterprise, and pointed to the greats of the past.. it helped a bit.. one of my headlines that will live on in infamy was "Name_here hangs self," and in the article, I described hanging a portrait of me in a bathroom stall, to commemorate something or other (the college was doing this all the time then)...

National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo.org : Home - What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

50,000 words, 30 days.. I can hear those keyboards humming.. an interesting twist on writing....

Writing Quotes.. "You can't wait for inspiration..."

Today's writing quote..

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
--Jack London (1876-1916), American writer and novelist

Source: A Writer's Notebook

Writing Quotes.. "Writing is the only thing..."

Today's writing quote..

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."
--Gloria Steinem, b. 1934, American writer

Source: A Writer's Notebook

Literary Pursuits..

Here's some basic information on my literary writings and pursuits.. some are long-standing projects, which have been in progress longer than I wish to believe, but that's the truth.. they are goals to reach, and words to unfold.. a bit more here on the novels, screenplays, and short stories and poetry...