Ten Songs On A Thought: NaNoWriMo Edition

For those of you who don't know why I've been neglecting my blog lately, it's partially because I am really trying to get some personal business in order (substitute teaching license, graduate school applications, etc.) but also largely because this year I am, for the first time, participating in NaNoWriMo.

Now, you may not know what NaNoWriMo is. Conveniently, I will now tell you. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is held each November. The goal is to write a novel (at least 50,000 words), start to finish, during the month of November. What I think is really a novel concept (no pun intended) is that the emphasis is not on producing quality work or rather, is not concerned with achieving immediate quality. The idea of the process is to get the words on page and really hammer it out so that at the end of the month you can say you're officially a novelist and then you have a wealth of raw material to work with.

I have never written a novel before. I have written a lot of moderately successful poetry (I've even been published a few times, which is nice) and I have also done some work with short stories, but it is really nice to have a specific reason to discipline myself and write this novel. As of right now, I am exactly 7,864 words in and I'm hoping to surpass 10,000 by the end of tomorrow. I don't know why I decided to take this on during such a busy month, but in a way, it is helping me focus and juice up my creativity so I can be more successful at other pursuits.

In any event, I think it's a really exciting organization. It's definitely worthwhile to encourage artistic creation for the sake of creativity and enrichment of human experience. If you would like to donate to this organization and help not only fuel this cause but also support their Young Writers Program, please go here.

In honor of my NaNoWriMo pursuits, this week's "Ten Songs On A Thought" features "Songs for Writing a Novel in Thirty Days" and I have encouraged other such folks to leave their thoughts. I encourage you to leave yours as well...any suggestion just might help power me through a couple hundred more words. For those who don't already know, the goal is to come up with the first ten songs that come to your head on the topic without an eye for editing or placement...kind of like a NaNoWriMo novel, no?

TEN SONGS FOR WRITING A NOVEL IN THIRTY DAYS

1. Pass This On - The Knife listen
2. Cast A Hook - Laura Veirs listen
   
3. Heartless - Kanye West listen
   
4. I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab For Cutie listen
   
5. How Low - Jose Gonzalez listen
   
6. The Wrote & The Writ - Johnny Flynn listen
   
7. Horse & I - Bat For Lashes listen
   
8. There There - Radiohead listen
   
9. Just Like Honey - The Jesus & Mary Chain listen
   
10. Swansea - Joanna Newsom listen

Note: I can't contextually explain the Kanye either, but according to iTunes, I've listened to it four times since beginning this process. And iTunes never lies.

Two More Stop-Animations

Guys, I made two more animations! I gotta admit, I love them both as much as my owl, but my heart is really beginning to love the caterpillar one the best. Of course, that would be like picking a favorite child, which people never do, of course.

These animations were an activity for The Greenhouse, which is a creativity collective I'm in with some of my friends where we are attempting to get together once a week and work on creative projects in a variety of medias to spawn further creative thought for both our group and individual endeavors. I think it stems partially from our mutual appreciation of Ira Glass' discussion on taste and the creative process but so far has just been a really good and uplifting way to get together with like-minded people and make use of our time in a thought-provoking manner. Let me know what you think of these!

The Best Part Of Waking Up

You guys, I made this myself! My friends are starting a sort of creativity collective where each Sunday we devote time to doing something creative, and this was my first project! Let me know what you think...better yet, go straight to YouTube and leave ratings and comments there, too!

Really though, proud of me for doing something new.