Tuesday, October 27, 2009

NaNoGitMo

November's coming up, which means NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is about to start. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Here's everything you need to know about joining in. It's a great way to leap into a new project.

Wouldn't it be cool if every month had a literary theme?

You've heard of music used as torture -- how about a month where people give a second chance to the books that tortured them in high school? I already have an atrocious name picked out for this imaginary phenomenon: NaNoGitMo.

For me, the perfect example of a NaNoGitMo book is "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles. I didn't particularly enjoy it when I had to read it for Freshman English in high school, but last year I re-read it and absolutely LOVED it. Now I consider it to be one of my all-time faves, which made me wonder why it bugged me when I was a teenager. The fact that we had to analyze sentence structure and use color-coded highlighters to, well, highlight certain themes probably had something to do with it, although oddly, I genuinely liked Faulkner when I was sixteen. Maybe I was just weird.

4 comments:

  1. You, weird? Surely you jest!

    I actually loved a Separate Peace but I liked any book, honestly, with a guilty death back then. Probably now too.

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  2. Hi Sarah,
    I've been lurking on your blog for the last month, but I thought I'd finally say hello.

    I feel the same way about THE GREAT GATSBY--too much analyzation makes a book less fun. I loved it when I read it in college.

    I just have to say that you look like Audrey Hepburn in your photos. I thought the resemblance was uncanny when I first looked at your blog.

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  3. Hi Natalie,

    Thanks for commenting -- I'm really happy to meet you :)

    I read The Great Gatsby for the first time just a few years ago (Bad Reader!) and liked it a lot, but I see how it could lose some of its appeal as a high school assignment.

    The photo I use for my profile was taken by a guy in L.A. who specializes in recreating old Hollywood style. There's kind of a funny story behind the images that I'll have to blog about sometime.

    Thanks again for stopping by. Hope to talk with you more soon!

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  4. Amy: You liked those "back then," eh? ;)

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