WRITTEN ON November 15th, 2009 BY kiwivera AND STORED IN kiwiland, life

Tags: nanowrimo, reading, writing

Shameful! Yes, that’s right. I’m telling myself off. It’s shameful that I haven’t even stopped by to clean the spiderwebs of this place, or popped in to say hi since the end of October.

But I have excuses. Like a gazillion of them. In no particular order:

Nanowrimo started on the 1st of November and, like I had mentioned before, I decided to take on the challenge this year. So on top of all the writing that goes on every day, I added an extra 1667 words per day (at least) for a whole 30 days. As I’m writing this, I’m still in the run, with about 26,000 words of my Nanowrimo novel written - which is quite an accomplishment, if you consider all the other stuff I’ve got going on. However, the last few days have really given the word ‘exhaustion’ a whole new meaning and, sometimes, the simple thought of opening up the word document to add a few paragraphs to the text after work make me want to close my eyes and sleep for about 23 years.

I’ve also still managed to squeeze in a few running sessions in the past couple of weeks, something I continue to be quite proud of. I may have chocolate bars or crisps afterwards but hey, I’d have them anyway so I guess it’s good that I eat them *and* I run. There must be some good in that.

November was also the month when I had planned to read zero books and use all that time I would normally spend reading on my Nanowrimo novel. However, everyone familiar with Nick Hornby’s work should know that, when given the chance to get their hands on his new novel, one would be stupid to wait. So Juliet, Naked is gone and, even if it’s not my favourite of his books, it’s still a great story. I thought I’d get into a state of post-Nick Hornby’s novel depression, waiting impatiently for his next book to come out, but my friend S. was also kind enough to lend me Alice Sebolt’s memoir, Lucky, and I started reading it last week on the bus. The result: I missed my bus stop and went all the way to where the route finishes and was still reading when the bus driver asked me where I wanted to get off at and I took my eyes off the book to find an empty bus. Yes, it’s that good. Sebolt’s The Lovely Bones was my favourite book this year so far but I reckon Lucky will steal away that title.

Anyway, since my last post there was also a halloween party that I very much enjoyed and there was also Guy Fawkes that I didn’t enjoy at all. I don’t get the point of the celebration and I don’t get why people would be throwing fireworks of their backyards for hours (and for days, since they did it on Guy Fawkes day and during the weekend). I spent Guy Fawkes with a massive headache that the fireworks only made worse so that could explain my bitterness about it. Oh and there was also the Melbourne Cup, an event that gets Kiwis strangely excited. I don’t really get the enthusiasm about dressing up all fancy for a horse race that lasts for about, erm, maybe two minutes.

I’ve had a few days of being really annoyed with New Zealand lately - mostly due to politics (apparently it’s ok for a member of government to let out racist remarks and insult the majority of its people) and other assorted matters that are subjects to whole other blog posts. Anyway, it’s strawberries season again and even though I can hear the rain outside as I type this, I’ll hold onto the thought that Yes, I did go out for lunch last Thursday wearing only short-sleeves so summer must really be about the corner, even if, right now, you really, really can’t tell.

Right, I’ve just written over 600 words here. I hope I can get at least double of that written for nanowrimo tonight. Oh boy.