'Thirty days and nights of literary abandon' November is officially National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) so I decided to take the plunge and signed up to www.nanowrimo.org . Basically the idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, which breaks down as about 1500 words a day. Some of the novels have been sold and published successfully, like NY Times Bestseller 'Water for Elephants'. Signing up means you make a profile and they send you encouraging emails with pep talks from the likes of Dave Eggers, as well as info about events going on near you where other NaNoWriMo people get together to write and probably give out about hard it is. Nothing like a bit of communal complaining. I'll be in New York for all of November so I'll have to find a nice local cafe to write in every day, and it would be nice to meet other people who are doing it too because I need NY friends! Preferably nice cool ones. If you're successful you get a CERTIFICATE. Thats right, a certificate with your name on it saying how awesome you are. Everyone likes those.
Only a few days to go now until I jet off to JFK, and I'm busy freaking out about flying, trying to find adaptors, figuring out what the weather in New York is like, filling in forms for the United States government, reading about Tea Partiers, and practising (or should I say 'practicing') my american by listening to The Notorious XX, specially this:
A few things happening/I've been thinking about/listening to:
1. I booked flights to become a New York City girl for almost 7 weeks at the end of October. My plans include wandering lonely as a cloud through the East Village, travelling to DC to see Obama's crib and generally soaking up all the awesomeness. Oh, and get working on my novel. And take lots of pictures. And hang around outside of Trash and Vaudeville (like the guy in the picture).
2. A major event in the world over the past few weeks was the release of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground since August. So many people all working together to save them was kind of amazing. I was home sick so tried to watch as much as I could live on Sky News; the Phoenix 2 coming out of the ground once or twice an hour to release a miner into the anxiously awaiting arms of friends or family managed to make me tear up literally every time. I'm a total sucker for real life drama. Oprah kills me. I definitely won't be able to watch the episode where Oprah has the Chilean miners on.
3. Columbine by Dave Cullen: I finished it a while ago, and literally couldn't stop thinking or talking about it. I tried to write a blog post about it just after I finished, but kept referring to the killer by their first names and rambling into details that wouldn't have made any sense had you not read the book. Having never read non-fiction before, it was weird and kind of difficult for me to deal with that towards the end I felt I really knew all the 'characters', including my favourite FBI negotiator Dr. Fuselier, and then realizing they were all real people. That this really happened. I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone who is in any way interested in what happened at Columbine. It doesn't just explain what actually happened, but also why, to whom and what happened next. I was surprised and a bit freaked out to find that nothing I had heard or known about it before was actually true; that they were Marilyn Manson fans, that they were loners, and most importantly that it was a high-school shooting. It was in fact an attempted bombing; their intention was to blow up hundreds of people and shoot the survivors as the ran to safety. The random shooting of students and teacher was a consolation act. The book didn't have any pictures, and I'm not going to put any up in this post, because frankly the smiling year book pictures of Eric and Dylan frighten me. The knowledge that out there on the internet I can watch CCTV footage of them wandering the halls, with all I know about them now, is, for want of a better word, very weird. It took 10 years to finish, and even Cullen says 'living for that long with a massacre isn't easy'. I really admire his strength. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is: read it because its interesting, well written and will make you think.
4. The Social Network. I went to see it last night at the Irish Film Institute which is my new favourite place. Great hot chocolate and films. Anyway, I thought The Social Network was great. It managed to grab my attention straight away and didn't even let me consider letting my mind wander until I walked out. Jesse Eisenberg was very good as Mark Zuckerberg, who came across as being a super smart kind-of-asshole with some social issues and a dry sense of humour. The rest of the cast were awesome as well, including Mr. Timberlake. I have been watching a lot of films lately, and therefore am beginning to really appreciate a film which is enjoyable and interesting, because they are apparently rarer than I though, and The Social Network was definitely both. Thought it did really make me want to check my Facebook and then feel kind of weird about it at the same time. That boy knew what he was doing.
5. I am loving this song.
I would like to dedicate it to someone, but that would be rude, and I'm a lady.
6. It's almost winter again! I'm unreasonably excited about this. Jumpers! Fur coats! Boots! Woolly socks! Yay! Winter is a time for being cosy, going for countryside walks, hugs, Christmas, all the good stuff.
