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Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.
PTG Episode 66 is brought to you by the art and craft of creative writing. Once upon a time, in really what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a writer, or at least I aspired to be one. I went to school to learn how to write well, successfully obtained degrees in Creative Writing, and have even taught others what I learned in terms of the craft of Creative Writing. But I longer consider myself a “writer” for the simple fact that writers WRITE. They can’t help themselves but to write. They feel compelled at some point, at some moment during each and every day to put their thoughts, imaginings, ravings, and wild flights of fancy to print (or, in our technological day and age, to pixel). There’s a hunger, a need, to produce the written word that consumes writers and drives them to spend a great deal of time alone, away from the distractions of the outside world, hunched over a computer screen that slowly causing them to go blind, hashing away at stories, poems, essays, or if they are truly ambitious, novels. Alas, never once in my scholarly pursuit of writing did I feel this compulsion my mentors and friends often described–to be honest, I chose writing as my scholarly track because people said I was good at it, and it came rather naturally to me. I wrote for the approval of my peers, my teachers, and my mentors. When I finished the final drafts of stories, there was very little sense of accomplishment or joy, but rather a profound sense of relief that an assignment was out of the way and I could focus on something else. I’ve often thought that perhaps later in life, when I’ve lived and experienced more, and had something of value to say about it all that I might feel that compulsion, and that I might return to writing and do it for the RIGHT reasons. But until then, if indeed that time ever comes, I can only stand up, cheer for, and admire those lionhearted souls who, regardless of skill or talent, face the emotional abyss that is the blank page at the start of every single writing day and conquer it by filling it with words, words, words. They are truly heroic in their own way–in my mind, they’re as heroic as the characters they write about, if they are so inclined to write in genres featuring heroes and villains. Their praises can never be sung enough, especially if they toil in anonymity because their work has yet to see the light of mass print.
Why am I talking about this? Well, because during Episode 66 we spent quite a bit of time talking about National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo”, as it is now known all over the world. NaNoWriMo is the ultimate challenge for writers of all levels of skill, no matter where in their careers they might be: Produce 50,000 words within the month of November, roughly 1,600 words per day. Those words can be the sum total of a complete novel, or the first 50,000 words of a longer piece. Spend the entire year planning, plotting, strategizing how your novel will fall into place if you wish, but put no words to paper or screen until 12:01AM November 1st. It requires the utmost discipline to keep a steady pace, for not only must you produce, but you must turn off your “inner editor”, the voice in your head that causes you to backspace and rewrite the same sentence half a dozen times until you’re happy with the utterance, only to repeat the same procedure with the next sentence. Time management is just as important as inspiration when it comes to NaNoWriMo, and it’s a constraint that cause many who undertake the challenge to not reach the finish line when the end of the month rolls around. Having known several people who have successfully risen to the task of NaNoWriMo, I know its rigors, its headaches, its tremendous potential for that sense of achievement that comes from knowing you’ve succeeded where so many others have failed, and I always tip my cap to those who go for it year after year. The competition itself continues to grow year after year, and is in itself an amazing story. To learn more about it, head over to nanowrimo.org, and to those of you who are already underway with this year’s competition, best of luck!
In addition to all the NaNoWriMo talk, in this, our LONGEST hour ever (no joke-1 hour 12 mins … yes, I know an hour can only ever be 60 mins. You know what I mean, smartass.), we bring you Flash reviews of last week’s Heroes and FlashForward episodes, as well as a Top Comic Picks segment focused on DC Entertainment’s “Big Three”, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, who were all featured in new books last week. Hope you enjoy, and while you’re listening, don’t forget to head over to the Orlando Sentinel’s Orbbies competition page and get in your daily vote for PTG! We need every vote we can get to win this thing!
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