This will be short! Some of you might feel relieved! I tend to write longer posts but my writing plate is very full at the moment and I’m questioning whether I can keep up with it all. I just posted my blog to Medium.com for the day. I’ve been writing daily on that platform, instead of WordPress, to see if I can broaden my following and reach. I’m enjoying the feedback I am receiving there.
https://carollabuzzetta.medium.com/
I am participating in NaNoWriMo this month. Most of you probably know that the acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is the month of November and a time aspiring novelists take to the page. Although I’ve thought of it many times before, I decided to really take the plunge this year and participate.
I have not worked on that yet today, however, I will this afternoon. So far, I am on target and have 5,063 words down so far in my novel. To reach the suggested goal set by NaNoWriMo, 50,000 words written in November, one needs to write 1,667 words per day. Yesterday was harder than the first two days. I wonder what today will be like.
There have been two revelations so far for me in novel writing.
- I am a pantser, which means I am writing by the seat of my pants! This surprises the h_ll out of me! Usually, I am a planner or which is called a plotter which means I organize my thoughts on paper, outline stories, and proceed very methodically. But, other than having a general idea of where my story starts, leads, and ends, I don’t have much on paper.
Yet!
By the end of the month, I will be a combination of the two, both a plotter and a pantser. I’ll need to take some time to write my timelines, events, and characters on paper to develop them more before typing like a maniac!
2) The most difficult thing I’ve found so far is the pacing of the story. I want it to flow, as most of my writing does, but with longer works, it is harder to find the right tempo. When to reveal things about the characters and story events is much, much harder. The pacing will be something I’ll need to work on throughout this month.
I know most of you are poets and this is a novel writing exercise but is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo? Let me know in the comments.
Lastly, a poem for today. I wrote a grouping of three pet poems in October and instead of offering them all at once, I have posted them individually here. One per week for the last three weeks. Today, it is the last pet poem I have from my recent batch.
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay
The Invisible Pet!
We had a pet
Some years ago
Strange we never saw it
So, we didn’t know.
It must have lived
In our house at night
Creeping and crawling
Always out of sight!
Not a sound was made,
Nor a crumb dropped,
To make us think we had
A pet that stopped
At our house to live,
In the basement at night
Never seen, always so
Careful to stay out of sight.
Then, one day,
When we cleaned out.
A lost winter boot was found,
And we gave mom a shout.
But when we looked inside,
A food stash was found,
Cat kibble bits …
Cups of them, in a mound!
There must be a pet
We didn’t know we had
For whoever it was
Stored a lot of food by its pad!
© Draft, Carol Labuzzetta, 2022.
Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay
Finally, I’d like to encourage everyone to get out and vote! We moved this summer, but are in the same state (Wisconsin). There are a couple of hotly contested races here for mid-terms and voting is an essential part of democracy. Make your voice heard and exercise your right to vote this Tuesday! Enough said!
Today is Poetry Friday. Our host is Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe. Thank you for hosting Heidi! Please visit Heidi’s blog to post your link or read and comment on other participants.
The Apples in My Orchard 
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