Things I've Learned from Nablopomo

It's been an interesting month. I set off at the beginning of November planning to add 50,000 words to my work-in-progress and to post here every day. With this post, I achieved my nablopomo goal, but I failed miserably at nanowrimo, which is weird, because I usually write about 1000 words on the wip/day. But not this month.

I mused about this, and I realized that part of it is that with the exception of a few days here and there, I really did have fun working up posts for the blog, and since there is immediate feedback (or feedcrack, as Luisa of Novembrance calls it) I was drawn to these posts.

This morning I sat down and did my novel first. Smart girl. Gotta go back to that.

I love nablopomo as a project, however. I loved seeing what my regular blogroll buddies would come up with on a daily basis. I learned that when desperate, Flower Child of Blooming Idiot will write about dryer lint, Gunfighter of The View from Here will start throwing up haikus right, left, and sideways, and Liz of Los Angelista's Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness will write about Rock Star Energy Drink. I was reduced to having a post about throwing up my hands on the whole deal, but I was rescued by a bunch of blog friends who cheered me on and gave me some ideas to write about. And for all of us, I laughed when I recognized that we were TIRED and had run out of ideas.

I learned that Luisa of Novembrance has got to be the most disciplined blogger in the universe. She sought out questions ahead of nablopomo and answered them in lucid, gorgeous posts from November 1st through today. I can't even imagine. She scares me, but I say this in a good way.

So, goodbye to nablopomo and hello to December, with its endless rounds of special this and that for "The Holidays".

And in keeping with my promise of yesterday, here's a little BOOK TALK in advance of Day to Read, January 10, 2008:

I guess I'm on a children's book jag, because Flower Child was running around talking about getting books for her nieces. I already told her about this series, but here it is for the rest of you:

I highly, highly recommend the Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia C. Wrede. Some of the books are better than others. The first one, Dealing with Dragons, is magnificent, however. It concerns Cimorene, a princess who runs away from home and begs a dragon to kidnap her, so that she can avoid marrying a sappy prince. When princes inevitably come to rescue her, she and her dragon friend, , just plain attack the princes back. Cimorene ROCKS. The character from the series that I love best, though, is Shiara, an always grumpy fire witch who shows up in book four. She's the kind of bad girl you just have to love. Enjoy!