Writing Nonfiction in November

For years, I’ve been aware of NaNoWriMo– the annual challenge for fiction writers to produce a fifty-thousand word manuscript during the month of November.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I’ve always wanted to participate, except that I don’t write fiction. I encouraged Brandy Chase (of American Muslimah Writer) to participate.

http://www.americanmuslimawriter.blogspot.com/

Actually, I suggested that if she took up the challenge, I would, as well, so she took up the challenge, and I am left with the fact that I am not a fiction writer.

Enter Jung’s concept of Synchronicity. Just this morning, while looking for something unrelated, I discovered the nonfiction equivalent to NaNoWriMo– WNFIN, Writing Nonfiction in November:

http://writenonfictioninnovember.com/about-2/

So, off I go to begin the challenge!

How shall I approach the task? I’ll need to produce about two-thousand words a day to complete the challenge. That’s a lot of writing, especially for someone like me, who hates to babble. I write deliberately. Free writing and verbal effluvience are not my strong suits, nevertheless, they will have to become so in order to meet this challenge.

I think I will make a list of subjects having to do with the events of my life, and the attitudes that have shaped my choices. Each day I’ll take up a new heading. Hopefully, some of this work will find its way to my blog. In that way, I’ll infuse some fresh material into it. I’m getting kind of saturated with writing and thinking about religion. I need a diversion.

Call for Submissions on MotherVerse

Blogger Mamas,

Many of my readers are moms who blog, and care about the quality of their writing.

Some of you may be looking for a wider audience, or simply an additional venue for your work. I just discovered this publication ten minutes ago and had to share it with you. Some may wish to submit to the proposed anthology:

http://www.motherverse.com/

http://www.motherverse.com/blog/

 

A Travel Secret

You go to the museums and the tombs and the ruins and the statues because everyone else does, because these places are famous, because you’ve seen pictures of them all your life, because the tours focus upon them, because these are the places you can get to easily and you don’t know where else to go until you’ve been there awhile. You know these places are impressive and important, and you expect to feel enriched after you’ve seen them.

Now that you’ve have made your pilgrimage to the various shrines and wonders of the world, you can say for sure that the tombs and the temples are no more than ruins, suggestions of shapes with crumbling corners, useful now as a focal point only, an excuse to go to a place and wander through new worlds for a while, to pretend you are someone else, to imagine you have been reincarnated, to twirl around with your eyes wide open, to fantasize, to play, to revel in the freedom of the foreigner, to wish upon stars that have witnessed all of earthly history, and to know that you belong to it all.