This was among my favourites of Chris Baty's pep talks. It's poorly filmed but the message is quite easy to hear and understand.

Which Austen heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

Apparently, I most resemble Elizabeth Bennett. "This is flattery indeed," but I think there was something wrong with the test...

Bongo's sweater vest

In wool and nylon sock yarn--possibly the smallest project I have ever knitted.

John Lynch on "When You Get Tired Enough"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7azfoonNqpc&feature=player_detailpage

It's National Novel Writing Month again, and once again, not satisfied with trying to whip out 50,000 words in 30 days, oversee our two homeschooling teenagers' education, keep up with other responsibilities (let us not say those bad words launder, clean, cook) and get a reasonable amount of sleep, I've decided to add making another Chris Baty doll to the list of things being finished this month.

Chris Baty, as you probably know, is the founder of National Novel Writing Month. Last year I designed a doll that (sort of) looked like him and sent it to NaNoWriMo's home office, thinking they might raffle it off or in some other way use it to raise money for the cause. The doll ended up putting in an appearance at NaNoWriMo's annual "Night of Writing Dangerously"--a six-hour-long writing marathon held in San Francisco, NaNoWriMo's home base, where I have since learned it was a big hit.

Nothing like a little recognition to get an artist going to ridiculous lengths to repeat such a success! When I was told, two or three weeks ago, that the doll had been referred to by Chris Baty himself as "topping [his] list of all-time surreal NaNoWriMo moments" (and I checked it out--these are almost his exact words: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/history#yearelevenleven) I immediately started work on the next edition of the Chris Baty Look-Alike Doll. Fortunately, I had saved the plaster cast I made of the original sculpture, so coming up with another one was just a bit simpler than the first time around. Unfortunately, my resculpting/painting skills being what they are, this one doesn't look quite like last year's edition. I gritted my teeth and finished him anyway, because, after all, last year's edition didn't look exactly like the real person either...

Because I started so late, this guy didn't get finished in time to make it to this year's Night of Writing Dangerously, which took place yesterday (21 November) but I was able to send pictures before the event to Lindsey Grant, NaNoWriMo's Program Director. "Little Chris" will probably be making the trip to San Francisco sometime this week, where, we hope, he'll be put to some use in helping to make the world more interesting for would-be novelists.

Portrait of the author as a potter

Here's me at the wheel in the pottery studio at One of a Kind Gallery in Bristol TN. See earlier posts for more details.

National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it has come to be known, is a 30-day online challenge taking place every year in November. The goal? To write at least 50,000 words within the span of those 30 days--and to get them successfully counted and registered on the NaNoWriMo website before midnight on November 30.

Are you ready for this challenge? It will--I repeat, it will change your life. As a three-time participant and two-time winner in this great yearly event, I'd like to invite you to consider giving a mere hour or two every day this November toward cranking out 50K words of whatever you consider to be a novel (the definition of "novel" here is quite loose--see the NaNoWriMo website for more details, and the official "rules"). Though what you will end up with is not, strictly speaking, a "novel" by most normal standards, what you will have to show for all those hours of blood, sweat and tears will be a spectacular 50,000-word writing exercise. And rumour has it that some participants do, in fact, go on to edit and publish the "novels" so created. I've never done it myself, but supposedly some people have.

Highly recommended is the NaNoWriMo "handbook," No Plot? No Problem!, available through Amazon.com and on the NaNoWriMo website. I got mine secondhand and saved a few bucks--and as you can see from the photograph at the beginning of this post, it has been well-read and much used.

NaNoWriMo runs on donations. You can get a miniature halo around your username whenever it shows up on their website, by contributing as little as $10 to the cause. Some of us contribute things other than money. In this motivational short video from last year's event, a papier-mache doll looking somewhat like founder Chris Baty wearing his signature Viking helmet appears to contribute its two cents' worth (in speech balloons) to the discussion on how to beef up one's lagging word count towards the end of the month. You'll have to guess who contributed the handmade doll, which later on was featured in a NaNoWriMo silent auction fundraiser attended by hundreds of enthusiastic participants from around the world.