Ami L. Hart- Writer

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

NaNoWriMo 2015

It's that time of year again. NaNoWriMo is upon us!

When the clock ticked over to November the 1st, people from all over the world embarked upon the exciting (and at times arduous) quest of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.

This is my 4th time participating in the event. I find NaNoWriMo to be the perfect motivation to get new novels started or existing ones finished. My full drafts usually end up being between 80- 120, 000 words, and at least 50,000 of those words are written during NaNoWriMo.

If you would like to know more about this fan-dangled-fun-dangily NaNoWriMo thing and what it stands for, then check out http://nanowrimo.org.

Even better (in a fit of spastic spontaneity) why don’t you sign up? Join us!

Joooin Usssss!

Now here’s some Lemons (unrelated)…

So if you have always wanted to give writing a go and enjoy challenges that have the potential to eat your soul? And yeah those plot bunnies can be mighty fierce sometimes. Ye-ouch!

I’m not selling this very well am I? Nope...

Hey I gotta be honest it’s hard reaching to that 50K, sometimes you have to frigging bleed those words from your raw finger-stubs... and yeah, some of those words will definitely suck (I’m talking from personal experience).

That being said, all you need to do is write 1666 words a day for 30 days. That doesn’t sound too bad does it? All you need is some general idea for a story and the rest should come.

Nothing coming to you? Hey if you don’t know what to write about or how to start there are plenty of story prompt generators out there.

Here’s a few links that might be fun/ or useful.

Need a Plot? How about adopting one from here! http://nanowrimo.org/forums/adoption-society

If you're stuck and need an item, a motto, a planet, or a fancy drink check out...http://chaoticshiny.com/ It's oh so fun— If you are looking for something really wacky, this is definitely the place to go.

http://writingexercises.co.uk/plotgenerator.php The plot generator here gave me some interesting results and the good thing about it is that you can re-roll certain elements until you find something that works.

Most importantly don't worry about getting it perfect first time (that just doesn't happen). NaNo is designed so you get that story, or at least part of the story out of your head and onto paper. The revision and editing comes later (or as my case much later). This first draft (in the words of the wonderful Terry Pratchett) is basically just you telling yourself the story.

And that’s my little NaNo chat for 2015. Have a great November, and if you are partaking in the NaNo madness may many-a-word be with you.

Join usssss...

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Tuesday, 13 October 2015

At 5am When The Universe Talks.

I surfaced from an odd, bag of weary bones sleep this morning, my eyes fluttered open to darkness and silence. I lay there and wondered why I had woken so early, my wondering only broken by the occasional fitful turn. I think it was probably due to a pesky sinus-clogging cold which has left my teeth feeling loose and achy.
So I lay there for a time, one part of me adamantly wanting to go back to sleep, and the other part grumbling "not gonna happen", ache, groan, piss, moan. Then my mind became less webby and I started thinking about the day ahead.

Then some words appeared, drifting up from a dark dreamlike place. Strangely, this was the thing that got me up. Not the list of things I had to do before hustling the kids off to school, no those words which formed a rhythmic beat in my mind, the deepening pulse of a creative vein.

I wrote them down and saw that they were peculiar. They'd lost some of their rhythm once they solidified on the page. And I don't know exactly what they mean. Like a dream, the act of writing tends to boil things up from the subconscious. These words need to be worked over like some precious metal, the dross burned away and their meaning refined before they can be shared.

This little 5am epiphany got me to thinking about how much of my writing actually happens inside my head and interestingly how much of it still stays in there even after writing the first draft. It is a bit jumble up there in the old grey-matter. I have multiple worlds populated by multiple characters, many with very distinct voices, mannerisms, backstories. Isn't it any wonder that it takes so much time to sift through and refine the page-story to reflect the mind-story. Sometimes it feels like I'm chasing a ghost of a thing that doesn't really exist yet. And it sorta doesn't, but it does at the same time. Does that make sense? I'm not sure that it does, but then again not everything about the creative process makes sense. *Mumbles* "it's all rather mysterious really."
Particularly those 5am wake-ups leading to the odd existential ramblings of a fictional but sentient universe.

So that was my morning.
How was yours?

Friday, 4 September 2015

Christchurch Earthquake, September 2010

It was 4:35am on the 4th of September 2010. A sudden bang woke us and then the shuddering started--its irregularity saturated with wrong, with violence. Our earth had reared up and begun to rage.
My husband yelled something-- I can't remember what--his words were torn away by the chaos. Everything was thrown up and down--there was so much sound. I ran down the hall, the shaking caused me to bounce from wall to wall, but desperation drove me on. I had to reach to my daughter's room. My thoughts were something along the lines of , She's alone! She can't be alone, not during this--not while our world is being torn apart.

Meanwhile my husband had picked up our 3 month old son from the crib in our room, moments before the television and tall boy crashed down beside the crib, right where he had been standing. Just moments...

It was only a minute or so long but it seemed to go on forever. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the whole house rocked, groaned, lurched and shuddered, like a ship tortured by a stormy sea. There was a cacophony of sounds, smashing, thumping and straining timber--and the roar, I'll never forget that roar.

It felt like our home was going to fall apart around us. It didn't.
I thought briefly that we were going to die, but we didn't.

The lights dimmed to black several times, plunging us into darkness. I remember screaming and praying as I clutched my still-slumbering daughter tight, huddled down beneath the strong kauri doorway in the hall. My back pressed hard against the framing, hugging it as it moved. Eventually the house started to sway more softly, a rolling motion like a calming sea and the shaking eased. It was a soothing lullaby after the world's screams. I was still trembling.

My husband passed my son to me and went to get dressed. There were more shakes, smaller, as if the earth was twitching in pain. Our power had come back on so we turned on the lounge television--it had miraculously survived the shaking. On it there was nothing but trite, regular programming. Nothing for us. We needed to know... we were looking for answers. Had this truly happened? How bad was it? What would it mean? So we tried the portable radio and found a local station. For the next hour we listened to talk-back radio. We heard the voices of other terrified people just like us, occasionally broken by emergency broadcasts and it all became real.It hadn't all been just a bad dream. Afterwards we experienced a strange, giddy and hysterical lightness as blessed relief surged over fear.

Our world changed after that night. The aftershocks kept that first terrifying 7.1 quake fresh in our minds, but worse was to come. Our city/ region experienced something terrible and there were no quick fixes. It would/will take years. We had more quakes, people died, homes were lost...people left, things broke...people broke. What can you do when you can no longer trust the ground beneath your feet?
I prayed.

Yet amid the strange reverberating chaos of that first quake-ridden morning there was a special moment. My 2 1/2 year old daughter was watching the sun rise. The warm orange glow bathed her golden curls, lit her wide smile and those excited, sparkling eyes. A fragile hope and confidence broke through the shock. I knew then that we were going to be all right.
Thank God we were all right.

Join my fellow Guild members as they share their thoughts and memories of that night, September 4th 2010.
Links:
Judy L. Mohr
Angela Oliver
J.L. O’Rourke
Rata

For more photos, see my post Transition, which was inspired by Christchurch's Festival of Transitional Architecture, FESTA. http://www.amilibertyhartwriter.com/2014/11/transition.html

Photos by Shireen Helps, and Jessica Colvin.