Post-NaNoWriMo

Well comrades, wasn't NaNoWriMo fabuloso? Just what I needed to get me off my fat arse and writing at last. What a debt of gratitude we owe to the clever people who invented it.

I'm so relieved I made it to the 50,000 word total and avoided complete disgrace – even though only about 15,000 of those words seems any good to me now. I was getting really worn out towards the end. Got so sick of sitting at the same manky kitchen table staring at the same fluff by the washing machine. Thinking back, I can see it was a mistake not to bother cleaning the flat, changing bedlinen (yuk) or eating properly. If I'd taken a bit more care over the maintenance side maybe my brain wouldn't have got so stale and maybe I would've written better quality stuff.

And now I'm finding it hard to keep going. I feel like taking a complete break, but I'm nervous I won't be able to pick up the story when I get back to it. Ho hum. Still, it's been excellent practice and it's taught me a lot of stuff about writing a long story that I never came across in any of the guides I read. You can't beat actually trying it! The whole exercise has given me a lively new respect for people who do actually manage to finish a book. It's all very easy when you're lying on the sofa to think "Oh I could do that much better"; it's a whole nother thing when you're actually sitting in front of the keyboard and you're the one responsible for coming up with the words.

Talking about word counts, I'm just reading a fascinating history of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything. If you're not familiar with the OED, it's the supreme English dictionary. In fact people say it's the greatest dictionary of any language ever. It contains every word ever recorded in English from about 1150, in every variant and every different shade of meaning. OK, our language changes so fast no dictionary is ever really totally up to date: but nothing comes as close as the OED.

I was the proud owner of a Compact OED for a year or two when I was at college. The Compact OED provides a way for poor persons to possess their very own OED. It's a hefty volume. Each thin but enormous page contains nine photographically-reduced pages of the full-size OED in teeny tiny print. The whole thing is packaged in a sturdy dark blue slipcase, with a little drawer in the bottom containing a complimentary magnifying glass, so you can peer at all those lovely words.

Anyway, the book prompted me to look idly to see how much the OED costs these days. And quelle surprise, what did I find but another transatlantic ripoff! On Amazon.com (not that I would ever contemplate using Amazon) the 20 volumes are being offered at about $900 for the benefit of spoilt Americans. It's not even listed on Amazon.co.uk, but at the Oxford University Press site it's priced at £2,000 or $3,900! Outrageous!!

Not much else to report. Just read Shauny's blog again for the first time in ages. If you haven't seen it check it out at once. This young woman is a genius. I wish I could write half so well as she.