Mark Pilgirm provides an excerpt from "The Real Thing", a play by Tom Stoppard, to illustrate the point that writing is not simply about hurling words, but about choosing and ordering them selectively so that the ideas might travel.
Book and audio book CD borrowing service. Small monthly paid membership required to participate. Works on the same model as NetFlix -- you can only keep out 2 books/CDs out at a time, but can borrow an unlimited number per month within that 2 at a time limit.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
The idea behind NaNoWriMo is so cool. Every year from midnight November 1 to midnight November 30, people write a novel with no expectations other than getting to 50,000 words. I don't know if I could do that and if it would be worth reading, but wow. What a cool idea.
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from your novel at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Writing begins November 1, 2003. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
Possible List of Endangered Works of Electronic Literature.
One of these days I will have to read Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery. So quotable.
I love reminding myself of this one when I design:
La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien