{"id":4707,"date":"2009-12-01T19:56:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T00:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2009-12-01T19:56:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T00:56:21","slug":"no-no-nanowrimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-no-nanowrimo","title":{"rendered":"No-No NaNoWriMo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, National Novel Writing Month<\/a> is over, and I was a near-total failure. I managed to write a mere 2,600 words, only about 5% of the goal of 50,000 words. But I’m happy! Those 2,600 words are the most I’ve managed to write \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as fiction, I mean \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in 15 years. More to the point, I managed to make an incredibly obvious insight that seemed profound at the time!<\/p>\n

I finally let my anecdotes become stories. That is, I took several of the oddball experiences I’ve had and let them breathe, let them belong to someone else. Where I once took pains to ground my anecdotes in utter veracity and my voice, I discovered I could let them out to play in fiction’s wonderland. Actions and reactions don’t have to be my<\/em> actions and reactions. If something funnier could have \u00e2\u20ac\u201d should have \u00e2\u20ac\u201d happened, then maybe this time it will.<\/p>\n

It turned out that I’d never given myself permission to ask, “What if this happened instead of that?”<\/p>\n

Still, that breakthrough didn’t take me far enough. I let other things distract me, and still need to find the time and discipline to work on this stuff.<\/p>\n

But I felt pretty good when I got started, so I’m going to try to get back to it, now that the dogs are asleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, National Novel Writing Month is over, and I was a near-total failure. I managed to write a mere 2,600 words, only about 5% of the goal of 50,000 words. But I’m happy! Those 2,600 words are the most I’ve managed to write \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as fiction, I mean \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in 15 years. More to the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “No-No NaNoWriMo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[267],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-f-you-you-whining-f"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1dV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4295,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/f-you-you-whining-f-dont-look-back-edition","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":0},"title":"F*** You, You Whining F***: Don’t Look Back edition","author":"Gil","date":"August 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, CIA Director Leon Panetta pulls a Mark McGwire and asks Congress to stop looking into the CIA's role in running secret torture prisons and planning political assassinations: I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "F*** You, You Whining F***"","block_context":{"text":"F*** You, You Whining F***","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/f-you-you-whining-f"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2411,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-back-next-week","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":1},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Back Next Week","author":"Gil","date":"September 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was too busy\/addled this weekend to write my Monday Morning Montaigne post, dear readers. But I did finish the Apology for Raymond Sebond, and have (what I think) are some neat observations about it. I was gratified to see that M. loosened up a bit more in this last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1856,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cheap-novelties","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":2},"title":"Cheap Novelties","author":"Gil","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sure, Bobby Fischer's death got all the press, what with the worldwide reactions and reminiscences of his chess-playing genius, his uncomfortable relationship with celebrity, and his later hatred of Jews. But let's also take time to mourn Richard Knerr. I'd never heard of Mr. Knerr till I opened the NYTimes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2476,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/market-timing","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":3},"title":"Market timing","author":"Gil","date":"September 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Two anecdotes that help me make sense (of humor) out of the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, the Merrill Lynch buyout, the Fannie\/Freddie seizure, Bear Stearns debacle and all else: 1. Around 1991, I walked into a local-ish comic store, as is my wont. As I was checking out, I noticed that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":528,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/greetings","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":4},"title":"Greetings!","author":"Gil","date":"April 22, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Evidently, there are a ton of Jane Galt readers out there, and they've Galt-alanched my archives for the Budapest anecdotes about Statue Park!Welcome! Take off your shoes and stay a while!","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3204,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/f-you-you-whining-f-1809","url_meta":{"origin":4707,"position":5},"title":"F*** You, You Whining F***: 1\/8\/09","author":"Gil","date":"January 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A lot of these entries have focused on the publishing industry, because I read about it and its constituents tend to whine a lot. I haven't written so much about the financial crisis in that context, so I'll remedy that now. Here's an article about the SEC branch chief who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "F*** You, You Whining F***"","block_context":{"text":"F*** You, You Whining F***","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/f-you-you-whining-f"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4709,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}