So I’ve currently lost my mind. At least, I think I have.
This requires a little bit of back story. I’ve participated several times in National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo, or NaNo, for short, is a month where across the United States, slightly frantic authors attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. Its doable. I’ve done it.
But now, now, I think I’ve finally lost it. The April version, of NaNo, hosted by the same people and called the temporally appropriate “Camp NaNoWriMo,” gives writers a sliding wordcount, once that they can use to set their own goal.
I set mine at 60,000.
Why? On the one hand, banging out 2,000 words a day is certainly something I’m capable of. Thats actually almost exactly how much I write in one day anyway. But usually, usually, I skip around, working on one piece and then the next as the fancy takes me (or as I have the energy for each character.) I’m not really sure about this writing 2,000 of the same novel every single day for a month. So I may have lost my mind. Or at least my reason.
But hey, challenge is the spice of life! So I’m going to be writing yet another novel in the hopes that this time, I’ll like it enough to do something with it. Its remarkable how much more I like my short stories than my novels. Does anyone else have similar problems?
Well, to move on from my literary insanity and to more interesting things, I have two new pieces of music to share with you all. (See, I didn’t say y’all. You should be proud of me for avoiding my regional dialect.)
First up is “boy with a coin” by Iron and Wine. Born in South Carolina, Samuel Beam, the genius behind Iron and Wine, has the deep lyricism characteristic of singers and writers from this area. “If God made her eyes for crying at birth/Then left the ground to circle the earth” runs the last two lines of the second stanza. That idea, of crying at birth, is at once so simple, so obvious, and yet so profound. The first thing that a human does when it enters the world is to cry. Think on that.
This, in a nutshell, is the sort of realization that is characteristic of Iron and Wine’s work. I recommend, though not if you don’t have enough time to really think about something.
Next up is a much more traditional piece, “Some early morning,” by Dan Tyminsky. Tyminsky is brilliant on many different instruments, but it is the vocals and the storytelling that really shine in “Some early morning.” A typical ballad (of the sort you’ve probably realized I love) “Some early morning” tells the story of a young boy falsely accused and imprisoned for murder. There was never a greater anthem for those who advocate against the death penalty because of the great number of convicted murderers who turn out to be innocent. Yet even if you disagree with this particular view, this is a brilliant piece. In fact, it, in and of itself, has no political overtones. It is only a heartbreaking story song in a haunting male voice.
Limes Writes 