Getting ready for this week's meeting of the Na No Wri Mo group. Last night, I printed out with a few minor edits here and there the story that I wrote for the contest. This was the contest that was the start with the first line that we came up with or that some one else in the group came up with or whatever. Actually, I used the one that was for The First Line magazine contest. Maybe that is not the exact name of the magazine, but it is something like that. So what I did was write a story based on the first line, "So, all of it was just a lie?" with the quotations. Something like that. I wrote a story that I called A S L, which is based in the wild and wacky world of e mail and chat room and internat chat and romance. It is a topic that I am interested in writing about and have gotten a start on a novel about that. The novel is about a guy named . . . I forgot what he is named, actually . . . and his girlfriend Paige Turner. Paige's father is in the publishing industry, so do you get it? Paige Turner? It's a literary joke of a name. It is not there just for comedy effect, it is an insight into a father who would insist on naming his daughter Paige Turner. It says a lot more about him than her, that is the point. So the guy is a grad student who is working on a business thesis and the dad says that he will publish the guy's book if he can do a popular version of it . . . no problem, but he feels like the dad is too controlling and the girl friend herself is a bit too controlling, too. So the novel chronicles (or I shall say that it will chronicle . . . because we have not gotten very far into it . . . ) the guy's alienation from his girl friend and Real Life and descent into the fantasy life of chat rooms and e mail and internet romance, and all of the variety of good and bad problems than occur in that situation.

I am planning on finishing my crits of two works I have. THe fan fic from Michelle and the first chapter and sneak preview of the second chapter of the Lydia novel by Alison. I read part of this before, but this is a revision, so I am ready to get into it and review it. I will bring these crits ot the meeting and not post them online, as the works themselves were distributed at a meeting, and not posted online. The whole ettiquette and process of the crit and the post and all that that entails has escaped me, but I trying dilligently to figure it out and not embarrass anyone . . . meanine, me. I like the Lydia novel, it got off to a good start, and I am intrigued by where it is going. There is an older woman, who is hanging out in a cafe and then she thinks people are follwoing her or she has noticed the same couple of people wherever whe goes. So I am intrigued to read the revision and see the sneak preview of the second. I do not know if this is the Na No Wri Mo novel she was working on or if this is a new work, but it is intriguing . . . the only thing that I remember from the first read through of the first version was the fact that she used the word cafe almost every paragraph. I suggested a number of synonyms . . .but this was a crit I never gave her before, so I will see if this is something he has revised or if it the same kind of issue that there was before.

This meeting will not be at Borders, it will be at someone's house. This is a chance for a more social version of the Na No Wri Mo group, in addition to just doing a writing group. This is a chance to shake up the format of the groups, and we will talk about the future shape of the group. Where we are going, what we will be doing, how many meetings a month, all of that sort of thig. I am looking forward to it.