I have reached 49,240 words when my last entry was about Hippolytes, a play by Euripides. This play would have an impact on anyone, especially an impressionable young Alexander. I placed the dirge music which is the end of the story about a young man falsely accused by his mother of wrongdoing. A very touching story and I also placed a scene by a young actor playing Heracles in the play Alcestis, a story making one think of Jesus Christ. A wee bit different, but nevertheless makes one wonder.
Hallelujah! I am nearing the end for the NaNoWriMo group. I am shouting it out!
Yours Truly
Janet Fauble at home
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Finally at the Finish Line
We are approaching the end of this 30 day effort to write a 50,000 novel and turn it in to get credit for the time spent and words lighting up the blank spaces of paper. Wrestling with the devil is what some people call it. I have over 46,000 words written, and it has been a heck of a time writing all this material on just the childhood developmental period of Alexander. I will consider it a framework about which I will somehow or other turn it into a finished product ready to be published sometime after I get this much done.
It did me some good to tackle this project as I learned so much more from this effort than I had thought I would. In truth, most of the histories are just legendary materials probably better suited for some epic poem than to be taken literally as the way in which things actually happened.
You know this experience has taught me a lot about Alexander and Homer as I have had to read and recount the Iliad more than once, as it is a major part of this story. I intend to use a paragraph from each chapter as the heading of Alexander's journals, but the problem in writing all that is that it became very tedious and boring. The journals themselves are difficult enough but to try to condense a chapter into a single paragraph and then to include a paragraph for stylistic purposes made this a very interesting but time consuming and at times tedious effort.
I was very surprised when I began to reread the Iliad at how much I had not noticed at the first reading, and that turns out to be the same with some of the history books as well. How I wish I would have noted the author, title, and date of each and every book I had read when I first began the study of Alexander, but alas,alack, I did not, and while I bought many so that I am using those for reference, I remember reading pieces that have stuck in my mind, but can't remember who, what, and why now.
I will soon be finished. When I reach the end, I will send it to NaNoWriMo and see what happens next. It is certainly a worthwhile effort but very time consuming. Everything else is on hold for awhile.
When finished, I will briefly describe the book. It is quite interesting really but is being written in chunks and bits and pieces. I wrote the narrative first, and am now filling it all in with a variety of means. That is why it is all a first draft. A lot of rewrites and editing to be done. But it has been fun!
It did me some good to tackle this project as I learned so much more from this effort than I had thought I would. In truth, most of the histories are just legendary materials probably better suited for some epic poem than to be taken literally as the way in which things actually happened.
You know this experience has taught me a lot about Alexander and Homer as I have had to read and recount the Iliad more than once, as it is a major part of this story. I intend to use a paragraph from each chapter as the heading of Alexander's journals, but the problem in writing all that is that it became very tedious and boring. The journals themselves are difficult enough but to try to condense a chapter into a single paragraph and then to include a paragraph for stylistic purposes made this a very interesting but time consuming and at times tedious effort.
I was very surprised when I began to reread the Iliad at how much I had not noticed at the first reading, and that turns out to be the same with some of the history books as well. How I wish I would have noted the author, title, and date of each and every book I had read when I first began the study of Alexander, but alas,alack, I did not, and while I bought many so that I am using those for reference, I remember reading pieces that have stuck in my mind, but can't remember who, what, and why now.
I will soon be finished. When I reach the end, I will send it to NaNoWriMo and see what happens next. It is certainly a worthwhile effort but very time consuming. Everything else is on hold for awhile.
When finished, I will briefly describe the book. It is quite interesting really but is being written in chunks and bits and pieces. I wrote the narrative first, and am now filling it all in with a variety of means. That is why it is all a first draft. A lot of rewrites and editing to be done. But it has been fun!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Wordcounts and Cut and Paste
I admit that I am the worst student in the world of the computer, especially these laptops. I had taken a word processing class years ago where I learned how to use codes for a specialized business type of computer program. It was quite interesting and taught me a lot, not only about the computer system itself, but also about the people who operated the school where I took the class.
So thanks to going to an Evalwrimo session on Saturday, I found a very nice young woman who helped me to understand the word processing unit that I added to my computer so that I can write this novel in a word processor and thus be able to deliver it to the people at the site where we tabulate the number of words that we actually wrote. I finally learned how to cut and paste, something that I did not understand until now. Cannot say that I totally understand it, but like with the first class that I took, I know what to do now at least on that job.
I also learned how to find my word count as I was doing it at approximately 17 words per line and counting lines. Totally wrong thing to do.
I have been reading all kinds of books relative to my subject, The Iliad, and a few plays by Euripides. Very interesting to understand the character of my book that way.
The Iliad is very amusing to me, and while I wonder at Alexander for taking to Achilles so much, it is said that his family tree descends from him, and that Lysimachos had compared him to Achilles, so it would be an ego thing that way, and some other authors maintain that he believed he was the reincarnation of Achilles.
Through reading the book,I finally realized a lot of things about the legend of Alexander that finally make some sense to me.
I will try to incorporate them in my book. There is no doubt that the dream that Olympias had about a thunderbolt entering her womb implies that Zeus has impregnated her with his son, Alexander.
I had intended to end my book with either the battle of Chaeroneia or Philip's death. I am doing Philip's death, and now have to beef up my skeleton frame. That will take some doing as I am thinking about it all today. I had to take my first three entries which I wrote on email and put them on the word processor so that they are included in my word count.
This is all new. I just learned about Lulu selfpublishing from Mme. Guillotine and a place called Create Space which is with Amazon.
Once I get the book finished, it will make those who have read the Iliad realize that it is definitely a Homeric effort. I intend to use his novel as the model upon which I will try to Homerize Alexander a bit, my way!
That is all for now.
So thanks to going to an Evalwrimo session on Saturday, I found a very nice young woman who helped me to understand the word processing unit that I added to my computer so that I can write this novel in a word processor and thus be able to deliver it to the people at the site where we tabulate the number of words that we actually wrote. I finally learned how to cut and paste, something that I did not understand until now. Cannot say that I totally understand it, but like with the first class that I took, I know what to do now at least on that job.
I also learned how to find my word count as I was doing it at approximately 17 words per line and counting lines. Totally wrong thing to do.
I have been reading all kinds of books relative to my subject, The Iliad, and a few plays by Euripides. Very interesting to understand the character of my book that way.
The Iliad is very amusing to me, and while I wonder at Alexander for taking to Achilles so much, it is said that his family tree descends from him, and that Lysimachos had compared him to Achilles, so it would be an ego thing that way, and some other authors maintain that he believed he was the reincarnation of Achilles.
Through reading the book,I finally realized a lot of things about the legend of Alexander that finally make some sense to me.
I will try to incorporate them in my book. There is no doubt that the dream that Olympias had about a thunderbolt entering her womb implies that Zeus has impregnated her with his son, Alexander.
I had intended to end my book with either the battle of Chaeroneia or Philip's death. I am doing Philip's death, and now have to beef up my skeleton frame. That will take some doing as I am thinking about it all today. I had to take my first three entries which I wrote on email and put them on the word processor so that they are included in my word count.
This is all new. I just learned about Lulu selfpublishing from Mme. Guillotine and a place called Create Space which is with Amazon.
Once I get the book finished, it will make those who have read the Iliad realize that it is definitely a Homeric effort. I intend to use his novel as the model upon which I will try to Homerize Alexander a bit, my way!
That is all for now.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
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