The SoapBoxers

I am at the point in my effort to write a novel in 30 days where I must admit defeat. The goal was 50,000 words during the month of November, I have only made it to just over 25,000 words. So why did I “fail”? I let other activities occupy my time. Some of these were unavoidable; family, work, and home. Others were just my lack of drive. I could probably analyze the amount of time I wasted on on-line games, watching TV and sleeping in. That kind of analysis is self defeating if you are writing for pleasure. I plan on continuing to work on my novel, hoping to have something for review in the spring. When writing, that is all you can do. Set goals for yourself, but keep going even if you do not meet those goals.

I am fortunate that I have a job that allows me enough actual relaxation time to write. If I had a job with a significant manual labor content, say, a longshoreman, I do not believe that I would have the opportunity to write very much; all of my relaxation time would be to recover my strength for the next shift. I hope each of you has an opportunity to write, it is such a great way to express your creativity with little or no cost.

My leisure time is sometimes augmented by job related travel. I am not much of a partier, so I have plenty of time after hours with no family responsibilities to dedicate to writing. That is the main reason I was able to make the 50,000 word contest last year. Next year I plan on trying again. My long term goal is to produce most of one novel every year as long as I can write. I am going to try to publish, eventually.

I hope at least some of you who were taking the Novel Writing Challenge were successful. Even if you were not, I hope that you had a good time trying. Remember to keep writing.

For those of you who have joined me in the adventure of writing a novel in one month, we are in the home stretch. Just 8 days left in November and the end of National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). We are more that two thirds of the way through the month, so if you are to succeed, you need to be more that two thirds cone with your goal of 50,000 words or at about 36,500 words. I personally am well short of that mark, coming in at about 25,000 words.

My recovery plan is alone time over the next few days to really write. Remember to achieve the goal, you work does not have to be a complete novel, it just needs to be words written down towards your novel. Last year, when I actually succeeded, it took me an additional three months and independent reviewers to get my work to a point that I would consider “done”. I am currently working on cover art and saving money to actually publish my work on paper. I will release electronic and audio versions at the same time. So this year, I have to get back into that writing groove.

One of the things I did this year was to change my genre. This was to change my comfort zone and expand my field of ideas. Although it did help me with new ideas, it has not helped me actually capture words at any better rate. Last year I was traveling a lot, so I had idle time in the evenings. This year is filled with family (which is a good thing) so not so much time is available.

I have mentioned in previous postings the support of the sponsor of this writing event. Within the National Novel Writing community, there are groups that you can join. Perhaps next year, I along with other contributors to theSoapBoxers.com and our faithful readers could create and join a group. We could call Other:SoapBoxer. That is a plan for the future.

Right now, I am interested in how others are doing in their attempts at writing. Even if you are not taking on the challenge of writing a novel in a month, what are you working on? How is it going? Do you have any advice for people trying the same thing? What got you going on writing? What has prevented you from writing? The questions could fill a whole page. My interest is somewhat selfish. I have found that listening to others describing anything they are attempting will provide me with new fodder for stories. I do not steel ideas; I am just looking for triggers.

For instance, Kosmo wrote a piece earlier this month about a non-functioning speedometer in his car. The repair shop had to uncover a different problem before the speedometer could be fixed. Taking the idea of car troubles, specifically with a speedometer, you could have a so many different stories. In a mystery, you could explore who was responsible, and why. In an adventure, you could trace the hero’s actions as he is trapped with a broken vehicle in an unknown location. Make it science fiction, and you have alien technology causing the failure. Romance could be a who meets who because of the car. And so on…

Regardless of what you want to write or what you think your skills are, since you are reading this posting you have access to a computer and can capture any of your ideas. If you are concerned about someone reading your work, you do not have to publish. If you want criticism, there are plenty of people who can look at your work and provide insight. In the end, my advice is always, keep on writing.

What do you do when you hit a writing block?

Well actually, I haven’t run into a writing block, I have simply not been writing during the effort to write a novel during the month of November. For this article, let’s pretend that I am sharing the problems of not knowing what to write.

First you must find a trigger. It could be something as simple as standing up and looking out the window. Who knows what you will see. It could be your character walking past, or the exact weather you need to describe. Get up and have something to eat. Maybe the people in your story need to eat as well.

If that does not work, perhaps you need a longer break. Take a walk, go shopping or go see a movie. I would suggest avoiding TV or surfing the web as these activities really chew up valuable time, while a movie or walk have definite ending points.

If you are still stuck, try a different writing event. Throw together a quick blog of anything you are working on. If you don’t have anywhere else to post, paste it as a response to my posting.

There is always a topic that you like to talk about, convert that into writing, just to keep the words coming. Eventually, you will drift back to the story that you want to finish.

I still recommend establishing deadlines for yourself, both to keep yourself honest and to drive towards completion. You can use events line National Novel Writing Month, or a short story completion. You may want to make a holiday or birthday as the deadline, especially if you want you story to be a present to a friend or family member. All that we write provides insight and entertainment. Keep writing even if you do not want so show anyone else your work.

The writing frenzy continues.  If you are participating in the National Novel Writing Month, we have entered the second week.  You should be at about 13,000 words.  I have fallen pretty far behind having just crested 6,000 words.  The goal is to write as much as possible, getting to the 50,000 word count by the end of November is the challenge.

If you did start writing on November first, you should be well into your story.  Even if you do not have a full outline, try to capture at least some interesting event.  If events are eluding you, try some descriptive paragraphs.  Describe one of you characters, what he wears, what her physical characteristics are, what his dream are, what she is feeling.  Short on characters?  Describe the location, the surroundings, from weather to decorations, anything to put some body behind the story.

My current effort is a science fiction story.  I just have chunks of stuff.  I have done some character development for a few of my characters.  I have described the space ship in petty good detail.  I have even done some premonition work, describing what their goal is.  I still do not have a complete outline.  I have a couple of climaxes sketched out, but no conclusion.

As I commented last week, it is hard to set aside time to write.  My Saturday was taken up helping a friend reroof his garage.  Weeknights are taken up with helping my kids with homework, housework and paying attention to my wife.  I am pretty excited about writing at the 50% rate that I have accomplished.  I hope that some of our readers are doing better.

If you are just writing down any ideas you have, you can get a lot written.  I can capture between 500 and 800 words an hour.  That is words that make any sense at all.  So two hours a night should be all I need to put aside.  My problem is that I want to concentrate on this one story, and I just can not seem to get two hours to write.  Tonight (Sunday) I have a chance.  I am writing this article first, then back to writing the novel.  I would love to be able to report that I have completed the challenge again when we get to November 30^th, but again, my goal is to write and encourage you to write.

And we are off!

Today is the first day of November, and that makes it the first day of National Novel Writing Month. The goal is 50,000 words towards a novel captured over the thirty days of November. So how do you start? If you want to be part of the official challenge, then visit NaNoWriMo.org. Create an account and start writing. That site is filled with helpful suggestions and provides a word count tool as well as goodies if you succeed.

There are many parts of writing to address, and there is no specific order to do them in. Each writer will find this or her own comfort zone. What is the type of story (short story or novel), genre (romance, adventure, science fiction, historic), characters and title? Sometimes choosing one item creates one of the others. Choosing a genre, say adventure, drives character names such as Rock or Hunter. You may not even know what kind of story you are writing until you get into it. Last year, I ended up with a romance, definitely not what I started with.

This year, I am attempting a science fiction effort. I have a good idea about character names and personalities from ideas I have had in the past. Now I have to put those personalities together. I do not have a complete plot idea, just a rough outline in my head.

Now the idea is not to get a complete novel written, although that would be great. The idea is to write. The distractions will be significant. There is work, family, an election and all of the other every day events that keep us from writing. So the true challenge is to push all of this aside and write. I don’t suggest sacrificing your career or ignoring your children, on the contrary, use your specialties to make your story more complete, talk to you kids about what you are writing, they may ask the questions that give you your breakthrough. Every experience can lead to an idea.

I do not just encourage you to write, I also encourage you to let us know how you are doing right here on TheSoapBoxers.com. The only limitation is to remember that this is a family friendly site.

50,000 words is about 1667 words per day. Good luck!

It is almost November, and we all know what that means, National Novel Writing Month. I guess you thought I was going to writes something about the election. I figure with all of the writers on this site (except Johnny and Bob, thank you both so much) having voiced their political opinions over the last few weeks, enough had been said already. I want to focus on writing.

I started this column last year as I embarked on my first attempt at writing a complete novel. The fine people at NaNoWriMo.org help me with a challenge and various on line support activities. There are also local gatherings at coffee shops to put real faces and bodies on the messages. I was successful last year for many reasons, none more important than that I was on a significant amount of travel, two weeks at a time away from my family. When I try this year, I will have the challenges of every day life impacting my ability to perform.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is not actually to write a compete novel, although that may be a happy outcome. The goal is to write down 5000 words that are conceivably part of a larger story or novel. The challenge is to achieve this goal in a single month, November 1 through November 30. No fair grabbing an old story that you already had several thousand word complete on. The reward is writing, and if you succeed, some nice icon gifts for your book, your facebook page and a certificate to always remember your achievement.

As with last year, I plan on tracking my progress here at TheSoapBoxers.com. I will encourage all of our readers to write, and maybe even share some of their effort. Unlike last year, I will focus on what I am doing to write, not a blow by blow of the story line.

So the question is, will you “elect” to join me on this adventure? You do not have to write, but I always encourage people to do so. You can just ride the journey with me and anyone else who is willing to share in the odyssey.

A few months ago, I pledged to embark on a different journey. I was going to set up my computer on a treadmill table so that I could walk my way across this great land of ours as I wrote this column or watched television. Although I did set up the table for a short while, my progress was so slow that I never had enough success to write about it. The treadmill and table took up so much room in out family room that my wife asked me to move it to the basement. Out of sight, out of mind, and the experiment came to an end. This writing pledge will not suffer the same fate. I may succeed or I may fail, but I will undertake the effort for the full month.

When I made the cross country treadmill pledge, I had several helpful exchanges with Evan about ways of adding physical activity to our otherwise stationary work lives. As a result of those discussions, I will be investing in an under desk peddle systems. I will cycle my way through the day as I sit at my desk, reading, writing, phoning, texting and doing all the things we do at work that cause the day to pass with little or no physical motion.

So, go to NaNoWriMo.org tonight and join up and in seven days let your ideas flow. Catch them all, sting them together and who knows what you will end up with.

We are in that time of year where you can have overload of sports. College and Professional Football are in full swing, Basketball and Hockey are in preseason, Major League baseball is approaching the World Series and auto racing is in the final lap. It is quite easy to overload or get in trouble with your spouse this time of year.

Many people around the country live and die with their teams or heroes. I am partial to college and pro football and wear that allegiance on my sleeve. I have a bar that caters to my pro team even though we are hundreds of miles from the home city. My college team is nationally known, so I have many opportunities to see them on TV, but when I can’t, enter the internet.

These events bring people together, most of the time for camaraderie, sometimes in competition. These are opportunities for all of us to show our own sportsmanship. The results of each contest result in week long discussions. Conspiracy theories come and go, complaints are registered, wins are celebrated, loses are mourned. The true benefit this year is that we get distracted from the politics that have overwhelmed our entertainment options. Politics are not bad in general, but who is elected dog catcher is not an end of the world decision. Sports just gives us a break, possibly giving us a chance to breath and look at the political landscape with a fresh attitude after a weekend of sheering on the home team.

Unfortunately, the full sports story is not on the field. I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. My team had to play the first four games of the season without their star quarterback. This absence was due to the personal conduct of that player. He seems to have trouble making good choices when in comes to behavior off the field. He has been accused of rape. He has driven his motor cycle into the side of a panel van during the early hours of a morning. He has exposed himself to a woman in a bar with probable sexual contact in a public place. If he can get the team into the playoffs, most fans will forgive him, some will always condemn him.

So what does all of our sports addiction do for us? It gives us an escape. We can claim to be part of an activity that most of us do not have the physical qualifications to perform. It allows us to ignore the rest of the world for a few hours. It allows us to argue about something that is not politics or religion. In the end, we are less active and eat poorly while watching people exercise and having well maintained bodies (except for some of the linemen in football and designated hitters in baseball). As in all things in life, some good and some bad results come from sporting events. My advice is to get as much enjoyment as you can from any source. And just to complete my affiliation confession – Go Texas Longhorns

Why do solutions to problems have to be all or nothing these days? A few years ago, my state was reconsidering the deposit on cans and bottles. One group in our legislature wanted to put a five cent deposit on all cans, regardless of use. This would include soup cans and the like. Others wanted to drop the whole deposit effort. The question I had was; what problem were they trying to solve? The original intent of the can and bottle deposit was to put a financial stimulus in returning the items with the goal of reducing road side trash. From the data I could find, this was exceptionally successful. Not from people saving their cans and bottles, but because industrious people went around picking them up to redeem them.

So, if we look at what the legislature was taking up; was there a sudden increase in soup cans on the side of the road, or had the deposit suddenly become too big of a burden for the citizens of our state? Neither condition was evident. The deposit program is actually a pretty big money maker for the state, with many people simply throwing their containers away or people purchasing on their way through the state. At the end of the debate, no change was made, much to my relief.

Now we have new national legislation on health care, or rather health insurance. It was an all or nothing debate. The legislation completely dismembers the existing health care system by putting the government in as the primary health insurance provider (even though this is denied by many who voted for it). I do not understand why the specific problems were not addressed. The main reason seems to be that no one could define any real reasons or problems in the system. All of the arguments were nebulous. Some people can not afford insurance, true, but does this require an overhaul of the system? Some people are denied coverage, again true, but again is this a full fledged disaster?

My father chimed on the debate stating that we have a member of our family without insurance. What did we do before the government stepped in? Most of us depended on family to pay the bill. Those who could not went to the hospital and were cared for by the county (this is true for every county in the United States). So if some people cannot afford insurance, why not provide some sort of support? With the new law, many part time employees are losing what coverage they have due to cost. If some people are denied treatment, set up an agency to investigate and help those people who really need it get treatment.

I really wish I could take the time to really read legislation (before or after it is passed) since our legislators do not seem to be doing the job (the speaker of the house actually said we cannot know what is in the bill until we pass it). The problem is, I do not have the time or the training to comb though it. I could not find it, but at one time I knew where in the bill it stated that taxes in this bill will not be considered taxes. I hope there is no penalty associated with this statement, as I will definitely consider any extra charges as taxes.

I am not currently under threat of losing my health care or insurance. The company I work for has sent out informational sheets telling us that things will be changing, but they could not tell us how until they are told. My doctor has suggested retiring rather than dealing with the added costs and effort that the government program will entail. So I will still have insurance (of some kind) and still have health care (of some kind), but all will be well, right? My question is; how much should I be saving to pay for my free health care?

Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever wondered why only two political parties are dominating the American political scene? In every other democratic nation of the world, there are multiple parties requiring coalitions to govern. Not so in the United states, where the only time cooperation is necessary is when the legislative and executive branches of the government are in separate hands.

There are several institutional reasons for the two party system in America. First of all, the United States is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic. This is important in that in a true democracy, the people are continuously involved in the governing process, such as in Switzerland where there are elections almost every week. Second, our elections are fixed by the calendar, not by events. In the socialist democratic nations such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, any vote of confidence lost by the ruling party or coalition will result in a new election. Third, we have separation of our legislative and executive branches. In most democracies of the world, the legislature elects a prime minister who is the defacto executive of the country. Sure, the United Kingdom has the Queen and many nations have presidents, but these people are there to be the consistency rather than the power.

All of this still does not add up to a two party system. I believe that the United States falls into this habit (yes habit) based on our innate love of a stand up fight. We want just two people in the ring beating the snot out of each other. Everything we do for entertainment or even business is a one on one match. From sporting events like the BCS championship to the burger wars, we only concentrate on the top two. There are others out there, but all of the publicity goes to the top two with a slight mention of the also rans.

When this country was in its infancy, we had two parties; the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalist. After a few years, the Federalists dropped out and the Whigs came along. Just before the Civil ware, the Whigs collapsed and the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats and the Republicans. Most of the Federalists became Whigs when they lost several presidential elections in a row and were in a feeble minority in both houses. The same thing happened when most of the Whigs became Republicans.

The talking heads have always pointed out that a vote for a third party is a throw away vote. When you are talking pure ability to get elected, that may be true in the short run. A grass roots effort to fundamentally change an existing party can be devastating to that party’s power such as is predicted for the Republican party with the Tea party movement. But if neither major party supports even some of your basic values, then voting for the least bad is still a bad decision. It re-enforces the existing power.

It took 24 years for the Whigs to gain even a moniker of power after the Federalist collapse. It took 16 years of the Democratic-Republicans to recover from the Jackson Democrat revolt, which also resulted in the current parties.

There are plenty of options for you if you want to vote your platform, there are only two if you are voting for power.

Here are just a few of the ones I looked up, there are plenty more.

Modern Whig – http://www.modernwhig.org/
Green – http://www.gp.org/index.php
Constitution – http://www.constitutionparty.com/
Socialist – http://www.sp-usa.org/
Conservative – http://www.conservativepartyusa.com/
Libertarian – http://www.lp.org/
Communist – http://www.cpusa.org/

Martin Kelly starts off  a month of guest fiction stories.  If you want your short story to be featured, send me an email at kosmo@observingcasually.com

There is nothing quite as pleasant as a cool bright fall day in the heartland of America. Make it a Saturday in a university town, and it gets even better. The band is playing, the people are gathering, many drinking too much, all eating too much. This was going to be a great season.

Coach Grendle had finally put together the best team in the league. Nine returning seniors, the two best freshmen in the state, a Heisman candidate at both running back Walter Sumpter and quarterback Jackie Shamacker and award candidates all over the defense. This was one last warm up before league play. The first two games had been against strong teams, one from the west coast and one from the deep south. Both wins were solid; 38-28 and 24-10. Today they faced the tech school from across the state. It was an annual gimme game that pleased the regents. It was nice to play at home this year, their stadium was small and old with no heating in the locker room, not like the newly renovated one hundred and ninety million dollar stadium for today’s game.

As each team lined up for the opening kickoff, Coach Grendle scanned the field. The Tech players looked so young and small. He spotted Coach Smackly on the far side line and gave him a grim look and a nod. Coach Smackly smiled and waved. This would be the only televised game for Tech, they were happy to be here even if they were thirty two point underdogs.

The kick off was a beautiful high arch. Wilson caught the ball and plowed straight ahead. It took four tech players to finally pull him down. Grendle’s proud offence jogged onto the field. Sumpter to the left for 14 yards followed by a quick slant from Shamacker to Wilson for 14 more, just as the planned. Grendle was taking notes, thing that were not quite perfect and need to be for league play. It was the third play that changed the world.

Sumpter took off straight up the middle. He had several of the big guys escorting him up the field. Five yards, then ten, before the Tech Safety caught him. The tackle was clean and should have been uneventful, except for the presence of the guard and center. A combined 500 pounds landed on Sumpter’s leg. Coach Grendle knew the leg was broken before the pile was untangled. There was a long delay as Sumpter was carried off of the field on a golf cart.

Grendle had worked through disasters like this in the past. He had five more running backs ready to go. Jackson was good, not as fast and not as strong as Sumpter, but still high quality. After a long break, the defense can usually get caught flat footed. Grendle signaled for a deep pass.

Shamacker dropped back in a smooth motion. Wilson was breaking free, but then another mistake. McMiller, the left guard stepped backward and stepped on Shamacker’s foot. Off balance McMiller and the Tech linebacker fell on Shamacker. His pass fluttered in a sickening arch directly to the Tech Safety who was guarding the Jackson as he left the backfield. There was no one between him and the end zone. Touchdown Tech, and another golf cart for the home team.

Coach Grendle saw many things in those few moments. This game they could still win, but the rest of the season was over. He would have to talk to Smackly after the game. Smackly was good friends with the retiring coach at A&I. Another losing season and the alumni will be calling for his head.