nanowritmo winner

Writing-wise, it’s been a busy month. I have submitted stories, collected a few more rejections, and have been declared a “winner” of National Novel Writing Month. That means 50,000 words written in the month of November. I crossed the “finish line” Sunday evening, and with two days to spare.

Obviously, this month was more about quantity than quality. But I think the raw material generated is worthy of more time, effort, and energy. So after a few days of reviewing what I have so far and making a TON of notes, I will set about finishing the first draft. After that, we’ll see what happens.

national novel writing month

AKA, NaNoWriMo…

This is where anyone anywhere can sign up for the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month (average 1,667 per day). It started decades ago with novelists. Now it’s a national organization with their own mercy. And participants write whatever style or genre they please. The idea is to have an audacious goal and get after it.

It is considered “winning” if you write 50K words or more.

When writing a novel, I do understand the value of just getting the first draft down. However, I typically like to work at a slightly slower pace and review the previous day’s work before planning back in. But there’s no time for that here.

So…I’m doing it this year for the first time. And I do plan to “win.” More than the 50K words, I’m hoping I will have a decent idea and a good start on a novel idea. We’ll see…

As of 11/17 I have 28,164 words, which means I’m slightly ahead of the necessary pace.

the streak ends…

…and another begins.

I spent the week in Virginia taking care of some family stuff. And I realized Thursday morning while driving home with some breakfast for my mother and me…that I FORGOT to exercise the day before.

It had nothing to do with time-management or willpower or “just not feeling like it.” I just got busy and it slipped my mind.

Thankfully, the streak ended on 501 consecutive days of exercising (way better than 499 or even 500!).

The new streak is now up to 2.

the recliner

Sometime around October 19 I woke at 12:30am with this strange aching sensation in my right hip and right knee. It was far from excruciating, but did hurt enough to keep me awake. For hours. So yeah, that first night I wondered if I was going a bit mad…

I had not injured myself. I was sleeping on my left side and the pain was on the right. I could not think of a single good reason for this pain. So it had to be in my sanity slowly slipping away.

In all, I would spend five nights in the recliner. It did kind of help. But I still missed a lot of sleep.

Somewhere around day two, the great Google machine directed my attention to sciatica. And like the proverbial green Oldsmobiles that seem to sprout up after you buy a green Oldsmobile of your own…it seemed everyone I talked to either had sciatica or they had a sciatica story. I learned about golfball therapy and tennis ball therapy and yoga stretches. Even Ted Lasso mentioned it when he climbed off the riding mower!

I am happy to report that my first visit to the chiropractor on 10/25 had me sleeping in my own bed again. I doubt I will ever eradicate the sciatica completely. But if I behave myself during the day (stretches, good posture, healthy diet), I’m hoping I can skip the recliner at night.

updates

NaNoWriMo – I just passed the 10,000 word mark. The project is a novelization of a short story of mine called “All Healed Up.” The 10,000th word in my manuscript is the word “heal.” I thought that was pretty cool.

Exercise – 497 consecutive days of exercise

Bed vs. Recliner – A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to the wonderful world of sciatica! I would wake every night around 2am with this delightful pain in my right hip. So I ended up sleeping in a recliner for five nights until I made it to the chiropractor. Thankfully, I’m back to sleeping in bed. Only now I sleep with a pillow tucked between my knees.

Stories published/submitted – I have seventeen stories submitted in various places, hoping a few will find a home.

my favorite headphones

It came to may attention a few years ago that I didn’t hear so well out of my left ear. This obviously made headphones sound unbalanced and muffled. While killing time in an airport I tried on a pair of conduction headphones…and I bought them on the spot.

I have since broken three pairs of conduction headphones. And I waste no time in replacing them.

Instead of filtering all the sound through each bud and directly into your ears, the sound is conducted via the bones just outside my ears. There are several benefits to this;

-Balance – now when I’m listening to something in stereo, I’m actually able to enjoy the stereo effect. With conduction, the sound in my left ear is nearly as good as the sound in my right, both in volume and tone.

-Surroundings – since nothing enters or blocks my ears, I can hear my surroundings. So when I’m out jogging I can hear cars before I see them. At airports I can still hear announcements and various sounds around me while I’m on a phone call or listening to an audiobook or music.

-Hands-free – they obviously sound good, but the built-in microphone works equally well. So I can talk on the phone while driving or exercising or pretending not to stare at people out in public.

nice surprise

Just received an email that a story of mine was just published at Every Day Fiction.

It’s called Foibles.

And can be found HERE.

2nd best thing someone ever said about my writing

“It made me laugh and cry on the same page.”

I never was able to get that nice person to point to that particular page…

new story at flash fiction magazine

The very nice people at Flash Fiction Magazine accepted a story of mine called Umbilical.

It posted today. Please take a look. And if you are so inclined, leave a comment.

For more of my stories, please click HERE.

Thank you!

Umbilical: https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2021/10/25/umbilical/

Stories: https://michaelsnyderwrites.wordpress.com/stories/

books on writing

Below are the books on writing that I still own.

It is indeed a lot of books. And it took a long time to read them all. If I were a smarter man, I would be able to tell you what’s inside the covers of each every one…or even most of them. And I suppose I do have notions of each. But mostly I read them with a great deal of intensity, underlining and rereading like a fiend, even refer to them later. But I try not to turn any of them to dogma. I think of it more like swimming around in each one for a while to see what sticks.

I just recently started the audio version of Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. So far, it’s brilliant.

1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts	Ryan Andrew Kinder
20 Master Plots	Ronals Tobias
5 Secrets of Story Structure	KM Weiland
A Dangerous Profession	Frederick Busch
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain	George Saunders
Acceptable Words	Schmidt and Stickney
Alone With All that Could Happen	David Jauss
Art & The Bible	Francis Schaeffer
Before We Get Started	Bret Lott
Beginnings, Middles, and Ends	Nancy Kress
Bird by Bird	Anne Lamott
Book Architecture	Stuart Horowitz
By Cunning & Craft	Peter Selgin
Characters & Viewpoint	Orson Scott Card
Consider This	Chuck Palahniuk
Craft In the Real World	Matthew Salesses
Creating Characters	Dwight Swain
Creating Short Fiction	Damon Knight
Creative Character Arcs	KM Weiland
Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers	Stanley Elkin
Damn Fine Story	Chuck Wendig
Dynamic Characters	Nancy Kress
Elements of the Writing Craft	Robert Olmstead
Fiction	Michael Seidman
First You Write	Joni Rodgers
Flash	John Dufresne
From Where You Dream	Robert Olen Butler
Glimmer Train – Building Blocks	Various.
Glimmer Train – Inspiration and Discipline	Various
Going Short	Nanc Stohlman
Hooked	Les Edgerton
How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead	Ariel Gore
How to Grow a Novel	Sol Stein
How to Publish a Book that People Will Read	Michael Rogan
How to Tell a Story and Other Essays	Mark Twain
How to Write	Richard Rhodes
How to Write a Novel	Nathan Bransford
How To Write Bestselling Fiction	James Scott Bell
If You Want To Write	Brenda Ueland
Letters to a Young Writer	Colum McAnn
Long Story Short	Margot Leitman
Make A Scene	Jordan Rosenfeld
Making a Good Script Great	Linda Seger
Making a Good Writer Great	Linda Seger
Making A Literary Life	Carolyn See
Meander Spiral Explode	Jane Alison
Murder Your Darlings	Roy Peter Clark
Myth and the Movies	Stuart Voytilla
Naming the World	Various
Negotiating With the Dead	Margaret Atwood
No Plot, No Problem	Chris Baty
Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit	Steven Pressfield
Novelist’s Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes	Raymond Obstfeld
Novelist’s Essential Guide to Creating Plot	J.. Madison Davis
On Becoming a Novelist	John Gardner
On Moral Fiction	John Gardner
On Teaching and Writing Fiction	Wallace Stegner
On Writers and Writing	Margaret Atwood
On Writing	Stephen King
On Writing Fiction	David Jauss
On Writing Well	William Zinser
Outlining Your Novel	KM Weiland
Pep Talks, Warnings, & Screeds	George Singleton
Perfecting Plot	William Bernhardt
Plot	Ansen Dibell
Plot and Structure	James Scott Bell
Plotting and Suspense	Patricia Highsmith
Put the Cat in the Oven Before You Describe the Kitchen	Jake Vander
Ron Carlson Writes A Story	Ron Carlson
Scene and Structure	Jack Bickham
Screenplay	Syd Field
Secrets of Film Writing	Tom Lazuras
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers	Browne & King
Setting	Jack Bickham
Several Short Sentences About Writing	Veryln Klinkenborg
Steal Like An Artist	Austin Kleon
Stein On Writing	Sol Stein
Story	Robert McKee
Story Engineering	Larry Brooks
Story Structure	William Bernhardt
Storycrafting	Paul Dacry Boles
Storyworthy	Matthew Dicks, Dan Kennedy
Super Structure	James Scott Bell
Take Your Pants Off	Libbie Hawker
Telling Lies for Fun & Profit	Lawrence Block
Telling True Stories	Various, Harvard Press
The Anatomy of a Story	John Truby
The Art & Craft of Novel Writing	Oakley Hall
The Art and Craft of Storytelling	Nancy Lamb
The Art of Fiction	John Gardner
The Art of Subtext	Charles Baxter
The Art of the Very Short Story	Charlie Close
The Art of War for Writers	James Scott Bell
The Art of X-Ray Reading	Roy Peter Clark
The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction	Michael Seidman
The Elements of Expression	Arthur Plotnik
The Elements of Style	Strunk & White
The Faith of a Writer	Joyce Carol Oates
The Fiction Editor, Novel, and Novelist	Thomas McCormack
The Fire In Fiction	Donald Maas
The First Five Pages	Noah Lukeman
The Half-Known World	Robert Boswell
The Hero’s 2 Journeys	Michael Hauge, Christopher Vogler
The Lie That Tells a Truth	John Dufresne
The Mind of Your Story	Lenard Cook
The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop	Stephen Koch
The Plot Thickens	Noah Lukeman
The Scene Book	Sandra Scofield
The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver	Syd Field
The Screenwriter’s Workbook	Syd Field
The Secrets of Story	Matt Bird
The Story Grid	Shawn Coyne
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations	Mike Figgis
The War of Art	Steven Pressfield
The Writer’s Idea Workshop	Jack Heffron
The Writer’s Journey	Christopher Vogler
The Writer’s Notebook	Various
The Writer’s Process	Anne Janzer
The Writing Life	Annie Dillard
This Won’t Take But A Minute, Honey	Steve Almond
This Year You Write Your Novel	Walter Mosely
Thrill Me	Benjamin Percy
Turning Pro	Steven Pressfield
Walking On Water	Madeline L’Engle
What If?	Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter
What Would Chekov Do?	Johnn Dufresne
Why Write	Paul Auster
Words Overflown by Stars	David Jauss
Write – 10 Days to Overcome Writers Block	Karen Peterson
Write Your Novel from the Middle	James Scott Bell
Writer’s Workshop in a Book	Various
Writers on Writing	Various
Writing 21st Century Fiction	Donals Maas
Writing Fiction	Janet Burroway
Writing Flash	Fred D. White
Writing Great Fiction	James Hynes
Writing Humor	Ian Bernard
Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular	Rust Hills
Writing Subtext	Elizabeth Lyon
Writing the Breakout Novel	Donald Maas
Writing the Novel	Lawrence Block
You Must Be This Tall to Write	Various
Zen in the Art of Writing	Ray Bradbury