This month, I have written 50,261 words! I will make some confessions about this year’s novel another time, but today, by the power vested in Chris Baty, I am now pronounced a National Novel Writing Month Winner! Huzzah!

Novels can teach you different ways of seeing. You can learn, to a certain, limited degree what it is like to be another person in another place at another time; you can, in a way, experience Nazi Poland through the eyes of a Jew; look through the eyeslots in a great helm at the siege of Acre with the vision of a Crusader; learn the colours of a Martian sunrise with Dr. Ransom.

When you close the book, however, though you may be touched emotionally, you must evaluate the veracity of what you’ve experienced. The purpose of novels is not to challenge beliefs, but to manipulate emotion. As a writer, when you set out to tell a story, your whole purpose is to provoke an emotional reaction in your reader: curiosity, wonder, sadness, anxiety, joy, exultation. If you have done this, your book is a success. Considering this, it would be foolish as a reader to change or adopt any opinion or conviction based on the emotional hocus-pocus in novels. Novels are at their core stories, and stories are written to make your heart pound.

Do I mean that as novelists, we shouldn’t try to persuade? Do I mean that as readers, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be persuaded? On the contrary. I think persuasion is the novel’s highest purpose; there is nothing like being carried away into a seemingly impossible world and believing, for a time, that it’s real. My favourite authors have attempted to gently persuade their readers to consider matters of faith, the relationship between humanity and nature, humanity and God. I suppose what I’m cautioning against is the tendency of some readers to confuse emotion with conviction. In otherwords, allow yourself to be persuaded by a novel, to be swept away by the torrent of words, but as you consider the author’s viewpoint, keep Reason close at hand lest you be converted.

Got my word count for the day and I still have time to watch some Babylon 5. If you have not seen this show yet, I insist that you do. No, I insist. Ignore the crazy hair, if you must, but watch it. It will consume you.

NPR’s Nancy Pearl recently wrote about some Sci-Fi and Fantasy that she considers great in Out Of This World: Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Most of the works are fairly new, but I always like getting a tip on “new classics”. The Name of the Wind also got a favourable review by Michelle West in December’s Fantasy & Science Fiction, so I’m definitely going to give that a look.

Joshua Middleton posted the dust jacket art (and a sketch) for Holly Lisle’s upcoming The Ruby Key, and boy is it pretty! The artwork caught my eye when I added The Ruby Key to my Amazon wishlist, but it’s even more amazing in all its enormous, sparkly glory here.

1) I’ve learned that although writing by the seat of one’s pants may work wonders for getting a manuscript finished, eventually the research does have to come, preferably before I start the mss. Scenes involving the obscure sort of detail I enjoy writing require in-depth knowledge, and although I understand theoretically that it can be added later, it greatly impairs my ability to write anything beautiful when my pages are full of bracketed phrases like “[deadly flower name]“, “[mysterious object from Outer Mongolia]“, “[hero of Norse mythology]“, or what-have-you.

2) I’ve learned that I have a fear of starting and finishing actual drafts. Who knew? I realized I tended to get caught up in planning, sometimes using it as a way to postpone the inevitable, but I didn’t realize that the mere thought of Chiseling It All Down In Cold Stone would render such terror in my soul. I thought I was procrastinating, but now I find that the more words I get down on the page, the more scared I get. I wasn’t always like this. How did it happen? I think that after my initial success at my first NaNoWriMo, when I didn’t like the resulting piece of work (and it was a real piece of work), I became hesitant to get to that stage where your imagination is limited, imprisoned even, by the words you choose and the plotline you pursue. I would delay and delay and delay, and then finally it had been so long since I finished anything I felt proud of, that I could no longer start.

That’s why, even though I hate this project at the moment, and I think it sucks like a Dyson Cyclone, I must continue, just to prove to myself that I can still do it. It needs to sink into my avoidant little brain that actually telling the story is the only way the story can be told.

The trick is to find a balance between lessons 1 and 2. I really do work best with a considerable amount of planning, but when that planning becomes an excuse to remain in the brainstorming phases because writing the story “makes me feel tied down, man”, it’s time to stop. It will take some work and some perspective to figure out where that dividing line is, I guess.

In a recent newsletter, Holly Lisle suggested that we all create five goals for our writing. The rules were that three of the goals had to be something we could accomplish right now, and two had to be future goals that we have less than total control over. The other rule was that they must begin not with “I hope to” or “I want to” or anything similarly namby-pamby, but “I will“. Here are mine:

WRITING GOALS

1. I will finish a 50,000 word YA novel by the end of November.
2. I will create my series world.
3. I will write a solid short story and enter it in a contest.
4. I will sell my first novel to a paying publisher by January 2009.
5. I will be considered for either the Mythopoeic Award or World Fantasy award in five years.

That last one is a bit lofty, isn’t it? Well, that’s my dream so I’m going for it anyway!

When filling out my NaNoWriMo profile I was dismayed to discover that I couldn’t add any new books to the “favourite books” field, and that I haven’t added any in a long time, maybe since the first year I participated in NaNoWrimo. What that means is that it’s been years since I read a novel I really loved, aside from Harry Potter. That is just sad. Clearly, I have not been reading my share.

So, in the interest of doing better next year (since the 50 Books Challenge is a wash this year), I’m taking on another challenge: Annie’s What’s In A Name Challenge.

Those who take the challenge must choose six books to read in a year, each book’s title meeting a certain criteria (the criteria being decided by Annie). The books must be read between January 1st, 2008 and December 31st, 2008. (Check out Annie’s post for more info.) I’ve decided to read three books that are currently sitting unread on my shelves, and three books that I don’t yet own (which means I get to buy more books, heehee!)

MY “WHAT’S IN A NAME?” CHALLENGE LIST

1. A book with a colour in its title.
Scarlet (Book Two of the King Raven Trilogy) by Stephen R. Lawhead.

2. A book with an animal in its title.
Harrowing the Dragon* by Patricia A. McKillip.

3. A book with a first name in its title.
The Grand Sophy* by Georgette Heyer.

4. A book with a place in its title.
A Song For Arbonne* by Guy Gavriel Kay.

5. A book with a weather event in its title.
A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson.

6. A book with a plant in its title.
Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien by Tom Shippey.

*indicates books I already own.

Reading Scarlet will require reading Hood first, book one in the King Raven Trilogy. That’s fine by me since I’m going to take the 50 Books Challenge again next year. Tuck is not going to be out for quite awhile, I hear.

It was pretty tough finding a book I wanted to read with a weather event in the title! I ended up going to the Mythopoeic Society’s list of past Mythopoeic Fantasy Award finalists (a great resource for fantasy). A Midsummer Tempest won the MFA in 1975, yet sadly is out of print. How does that happen anyway?

It is typically obscure of me to choose Roots and Branches as my “plant” book title for this challenge. I’ve wanted to read one of Shippey’s works on Tolkien for awhile now, so I figured this was as good an excuse as any, hehe. This one is a selection of essays.

(via SeasonalPlume.net.)

I picked up the most beautiful book at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, Mapping the World by Michael Swift.

This sizeable book is a trove of world-building inspiration, beginning with an introduction to cartography, major figures of the history of mapmaking, and types of maps. Then come the maps themselves, in chronological order from the medieval Mappa Mundi to maps of the nineteenth century, each page revealing another brilliant jewel fashioned by a master of cartography.

Just flipping through this book makes my inner subcreator want to start doodling. My particular favourite map is the late medieval map of Iceland, volcanos exploding inland, sea monsters raging in the deep around the continent. Imagine waking up each day in a world like that, where you rise in the cold of morning knowing leviathan is real.