h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since this is the last of the November Challenge journal entries, I wanted it to be something actually interesting. Blast and alas, I have been under the weather since Thanksgiving evening and am so full of cold medication that my brain has turned to mush.

I realize that the purpose of writing challenges is to establish the habit of writing on a regular schedule, of which I approve. That old saying that 'writers write' is certainly true. Back in the day when I had illusions of being a writer, I became quite disciplined at it. The trouble was that sometimes life intervenes big time, plans have to be changed and dreams remain illusions, just out of reach.

I hope everyone who has participated in NaJoPoMo has enjoyed it and is encouraged to go forward and continue writing on a regular basis. I firmly believe that talent and ambition won't get you there without stubborn discipline and a certain amount of luck. When I read some of the absolute crap being published, I realize that talent certainly isn't the main ingredient in being published.

I also think that we need to write to please ourselves, not to a formula that we hope will please a publisher or the great unwashed masses. That may be the way to break in, however, so if that's what it takes, do it. Just understand what it is you're doing.

One more observation before I stop pontificating. Get your novel or whatever actually written before you start worrying about an agent or a pen name or copywrite laws or whatever. Even in a place as small as Little DooDah, we have all sorts of people coming in here with plans to write who spend so much time on this sort of thing that they never get around to the writing. They'll check out the Writer's Market and pour over publishers, spend days researching titles and weeks discussing plots. What they don't do is write.

Writers write.

And when they do, they send it to PR or the AWW or ...

(End of gratuitous promotional comment)

Indeed! Long live the AWW and .

Indeed, writers write ... and the rest of us gain from their efforts.

Sound advice. Especially the bit about FINISHING the book first, before getting all wound up in publisher-and-agent hunting and market research.

I quite enjoy a good 'how to write sci fi/ romance novels/ detective fiction' book myself.

Of course, there's always NaNoWriMo for next year...

And so we say to NaJoPoMo...

So long, and thanks for all the s.

s

Hint: Watch the Advent Calendar in . Daily.

Okay, Dmitri, is the Smiley index page going to be updated after the Advent Calendar closes out, or as we go along? Because it looks to me like we have a very busy artist who's pushing the envelope of the HooToo mini-graphics.

B4istartreadingEVERYONESpostingsjust2seeificanspotanewSmiley

You know, I don't know the answer to that question, because they haven't made me do that Smiley Index. And I'm going into hiding before anybody gives me any more work.

Somebody, somewhere, is going to update that index sometime.

But not until they act all hush-hush about the new smileys.

I think most of these people were born too late. They should have been around during the Cold War. They would have given Boris and Nastasha a run for their money.