A Little About NyanNyan

Well, before we get too far into all of the technical stuff behind writing a novel, I'll have to introduce myself a little further than I did in my previous entry. I just got so excited talking about NaNoWriMo that I didn't find the time to get back into my introduction.

Growing up in Ottawa Canada, I had the privilege of living in a boring government based city where everyone is more focused on Earthly things like money, education, and what your neighbours think of your backyard. This kind of environment has one of two effects on children; they either grow up to be stiff, inflexible people who never deviate from the norms or totally reclusive, but otherwise creative and fairly adventurous people. Obviously, I think norms suck. I hate being restricted and tied to one dream that's set out for me based upon the grades I received in high school and that really expensive piece of paper from university that tells the world I know how to conform, write tests, reports, share with the other children during group work. Bleh. :V

I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think about is writing. Oddly enough, until Grade 12 I had always hated writing; I hated school in general, but English class was agonising for me. Why? Because it was never good enough. Nothing is ever good enough for an English teacher, and more so if it's creative and deviates from their views in any fashion. Can you tell I hated English class?

Surprisingly enough, it was the last English teacher I had in high school who made me love to write. I had never had more encouraging words from someone as I did from this man; Mr. McDonald, who looked like the Colonel from KFC.

Grade 12, 2003: Final English assignement: write two pages, double spaced about any subject you want. Remember what I said about stiffs? You wouldn't believe how many students kept asking what they had to write about, how long it had to be, what font, format, size. I thought my creativity was dropping just from breathing the same air as these people. It's sad when you realise that the rest of your peers have no concept of a dream.

Anyways, back to the story. A couple of weeks later, I received my sixteen page story back from the teacher with a 100% grade. I was ecstatic. What happened later solidified my new love of creative writing. My teacher pulled me aside at the end of class, the last class of the year, and told me to keep writing. He loved my story so much that he was confident that I could become as popular as Rowling one day. I have never been happier in my entire life than I was in that moment. As such, it is my life long goal to share my dreams and that one indescribable feeling with the rest of the world by sharing my stories and art.

This particular story that I wrote for this assignment was something I had started back at the end of Grade 8. It vanished into the back of my mind as I tried to conform to the rest of society and not think differently than other people; I'm different enough as it is. The story resurfaced once in Grade 10 and faded once again as it was rejected by another English teacher.

Ten years after starting that one story, I finally joined NaNoWriMo; ironically for it's tenth anniversary. Now I have a full, new, novel already starting draft three with draft two being a grand total of a 137,890 words. I'm even planning my NaNo2009 Novel already.

So now that we have the story, lets get on with the stuff you really came here for; the NaNo planning, surviving, and goal achieving!