Ready, Set...GO! 3-Day Novel Contest, Here I Come!

Only two weeks left before the International 3-day Novel Writing Contest compels contestants to write a novel in THREE DAYS! The contest begins at midnight on Saturday, September 3rd, and ends at 11:59pm on Monday, September 5th. The contest is an annual event and has been running thirty-four years strong based on an honour system which allows contestants to write from anywhere in the world with the single rule that they write within the given time frame. No Big Brother looking over our shoulders. Just the assumption that we're honest folk up for the challenge.

The entrants come from all walks of life and represent a host of nationalities. Some are amateur writers hoping to create their own Harry Potter fantasy in a hundred pages, while others are emerging and established masters of the written word aiming to write a manuscript to tweak for a year or two. Winning the contest wouldn't be so bad either.

I'm participating for the second time in a row. Last year, I got my feet wet and learned just how much stamina it took to write a novel in such a short amount of time. I only got to a sad fifty pages and the story needed quite a bit of editing and a whole lot more STORY! This year, my aim is to reach that one hundred page goal. One hundred pages is the average number of pages that can be madly written within three days. Contestants are allowed to write an outline before the literary shindig begins, so I've been doing a lot of brainstorming, but no masterpiece has come up in my empty head just yet. The key would be to write about something I already know with a simple plot and a small number of characters. Any suggestions? Other, more ambitious writers might write stories with all kinds of plot twists and an endless battery of names and places that keep the reader running through the pages to catch up with all the thrills and excitement. Three-day participants can communicate amongst other over-caffeinated brothers and sisters in the struggle in a forum specially set up on the 3DN website during the event. But be careful...mustn't spend all your time comparing notes and page numbers. There's a story to be written!

What's great about the contest is that every contestant's entry will be read by the judges. First place prize is publication. I have a copy of last year's winning book: TERRORYAKI by Jennifer K. Chung. I can understand why her book's a winner: good writing, strong characters, and a good dynamic plot that keeps us turning the pages. The ingredients of the story include a few tablespoons of the paranormal, some teaspoons of Taiwanese culture and tradition, a generous amount of food lingo and comedy, and a pinch of romance. I also have the novel written by Mark Sedore, the 2009 winner. SNOWMEN is a daring adventure tale of one man's death-defying journey on foot across the Arctic as his bed-ridden brother tries to sabotage his goal. Sedore really captures the landscape and climate of the Arctic in his descriptive prose. I found out that he had spent some time up north and in Iceland to get a sense of what it would be like to live in the frigid cold. He did his research in advance and was rewarded for it.

Hmm...so what kind of story should I write? A fantasy rom-com? A space-age thriller? A racy whodunnit? A Jane Austen-like classic? A nihilistic horror? A fictionalized memoir? Of course, I should write a story I would enjoy writing because it would totally suck if I spent all but one of the three days writing and discarding every beginning and never getting to the meat and potatoes of the process. Outline! Outline! That's the beauty of the contest. It helps you get started on something, and writers wanna be startin' somethin', right? Well, I'm up for the challenge! How about you? Registration is open til September 2nd. Check out the link below for more information.

I know I ain't no Margaret Atwood, or Toni Morrison, or J. K. Rowling, or Salman Rushdie, but I do know I'm a contestant in the 34th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, and that's a start. A HUNDRED PAGES IN THREE DAYS OR BUST! Here I go...again.

http://www.3daynovel.com/

Blank Page

There's a blank page in front of me.
How to transform that blank page?
I await wit and great insight.

Seconds speed by.
Minutes don't stop to ask why.
And after the hour has run its record-breaking marathon...

There's a blank page in front of me.
Through the maze of word searches
My cerebellum forsakes Zeus.

Seconds speed by.
Minutes don't stop to ask why.
And after the hour has run its record-breaking marathon...

There's a blank page in front of me.
Sad songs are the elixir
To unleash truth and glory in rhyme.

But alas! Seconds race by.
Minutes never stop to ask why.
And after the hour hurdled its share of Himalayas...

There's a blank page in front of me!
Visualizing genius!
Deepak Chopra just lost his job!

Sigh...

Seconds snooze.
Minutes pass gas.
And the hour? The hour sprinted all the way to Olympia several days ago.

To Really Listen is to Really Accept

Lake Couchiching - view from YMCA Geneva Park

I attended a brilliant workshop this past weekend on the art of listening. Listening is a skill that requires constant adjustment depending on the situation. We all have good listening days and bad listening days, and we all have a tendency to listen more to people who we're either closest to or who can do us a favour. There are those rare moments with a stranger on the bus, whose story peaks our interest.

For this particular workshop, the participants were a group of diverse individuals of friends, acquaintances, and people getting to know each other for the first time. Some participants were seated in an inner circle and others were seated in an outer circle facing the inner circle participants, so we each had a partner. The outer circle would rotate after each conversation was completed.

The workshop facilitators asked us the first question to commence the first stage of the activity. Those in the inner circle were given the chance to respond to the question while we in the outer circle were supposed to listen without saying a word. The exercise was pretty challenging, as my natural reaction to someone telling me about their experiences and/or feelings is to nod or utter phrases to show I'm listening and making an effort to understand them. In fact, my behaviour is not necessarily good listening, as it might involve the listener thinking in her head what kind of response would be appropriate, which distracts her from really paying attention to the speaker. We then switched roles and those in the outer circle became the speakers. Different questions were thrown our way as we rotated to listen/speak to another participant. The facilitators would interrupt every now and then to remind the listeners not to speak.

The second stage involved the listener being given the chance to ask two questions to the speaker in order to gain a better understanding of the speaker's experience. The rule this time was not to ask any questions beginning with 'why'. Why? Because the word 'why' has a negative connotation attached to it with the implication that the listener is sort of cross-examining the speaker rather than showing genuine concern. Point taken! We asked all the how, what, where, and who questions we could think of!

During the third stage, the listener had to reflect in their own words what the speaker had just said back to the speaker. We only had a bit of time to do this, so the reflection became more of a hurried list of what we had heard than a meaningful response. I thought what took place between my partner and I was quite interesting. As we reflected each other's stories, we put in our own analysis of what might have caused those emotions and/or experiences. I guess that could be a form of indirect advice, which we were not allowed to do in this workshop, but both of us seemed to enjoy the other person's take on our unique situations.

Another aspect of the workshop was the inclusion of touch therapy. As we listened and spoke, we had to place the palms of our hands face up and the speaker would place his/her hands on ours face up. When roles were switched, so were the positions of the hands. Although some people may have a problem with this since not everyone is comfortable with being touched, what the action did was to secure our attention to each other. The hands linked us and brought our heads closer to each other, so that we remained each other's sole focus. It was a bit tiring after the constant rotations, but was far better than having a table or some other barrier separating one from the other.

Overall, what I learned is that listening is a dynamic multi-faceted skill that involves a harmonious balance of silence, body language, and voice. Both the speaker and the listener have a responsibility to each other: the speaker has to articulate what they are feeling/thinking/experiencing and the listener has to respond without judgment, which is not always an easy path to choose, but if we remind ourselves that once we were in the same boat or that we might someday be in the same boat, we can accept the speaker's situation with more compassion.

Regardless of who is actually speaking, people are always listening to each other as they pick up cues on what the other person is thinking by way of body language. We know when a person really cares about us and when they don't. Likewise, people know when we care about them and when we don't. Hopefully, the more we are aware of the way we choose to listen or not to listen, the more attentive we will be to others, and also to our own inner voices.

I learned a lot about listening in this workshop and am thankful to the facilitators, Linah Hashimi and Siddharth Akali, who organized it for all the participants on this special weekend getaway. They presented the workshop with a youthful brand of professionalism and sensitivity. These two bright young facilitators proved they had the talent and the knowledge to connect with a multi-generational and multi-ethnic group of individuals. At the end of the workshop, they opened the floor to feedback and accepted our comments with respect and humility. They listened.

To really listen is to accept people as they are. We are all on the same healing journey to become closer to the realm of compassionate consciousness and to our own potential. When we find people who give us their time and genuine attention, we feel like we matter.

In Oprah's words:
"Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say matter to you?"

Yes, it does, because every emotion you are experiencing, I too am experiencing, have experienced, or will experience. Our situations might be different, but we're all part of the same continuum of being human.

What Happens When We Die

I've been thinking about this for the past few days, as I read through headlines of all the people getting killed by the violence in our world. I wanted to create some peace around their deaths and then looked outwards towards the cosmos. I reflected on what the cosmos might actually signify. I came to a personal conclusion that at the time of death, each of our spiritual guides comes to us to comfort us and to help us forget the tragic circumstances in which we met our end. Our spiritual guide breathes in the love energy back into us and turns us into stars in the cosmos that reflect the light of love back on earth, encouraging all species, especially the human species, to love. This is my poem...

When we die, our personal guide appears.
When we die, our personal guide steers us clear of danger.
When we die, our personal guide makes us forget just how we died.
In the end, it doesn't really matter because love was meant to be scattered.

When we die, our personal guide takes us in their arms.
When we die, our personal guide tells us we're away from all harm.
When we die, our personal guide comforts and renews the joy inside.
In the end, it doesn't really matter because love was meant to be scattered.

When we die, our personal guide transforms us back.
When we die, our personal guide puts us on track.
When we die, our personal guide says there's nothing left to hide.
In the end, it doesn't matter because love was meant to be scattered.

When we die, our personal guide wipes clean the events in our lives.
When we die, our personal guide transforms us into stars, brilliant, free of strife.
When we die, our personal guide takes us on a cosmic ride.
In the end, it doesn't matter because love was meant to be scattered.

In the end, it doesn't matter because our love was meant to be scattered.

When we die, what we did on earth is no longer our truth in memories.
When we die, we are the stars that watch over the galaxies.
When we die, the bright, luminous stars we are send out love to all that is life.
In the end, it doesn't matter because our love was meant to be scattered.

You, who are on earth now, look up, up, up, to the cosmos,
When you've swallowed the bitter pill of life and feel the sorrow,
Look up, up, up, to the shining stars who were once your brethren,
We are always here to remind you to love again.

You, who are still alive, have a chance.
You, who are still alive, dance, dance, dance.
Together, share together, love together, as sister, brother, one another, each other, and with the other.

In the end, it doesn't matter because our love was meant to be scattered.

Don't Worry, Be...

...LIEVE. We are allowed to believe in and pursue our dreams. Even though others might think we're crazy or might resent us for following a less orthodox path, what we think of ourselves is really the key.

The people who know us and see our flaws and the madness of our pursuits, yet still love us all the same, are our guides, our supporters, and our healers. We can be inspired by how they live their lives and be encouraged when they achieve their dreams.

They don't always have to be right by our side 24-7, but they are always there just because they know who we really are, and that's what matters.

Keep believing. Never give up on what your heart wants the most. Even if we never get what we want, let's continue to reach for it. We will always give our very best to the world and to ourselves if what we want is worth trying for.

We all deserve what we want, no matter how crazy those wishes may be. No one has a right to judge what anyone else wants. Sometimes what we want is in conflict with what someone else wants. Instead of fighting about it, we can challenge ourselves by exploring our intentions and motivations and test our adaptiveness to the situation. When we are at peace, we can see more clearly. In this way, we can change. We can move in new directions that can also bring us closer to what we want, but in a different form.

We have to adapt. We have to evolve. We have to be open to the possibilities the universe presents us. We have to believe in our dreams but also understand that achieving our dreams is not the result of a lifetime of effort, but another door that opens to newer dreams.

It is my hope that the dreams I have will lead me to Love. Love that is all-encompassing and compassionate. Love that accepts the uncertainty of the universe and adapts. Love that brings me closer to God. Love that is unified, strong, and effortless.

Whatever my dreams are as a writer and a musician, may these dreams continue to lead me along the path of Love and to Love.

Don't worry, BELIEVE.