So I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. Or at least, I'm trying.

And I'm having a great deal of fun planning... and who knows? Maybe, maybe, that flickering dream of a chance will be enough, and hope will become reality -

I love this quote by LeGuin:

Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up.

All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don't be too scary and be sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it. Write down. Right on.

If you do all that you might even write Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and make twenty million dollars and have every adult in America reading your book.

But you won't have every kid in America reading your book. They will look at it, with their clear, cold, beady little eyes, and they will put it down, and they will go away. Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them) but they are not like adults; they have not yet learned to eat plastic.

Incredible, no?

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I'm too old for the term
But I'll use it anyway
I'll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days


~Child of the Winds

Man cenuva lumbor ahosta,
Menel acuna
ruxal' ambonnar,
ear amortala,
undume hacala,
enwina lume
elenillor pella
talta-taltala
atalantie mindonnar?

The old darkness beyond the stars.... Talta-taltala atalantie mindonnar. The Quenya used there, I think, is not entirely translatable - but it is certainly appropriate. Sometimes, recently, I identify with it.

On another note, anyone want to come with me on a road trip over spring break? I'm thinking Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and maybe a few other back-woods places....