NaNoWriMo Winner!

 Yes, I've won National Novel Writing Month! 50,000 words of a novel over, in my case, 25 days.

What's my reward? Well, bragging rights. Also, I get a novel out of it, and that's no small thing. 99% of all people who attempt to write a novel agree it's horribly difficult to get it finished. The other 1% are friggin' freaks of nature.

This is the fourth time I finished a novel rough draft in thirty days or fewer, so by now I'm pretty sure I can do it. This one was different in couple of ways, though:

First, it's, it's a sequel to a novel that hasn't been published yet, Fire On Mist Creek. The original one, also a romantic comedy, remains in the hands of a very big publisher of romance novels. Unfortunately, after asking for the full manuscript, the editor has had it so long the odds of them buying it are vanishingly slim.

The other unusual thing is that this story is my first novel set during a holiday, specifically Christmas, which you probably figured from the title. Christmas novels are popular among romance readers; on the other hand, I assume their popularity is limited to a certain time of the year.

 I shot for a 60,000 word manuscript, but it looks like the story will end up at barely 55,000. That's okay for some romance publishers, but by most standards falls short for a novel. That's something I'll worry about later, when I have the whole thing finished.

So, how do I celebrate? By starting the editing process, of course. One mistake NaNoWriMo participants often make is to immediately start shipping their book around to agents and editors. Unless you're a savant, 50,000 words in 30 days leaves you with a rough draft ... very rough. Mine needs editing. I'll make four or five passes at least, before it's ready. That's the job.

I'll probably polish up the first scene and put it in the newsletter, so people will have an idea of what to expect. When will the whole thing come out? Well ... some Christmas yet to come. That, also, is the job.

 

(But don't forget our other books are available as gifts THIS Christmas!)

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

 

The Real First Thanksgiving, More Or Less

 Thanksgiving in America continues to be one of the most traditional holidays. It still features the original four hundred year old activities of overeating, football, and complaining about Black Friday.

In the Hunter household, as in all of Indiana and much of the world that’s not outside this country, we battle the overeating. How? By serving food that the rest of the year we hate. Stuffing stuff. Cranberry things. Pumpkin anything. It was good enough for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians, who the Pilgrims politely invited to share a meal in the new home they’d just stolen from the Wampanoag. The Indians brought a housewarming gift of deer, mostly because they didn’t want to eat cranberries or pumpkin.

But what was actually served at that original celebration? And did they really all sit down at long tables outside, in New England, in November? That’s a recipe for a nice heaping helping of frostbite.

The first Thanksgiving was a three day event, leaving one day each for the meal, football, and shopping. The Pilgrims were naturally dismayed to discover no mall or Wal-Mart in sight. Rumor had it there was a Target down the road, but both the trip and the name were a bit more dangerous at the time. They compensated by throwing another feast that third day, during which they discussed the football.

Roadside food was different, back then.

Governor William Bradford sent four men on a fowling mission beforehand. We don’t know for sure what they brought back, but it might have been turkey. It also might have been ducks, geese, or swans, which explains the song they invented about the meal and the entertainment. If it hadn’t taken so much time to memorize it, the song would have been “The Twelve Days of Thanksgiving”. That would have turned our holiday world upside down.

Why are game birds called “fowl”? Because they had no refrigeration. It was a warning: “Eat it fast, before it’s fowl!”

On a related note, this has carried over into football, which during the first Thanksgiving was so primitive it was watched on a black and white TV, with no remote control, or blimp. Whenever a player gets caught doing something that stinks, it’s called a foul. The spelling was changed during the Great Depression, when a letter shortage caused double U’s to be singled.
           
There was indeed an abundance of cranberries at the First Thanksgiving, mostly because the Natives used them as dye. (Good dye, although it tended to run in the washing machine.) By then the Pilgrims had run out of sugar, so there was no cranberry sauce or relish or anything cranberry. That’s one of the things they were thankful for.

Potatoes were … absent. The Spanish had discovered them in South America, but they weren’t popular with the English yet. Instead they probably had seafood—lobster, clams, oysters, all that stuff you find on the Thanksgiving menu today. Actually, these days the closest we get to that is either oyster dressing, or “see? Food!”

Pumpkin? Absolutely: in their pie, their coffee, donuts, milkshakes … kidding—Starbucks didn’t deliver. They did have pumpkins, but no butter or flour for any kind of crust. They may have hollowed out the pumpkins, filled the shell with milk, honey, and spices, and roasted them in hot ashes.

I’m not making this up. I get paid to do this research.

I'm celebrating as fast as I can!

I’m sure you’re all wondering what kind of beer they washed all this down with. I mean, Sam Adams, right? That’s the state beverage of Massachusetts. But no, it turns out they hadn’t had time to make beer, and didn’t yet have apples for cider, so they drank water. This helps explain all those Pilgrim paintings with dour expressions.

Add this to native foods like plums, grapes, leeks, and squash, and you get … *gasp* … a meal that’s good for you! It turns out health food nuts aren’t a new thing; it’s just that back then it was involuntary.

Interestingly, I found no reference from historical records about stuffing being served at the first Thanksgiving. I suspect the Pilgrims planned it, until the Wampanoag heard about the idea:

“So, once we get the birds ready, we’ll mix old bread crumbs and tasteless vegetables together, throw a bunch of spices on them, and stuff them up the fowl butt. Instant side dish!”

“Um … we’ll just take our smallpox blankets and go.”

Imagine how they reacted to fruitcake.

 

I would be personally grateful if you made my black Friday green.

 Find our books at:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

It Is the Veteran

 

 

 

"It is the
VETERAN,
not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote." 

 

Elections and Toilets

 

My son-in-law Vince replaced our malfunctioning toilet with a brand new one tonight, for which I'm very grateful (as you might imagine).

On a related note, there's an election coming up tomorrow. Ordinarily, in mid-term elections the party occupying the White House does badly. I have a feeling, though, that this time around the Democrats are going to do pretty well on a national level. That's not a hope or an offer to debate, just a semi-educated guess.

Whether you prefer the toilet or the urinal, please get out there to vote. Political offices are like toilets: They should be flushed often, or they'll start to stink. And no, it doesn't matter if they're number one or number two.

 

Looks like the Congressional Lavatory got another renovation.

 

Even Losers Can Win With NaNoWriMo

You won't hear much from me in November, although my regular blogs will continue with stuff already written and saved. Why? I've decided to once again compete in National Novel Writing Month, with the intention of losing.

It's a throwback to my high school days in Physical Education class, something I excelled in losing ... in. I did become adept at finding hiding places around the gym. Under the bleachers was always popular with us nerd types.

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo to save typing fingers, has its own official website. My account is here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/mark-r-hunter. Guess I'd better update it. The idea is to write an entire novel--or at least, 50,000 words of it--in one short month, which happens to be November. Why November?

Why not?

It's not the best month, what with American holidays and all. I would have picked January. What else is there to do in January? Go outside? Ha.

A bigger question: Why do it at all?

Some writers start that Great American Novel, but never finish. Maybe they peter out because they don't manage their time well, or get sidetracked. Maybe they're the type who edit so obsessively they never finish that first chapter, page, or, in extreme cases, sentence. They go over it again and again, and in the end ... don't end.

But the first draft is allowed to suck. Nobody else has to see it, ever. NaNoWriMo is designed to be that butt kick that forces writers to forge through and finish their first draft. They don't have time to edit: To make fifty thousand words in thirty days they have to write almost 1,700 words a day! Go to it, get that first draft done, and edit later.

My own writing habit is to sit down and go over what I wrote last time, to get me back into the groove, and I do usually edit then. Just the same, I've won NaNoWriMo three times: With Summer Jobs Are Murder (formerly Red Is For Ick, and don't I regret that), Fire On Mist Creek, and The Source Emerald. Since then all three of those novels have been edited, polished, and are trapped in submission hell.

(No, I don't think my NaNo projects are cursed.)

So, I'll stick to the habits that worked with me in the past. As a result, I'll consider myself lucky to get 40,000 words done, but I know from experience that once I get that far, I'll be able to power though and finish--maybe in January. And honestly, any writer who takes their shot, works hard, and emerges with something to show for it, wins NaNoWriMo no matter how many words they get in..

What's my new book about? It's a holiday-themed romantic comedy: Christmas on Mist Creek.

Yes, that's right: I'm writing a sequel to a book that hasn't even been published yet.



 Find our books at:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

Sometimes you have to write wherever you can.

 

Remember, every time you pass on a book, a typesetter loses his case. Don’t cause all-caps.