Aarene @ Richmond Beach Archive.

I've heard a little bit about it, but what IS NaNoWriMo, anyhow?

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.

Yeah....so? What is it?

NaNoWriMo is an organized attempt to encourage people to write a novel...in a single month.

The goal is to get people over the hump of expecting a first draft to be good--because first drafts are never good! Writers who liberate themselves from expectations of goodness are more likely to actually write that first draft...and then, once it's written, they can actually move forward and do some editing and revising and maybe actually FINISH WRITING THE BOOK!

But in November, the whole idea is to just write.  50,000 words is the goal, which results in a 175-page book.

To achieve the 50,000-word goal, writers need to churn out approximately 1600 words per day if they plan to write every day.Or, if folks work weird schedules like me, they can write 4,000 words in a day or two, and then not write a single word for a day or two, and then write more when they have a chance. Remember that it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be written down!

Are there meetings and stuff?

The library system is offering writing workshops, writing coaches, and opportunities for writing support groups to meet in the library throughout the month. The entire list of library system programs for NaNoWriMo is located on our website:http://www.kcls.org/events/nanowrimo.cfm

Participants in NaNoWriMo (we call ourselves "WriMo's" for short) are not required to attend meetings or workshops. The only requirement is registration on the NaNoWriMo website (conveniently called www.NaNoWrMo.org ); participants update their own wordcounts.

There are other regional WriMo events, which can be found on the www.NaNoWriMo.org website. Again, not required.

"Relationships are like waffles.  No matter who is involved, you're always gonna burn the first few."  -- Ron Silvern

The wisdom of Mr. Silvern is certainly reflected in literature, where some of the most inappropriate love affairs in the English-speaking world can be found.  From star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, to Jane Eyre's ill-advised love for that rapscallion Mr. Rochester, to the doomed affair between Winston Smith and the lovely Julia in George Orwell's 1984, readers might conclude that falling in love is sometimes a bad idea.  It does, however, make a great story.

Here are some recent books written for teens that follow the theme of inappropriate love.  The reader sometimes wants to holler at the characters who seem bent on rushing full-tilt into bad situations...but it really does make for a great story.

Let me begin with a popular book about a really inadvisable relationship:

Twilight   by Stephenie Meyer

Now, the male perspective. 

It's a beautiful thing.

For at least 5 years now, with the blessing of my library manager and in cooperation with Shoreline school librarian Mary Jo Heller, of Einstein Middle School, I've been conducting a workshop entitled "SEX IN THE LIBRARY."

Really, the title says it all.

Let me 'splain:

Several years ago, Mary Jo purchased a book called Deal With It :a whole new approach to your body, brain, and life as a gurl.  The book contains information for young adolescent girls about growing up, coping with school, parents, homework, friends, boys, and their own changing bodies.   It also covers some information NOT covered in the school health curriculum.

The health teachers recommended that the middle school library not carry this book.  So Mary Jo called me at the public library.

Some of the information not covered in the school health curriculum is information that kids really want -- and maybe need -- to know.  It was very popular at the public library before the school library pulled it off the shelf...so I ordered extra copies for the public library.

This event started a long dialogue (which evolved into a 50-minute booktalk and workshop) about libraries, and acquisition policies and mission statements.  

We librarians are nothing if not realistic:  nobody wants to attend a workshop about acquisition policies and mission statements.  However, everybody wants to attend Sex in the Library!  

For the past 5+ years, we've presented our workshop about policies and mission statements with concrete examples of books dealing with teen sexuality from the school and the public library collections--focusing on the differences between the school and public library collections and reasons for the difference. 

We talk about the lastest, hottest books written for teens, and we ask for audience input about which books are appropriate for school libraries or public libraries or both--or neither.   We are continually learning from the people who come to learn from us.

We present our SITL booktalks to 8th grade students and their teachers, to the school PTA, to librarian groups, and to anybody else who wants to listen. 

Here's some stuff we've noticed: 

The kids are almost always more conservative than the adults. 

The PTA almost always finds money to amplify the school library budget. 

The librarians walk a

way talking to each other about their own selection policies and mission statements. 

Everyone walks away with at least one new book in mind to read.

Sex in the Library : it's a beautiful thing.

To view the complete list of books from our annotated bibliography, visit the bookblog.

In which we examine through literature various ways that the world falls apart: physically, socially, and emotionally.

Two novels by Susan Beth Pfeffer place central characters in this end-of-the-world scenario:

An asteroid strikes the moon and moves it out of normal orbit...and nothing will ever be normal again. Tides are disrupted. The entire Eastern Seaboard is gone. Broadcast media is disrupted, and gradually stops. Electricity isn't dependable. Long-dormant volcanoes erupt, pouring ash and smoke into the atmosphere.

Within months of the asteroid event, the people of the Earth are faced with starvation, disease...and worse.

In Life as We Knew It (published 2006), Miranda's family hoards food as long as they can. They live in the country, heat the house with wood from the forest in the backyard, and scavenge canned food from the homes of neighbors who have moved south. But what will happen when the food runs out?

Told in a journal format, Miranda's dire situation is a compelling page-turner, and leaves the reader with a new appreciation for life as we know it now.

In the author's companion novel The Dead and the Gone (published 2008) Puerto Rican/New Yorker Alex Morales is orphaned, and must care for his two younger sisters as the city falls apart around them. To find food, clothing, blankets and batteries, Alex ransacks abandoned apartments...and then starts stripping survival essentials from the bodies of the dead.

His faith in God is sometimes a comfort to Alex, but sometimes it becomes a burden as he struggles between feeling guilty over stealing from the dead, and feeling a strong moral obligation to keep his sisters alive.