The Brothers Are Coming and NaNoWriMo

I wanted to take a moment to update you, my blog audience, on some things that are happening, or not happening as the case may be. First, in exactly one week, my brothers will be visiting from the UK!! They are coming for two weeks, and I’m looking forward to it immensely. I am a middle child, which means (for those who haven’t figured it out yet), I have an older brother (by 3 years), and a younger brother (by 7 years… which means he’s only 12–NOT!). My younger brother has visited us a few times, the last being back in March of 2010 when I celebrated a particular birthday milestone. My older brother hasn’t been to the States in over 10 years, so he has nieces he’s never met! The last time I saw him was back in 2005, the last time I was in the UK.

The creative-artsy thing runs in our family. All three of us love music, and play instruments to varying degrees of proficiency. Older brother is the only one that is actually doing the music thing professionally, though. He plays in a couple of bands, and has of late been creating his own versions of well-known (and not-so-well-known) tunes online. We all dabbled with acting back in school, but younger brother has been quite actively pursuing the theater these past few years. A while ago he was in a play with some guy called James McAvoy, and just a few weeks back he played Josef Mengle in a local production of a play called “Angel”–the first time the play had been performed in the UK. And we have all dabbled with writing, but it looks like I’m carrying that torch–at least in terms of novels and such.

Speaking of novel-writing, I have at long last (and about time) decided that I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. My reasons are two-fold. First, with my brothers coming for two weeks, it would be unfair on them, and on NaNoWriMo, for me to commit to writing 50,000 words of a novel while trying to spend quality time with them. Also, while I have some ideas for novels that I could start from scratch for NaNoWriMo, I really need to focus on the WIP. And since the WIP is, well, IP, by the rules of NaNoWriMo I really shouldn’t work on it as part of that challenge (though I know people do that kind of thing). So I will spend my November with my brothers, with some good books, and working steadily on my WIP.

Before I sign off, here are some links for your edification. Older brother has taken the vocal tracks from some well-known songs and created his own arrangements to go with them (kind of like a reverse karaoke).  Here are his renditions of “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, and “Shout” by Tears for Fears. And here is a review from The Hereford Times of the production of “Angel” featuring younger brother. Enjoy!