Over the course of November, many aspiring writers, and current writers who want to flex their authorial muscles, will be taking part in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Their shared target is to write 50,000 words in thirty days, in the hope of having the bulk of a serviceable, editable novel by the end of it.
Now that QlL is planning to publish all 99 Exercises in Song on the site by the end of the year, it seems logical that, with around forty to go, we should at least align ourselves with the magnum opus that is the combined might of NaNoWriMo, even if (a) some of these exercises have already been written and (b) NaNoWriMo unfortunately doesn't itself provide space for such Oulipian experimentation as we're indulging in.
To that end, we intend to release an as-yet unpublished Exercise in Song every day in November 2011, making thirty more Exercises in Song available here by the end of the month. We've still got a lot of writing to do, so it'll keep us busy, but it's a great excuse to knuckle down and be ready to hit the December 31 deadline.
So keep coming back to Quiet little Lies throughout November (or subscribe to the Exercises in Song RSS feed) to indulge in your daily bout of mental exercise; it should keep you alert and motivated as the nights lengthen and winter descends!
The erstwhile contents of Spineless Reviews are now available on QlL: pushing 100 miscellaneous book reviews for your delectation.
Spineless Reviews was always intended as a platform for picking and analysing unusual and interesting items of literature: not just the newest releases, but also books you might find in your local library or secondhand shop; or exclusively online, in esoteric bookshops, on the graphic novel shelves; or even available completely for free as part of Project Gutenberg. They were even serialized for some time in the newsletters of local publishers Reverb, and were hopefully if nothing else an interesting read.
We hope to use QlL as a way to begin publishing such reviews again. In the mean time, if you're new to Spineless Reviews, there's a whole archive to plough your way through. Happy reading, about happy reading.
While I work on new content, I've decided to bring older work into QlL, that for some reason never appeared here at the time. So the more dedicated readers might spot some apparently new bits and pieces appearing that they recognise. It'll tide you over till I pull my finger out, anyway.
QlL has recently moved to a new server. We've been chasing a few missing images and other broken links, and we think we've got all but a handful of glitches ironed out. Please let us know if you see anything broken.
Today we posted all orders for Exercises in Song 2008. That means that they should all arrive in time for Christmas!
If you're interested in having a free print copy of the twenty-five exercises (plus four bonus ones) then you can still order a copy until Saturday 20 December and it should arrive before Christmas.