The End of November

November is over. NaNoWriMo is over. It was such an intense and amazing experience - not just the writing, that had its up and downs, but the community of Diving Deeper NaNoWriMo'ers. About 15 of us did the whole thing, and that includes achieving the 'winning' status of 50 000 words. Several achieved that amount waayyy before the deadline, in fact Leigh-Anne (quietlaughter) did it in 10 days and Ayla shortly afterwards. (Leigh-Anne created the wonderful collage below). What was so wonderful was how everyone 'showed' up, supporting each other and sharing their process.



The only time I've experienced something similar is during spiritual retreats. A level of vulnerability and openness and caring. while engaged fully on a personal journey. If you take a look at our daily threads on DD you will see what I mean (eg Day Thirty). We had nearly 2000 posts in a month on the nanowrimo board.

Because of the amazing achievement of the group as a whole, the NaNoWriMo team asked me to talk a little bit about the group - the interview is here. Several people read that piece and joined Gaia just to sign up!

I did get the 50 000, and carried on writing. It wasn't always easy by any means. I had a workshop in Amsterdam mid month, which was spent largely battling a fairly serious gum infection.

But, thanks to my dogheaded stubbornness and competitive nature, I did it in 17 days. So far I have about 75 000 of something, I'm not sure what it is. It's not finished yet.  Draft title, "Only God, My Dear" (from Yeats) If you want to ruin your eyes you can read what I wrote during the month, it's here under 'novel info' - be warned, it's chick lit and completely unedited. I thought I might swing for 'Literary Fiction' but it's not, it's pure, unrestrained chick lit.

The rest of the time I was with our gang on DD, (apologies to the rest of Gaia, just not enough of me to go around...)

...or listening to Rai ...." a form of folk music, originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s and has been primarily evolved by women in the culture. Raï literally means opinion but is colloquially used as an interjection along the lines of "oh, yeah!""

Here are three of my favourite YouTubes.

The great  Khaled, also known as 'Cheb Khaled' singing the beautiful 'Abdel Kader' with the politically engaged Rachid Taha and up-and-coming Rai superstar Faudel in what must have been an amazing show in Paris in 1999, called 1, 2, 3 Soleils:



Rachid Taha singing Barra Barra, which you may recognize from the film 'Black Hawk Down':



And again, Rachid Taha singing one of my favourites, Ya Rayah:




This next one is worth watching for Rachid Taha's amazing Oud player, Hakim Hamadouche in the first part of the video, "Yames" (which I'd love to find on CD, but can't. If anyone knows where I can get it let me know). Hakim sings beautifully and should, I think, be heading up his own show. Rachid Taha comes on later, rather the worse for wear. I've been trying to find out how he got from being the man in the above videos to this one. He apparently has muscular dystrophy, and certainly he drinks. He's still a star, but it makes me sad to see him like this.