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The following entries were originally published at An Island Where No One Lives. They were adapted for inclusion here.
National Novel Writing Month is a competition sponsored over at NaNoWriMo.Org and run by one Chris Baty. The rules are simple: during the month of November, contestants have thirty days to write a 50,000 word novel. A participant cannot use a pre-existing work, though outlines and sketches and such are allowed. You have to reach 50,000 words by November 30 to win, though I'm unclear whether or not the story has to be completed at that time. Word-count appears to be the primary goal. There is no judging of works, or prizes awarded; each participant who competes and completes gets only the satisfaction of having accomplished something.
I suffer from a severe case of Writer's Block. I haven't been able to do much more than doodle on my fictional works for over six years now. So I figured I had nothing to lose, and signed up. For some time, I had a vague concept that might form the backbone of a fictional work, and I decided to use that.
That concept was this. Set in a fantasy world (approximating seventeenth-eighteenth century Earth, with some differences in the details), a cabin boy on a ship is our witness as a mysterious stranger hires his vessel. They travel to the edge of the world, where it is revealed that this is a book, the stranger the author, and he has come to end his works.
Only a little of that survived the first few minutes of writing--we had the stranger and the voyage and that was it. The cabin boy was still there, but he was no longer the point-of-view character. The overly precious ending, which would never work (at least not in my hands), was the first to go. Which meant I had no ending. But since I barely had a beginning, and wasn't really expecting 50 words (to say nothing of 50 thousand), I wasn't particularly worried.
The following are my blog entries for November, 2005, detailing my attempts to compete in National Novel Writing Month, presented as they appeared with no post editing (other than spelling correction). I had thirty entries, usually one for each day, but sometimes a day would overlap. Enjoy, and by all means, try NaNoWriMo for yourself!
_____________________
_____________________
Current word count: 3060.
Eh. I still think it is largely garbage, and will probably go into the
permanent collection at the Statue of Corrupted Endeavor's Memorial Library.
And I still don't feel the block lifting. Maybe it will. Who knows? Many
thanks for the encouraging words from all parties, by the way. Which begs a
tad of an explanation.
Anyone who has read any of my entries, here or elsewhere, or my massive
movie reviews or whatnot, will wonder how in the heck I can say I suffer
from Writer's Block. My Gosh, he just blathers on endlessly about all
kind of junk. If he's got Writer's Block, Frankenstein is my great aunt
Tilly.
Well, have you spoken to your aunt lately? There is a difference.
Obviously, there's nothing preventing me from moving my fingers across a
keyboard. No problem there. I'm sure I could, like Jack Torrence, write
"All work and no play" etc over and over in a fine simulacrum of
formatted text, and I could keep doing that until I had 50,000 words.
But is that a novel? No. It does fulfill the physical requirements, though.
I am racking up word count. But I'm not writing, I'm typing. And the line
between writing and typing, believe it or not, is a subtle one.
Case in point: in my NaNoWriMo project, two characters were going to agree
to a contract. However, my inner editor suddenly made one character reject
the offer. Why? I think the reason was, I could stretch it out a bit more if
I threw that in. Now, in a sense, it worked because it allowed me to deepen
some things and detail the situation. But I wonder how much of what I wrote
was simply typed to add word count. Who knows? It may turn out to be a key
passage. (I have, as of now, done almost no revising. I have a feeling the
best revision would be Edit, Select All, Delete, Save.)
When I write, I want the writing to matter to me. I want
the writing to be good, to be something where I might consider reading
it (if I weren't the author). And I definitely don't want to see the
machinery. I recall reading a Dean Koontz book a couple of years ago.
Somewhere early on, he had his protagonist walk through a neighborhood, and
Koontz started detailing the architecture of the houses. I could see
immediately what Koontz was up to--he was padding. I
started seeing more and more of it, and I eventually put the book down about
a hundred pages in and never picked it up again. It just felt as if none of
the events were important at all. That is, I think, one of the dangers of an
artificial deadline. Rather than stop when the book is done, you
stop when you reach a certain word count or your time runs out.
Those of you who write regularly know that when the writing is going well,
when you're pounding out prose for hours at a time, there's no feeling in
the world like it. Raw creativity is pouring out of you, and you're caught
up in it, and you really feel you're creating something.
I'm not feeling any of that. Will that come? Good question. There may be
some kind of conceptual breakthrough, when I realise what the heck my
characters are actually up to. And perhaps what the heck I'm up to.
_____________________
_____________________
Current word count, 10AM: 4949.
(I seem to like stopping at these kinds of numbers. Probably some childhood
trauma.)
What worries me is I still have no idea what the aim of these
characters is. The concept for the story is one I'd had floating
around in the back of my throat for some time, though the ultimate end of
that (a shaggy dog story, in essence) probably won't work. The problem then
becomes, What will work?
Current word count, 1:30PM: 5560.
Well, something unexpected happened. While lying on the couch, I
thought of something I could toss into the story that would engage the
atmosphere a bit and throw some details of this world at the reader.
I figured it would be pretty gratuitous, but it wouldn’t last long and
would have a bit of imaginative suspense to it.
So, imagine my surprise when a way of tying it into the main story
presented itself. Of course, I grabbed that with both hands
and wove it in.
As Henry mentions in his
latest entry, the writing is really going well when the story seems to
write itself, and all you have to do is stand out of the way and keep up the
typing. That’s not happening yet, with me, but at least the
story doesn’t seem to be standing in its own way, now. Rather
than simply flail at it with strings of words, it seems to be developing.
Cool. Still hard as mud to write it, every typing session I feel
like I’m wading through weeds with every stroke..
I still think it unlikely this will end up good, no matter how often or
sharply edited it is, but at least there seems to be some flow, here.
I’ll be happy if it ends up done, good or not. I’m hoping,
though, that it won’t start to seem a burden. Oh God,
I’ve got to work on that thing.
Of course, if it does, I can always abandon it. Writing is
already hard enough; there’s no point in making it painful as
well.
_____________________
Word Count: 7207
This is nice…for the first time, word count (in thousands) is more than
the date (the 6th).
I also seem to have a better idea of what these characters are about. The
overall plan still hasn’t revealed itself to me, but there does seem to be
a building-up of some kind, an accumulation of detail.
Of course, I am only about a seventh of the way toward 50,000 words, so
I’ve got to widen the net, so to speak. But, I am starting to feel ideas
flow. Today at the swimming pool, as I was doing laps I kept losing count
(of the laps) because ideas for scenes would keep occurring to me. Again,
that’s probably a good thing, but it would be nice if the muse waited
until I could, you know, write things down. I wonder if they make a
waterproof laptop?
* * *
Curious. I was thinking over what I’d written today, and noted another bit
of “colorful addition” to make the world more complete for the (cough)
reader, when I had another of those bits of information which could make
this relevant to the (cough) plot. So I stuck that in, and was typing along
nicely. Which brings me to this:
Word Count: 8411
Huh, how about that.
* * *
Of course, I just now went back and wrote some more.
Word Count: 8922
Yeah, this is great and all but it’s…it’s past midnight now and I have
to work tomorrow….
I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe the block has lifted. And it
did so without a bang or a parade or anything other than a quiet rolling
over. I’m not baking a cake yet, but it just might be.
Once the NaNoWriMo project is over and done, I’ll have to dig out some of
my other works and see if I can actually write some more for them. Because
really, that’s the important work, I think. I hope. I mean, I still
don’t even know what this story is about! It only said at the
NaNoWriMo rules that this had to be something new, it couldn’t be an old
MS that one had lying about in a dusty trunk.
* * *
Later that same night:
Word Count: 9776
Okay, I really have to go to bed now. It’s 12:40, for crying out loud. Of
course, I’ll probably toss all night, thinking of ideas and such. I guess
that’s a good thing. It certainly could be worse.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 11,040.
I’m really pleased that the muse has decided to pop on over on occasion.
But it would be rather nice if her hours were a wee bit earlier. Here it is,
12:30AM. It would be much, much nicer if it was 10:30PM.
BO-RING: Of course, I have myself to blame for that, to some degree. One of
my other websites has been experiencing technical difficulties, and tech
support seems baffled. I finally decided to delete the offending folder, and
reload the stuff that was in it to the root. (Which I hate, but never mind.)
Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to see whether I had the graphics readily
available—which I didn’t. That meant poking through sundry CDRs to see
where the errant files might be hiding. As of now, though, the graphics are
back. DULL-DULL-DULL.
None of which makes up for the fact that I’m pretty darn tired, and
tomorrow is a work day as usual.
Again, it’s surprising how I will think of a brief scene that I think
might make the world more colorful and developed, and I’ll almost
immediately think of a way to make it relevant to the narrative. Within that
brief scene, as well, ideas will come where there weren’t any before.
It’s almost (but not quite) to the point where the work writes itself.
I keep getting the picture of George Lucas writing the story for The Empire
Strikes Back. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father,”
he’d type, then think Oh My GOD I have the greatest idea ever!
Not that I’m claiming to write anything as entertaining. Besides, it would
be depressing to write the “Special Edition” later.
As always, many thanks to you all for the encouragement and the kind words.
Sometimes, when I see people who don’t even know each other being nice to
one another over the internet, I think there might be hope for it after all.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 16,161.
To which I can only say…the hell?
How did I go from a few hundred words a day, if lucky, to around 5000 today?
From thinking, “Cool, my thousands are more than the date” to “Cool,
my thousands are double the date” in a normal day? That is just not
natural (for me).
I’m probably dreaming, that’s what it is. Pretty soon I’ll wake up, in
some post-nuclear wasteland where we have to spend our days boiling water
and tending to oozing sores while wondering what went wrong and hiding from
mutants. Man, I hate when that happens. (Mutants know all my cool hiding
places.) "I pulled this off the reptile, it said Type 1, I pulled this
off the David, it said Type 3. Now WHAT OTHER TYPE!"
On a serious note, I cannot thank my Heroic Quartet enough for their
encouraging words. You all know who you are, and it is really touching that
y’all would take time out from your own writing schedules to pat li’l ol’
me on the head and say, “Good job. You did a good job. Now put
down the weapon, please.”
I’m sure if you check your karma bank you will be surprised at your
current balance.
_____________________
Current word count: 19,155
You know what's funny? I hadn't intended to write anything
last night. I was going to take a break and, I dunno, watch a movie or take
up knitting or construct box-girder bridges. Instead, I was up until 2AM
firing plasma weapons into a rotating energy field. I mean, typing, that's
what meant to write.
I can see good and bad in this. Good, because I'm actually working on stuff.
It doesn't seem to be a chore to do so, and I'm getting ideas. Bad, because
it's going to become an obsession. My hands will itch everytime I'm not
using them to type. Someone will say "Good morning" or "Could
you pass the salt" and I'll start thinking, That's perfect. Some
guys who require salt, but there isn't any where they are. How do they get
it? Where is this place, and how did they get there?
As you can see, I'm already doing it. And in that scenario, I
probably didn't pass the salt and the guy got all mad.
This is all quite interesting. I joined the NaNoWriMo thing on a whim,
practically at the last minute, thinking I would end up accomplishing zilch.
I'd be one of those statistics, you know, "Every year about [X number
of] folks sign up for NaNoWriMo, and about [X minus N] actually complete
it." I'd be one of the people in the N group.
Of course, that still might happen. I may run entirely out of gas tomorrow
and screech to a halt. I may be running on fumes even as we speak.
But for now, I'm not in the N group yet.
_____________________
Total word count: 21,521
For the most part, I’ve been writing this linearly, each event leading to
the next. This was largely because I had no idea of where I was going, or
even what was going to happen next or who these people were. As bits started
accumulating, however, they would suggest future bits, which were not ready
to be plugged into the narrative, but were nevertheless floating around like
fruitflies over a diseased and forgotten melon.
Ahem. Some of these later bits struck me as having phrases worthy of
keeping, so rather than just let them drift off into the setting sun like
shipwreck survivors on a makeshift raft (cough), I thought I’d write them
down. Naturally, once I’d written the phrases I liked down, they started
forming a context, so I’d write that down too.
And I made a discovery today. I would have made an evil
god. I mean, just one of the most capricious and thinly motivated
deities that would ever have bedeviled the cosmos. Kind of like Loki, I
suppose, but even more petty (yet deadly) in action.
How do I know this? Well, I decided to kill off a character (though that
scene remains to be written) because I liked how someone casually
mentioned that near the end. It wasn’t even about the character so
much as the way the phrase rolled out. He was killed because it made the
rhythm in the paragraph flow. That really has to suck.
You are all so lucky that I’m not a god. I’d probably kill a group of
people just because the initials of their last names would spell a funny
word or something.
It’s like a whole new reason to be thankful, and to start praying.
_____________________
_____________________
6:40 PM. Current word count: 25,052.
Half-way there.
Cool.
I've known since college that a deadline imposed from without is the best
way to get me to produce. In school, I could do three or four finished
canvases a week; in creative writing class, I just wrote and wrote, above
and beyond the assigned work. On my own, I was lucky (before I started this
blog) if I could do a canvas a year. Writing was similarly
catch-as-catch-can, but there never seemed to be a problem with flow until
about six years or so ago. I could still paint, and still produce paintings,
but every time I looked at some of my unfinished fiction, it looked like the
work of a stranger. I not only did not know how to continue (though I was
aware of the events to follow in the narrative), I didn't even recognize the
language.
So it's very surprising how easily this particular story is flowing. It
might just be that my previous work suffers some kind of psychic taint--it
may never be completed. Once this story reaches its conclusion, I'll tackle
one of the others. Perhaps that long simmering novel, which must be two or
three hundred pages already completed and a complete plan in place.
Having this blog has been a tremendous help in getting my painting schedule
back on line--explaining, no matter the audience, processes and progress has
helped me to focus. And focus leads to motivation, which leads to work.
The NaNoWriMo project has, in turn, seemingly reawoken my desire to play
with words.
I guess we'll know for sure in December.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 27,282
It’s going pretty well, all things considered. I’m starting to get a
clearer idea of where the characters are going, and what’s going to happen
when they get there (and before they get there, too). A couple of big, vague
scenes have started to fall into the scheme of things. (Still haven’t
written them yet, but I know how to write them and how to tie them
in now.) It’s fun to write it, though I imagine it’s going to be awful
to read it (I haven’t looked at any previous work since day three
or so). I’m thinking if I can keep my word count approximately twice the
date, that’ll be good and I’ll get through this.
And that’s good, because this week, I run into one big obstacle.
Call Week.
Starting Monday, for seven days, I am on call 24 hours a day. Now, my last
call week was actually okay, very few calls and only one in the wee hours.
That’s not the point. The point is, you’re sitting there, looking at
your cell phone, waiting for it to go off. When it doesn’t, you don’t
gain that time back. You can’t go to a movie or visit someone out of town,
or any of that. Gotta hang around. It might go off at any moment, and it
doesn’t care if that moment is when the meaning of “Rosebud” is
finally revealed. It doesn’t care.
And I can see myself, sitting at the keyboard, trying to wring an idea out
of something (“Okay, he specifically asked for a hot dog WITH relish, what
does that mean”), all the time the cell phone is sitting there in
my brain. Heh heh heh. Don’t forget about me, eh? Heh heh heh.
So, work (on the novel) may be a bit difficult this week. As always, we’ll
see.
_____________________
_____________________
Total word count: 32,032
Seems like a nice number on which to report the day’s accomplishment.
Again, a pretty good amount of work, more than I’d imagined I would
accomplish. Here we are, after all, at the half-way point of November. If I
were to go strictly on word-count, I’m ahead of the game. Actually, just
writing, just being able to put one sentence in front of another one, and
grow a narrative, feels like being ahead of the game. (The game being
staring at a blank screen and seeing who blinks first.)
And again, it’s turning out to be fun to write. Putting the
words, um, “on paper” feels like an accomplishment, but it doesn’t
feel like work. That’s the remarkable state that I most enjoy finding
myself in—the work just flows, whether it’s writing, painting, composing
or, uh, some other thing which is fun to do. Reading the work, on
the other hand, is going to hurt. It’s going to be like looking at
pictures of myself in high school—“Whoa, were you actually that dorky
looking?” "My God, you have such a stupid expression!"
"Well, this certainly explains a lot!" "Yeah, let's see what
else we can extrapolate!"
Oh well, as Yoda said (in another context), revising is “easier, more
seductive.” You can run in place in the quicksand and tell yourself it’s
progress. Not looking forward to that, though I suppose it is part of the
NaNoWriMo process. Editing.
For now, I’m just enjoying the writing. I hope this feeling stays. Just as
a hope, mind. I’d love to be able to visit Cathy again and continue the
story she and I concocted together. That one really came to life for a
while, before everything crashed down. Cathy’s a great person, really.
You’d like her, if you knew her. You know, she actually convinced me that
she should live at the end of the story. And she was right. (Not that I
needed a lot of convincing. I really started to like her.)
Funny how characters do that. I sure hope my novelist has a nice fate
planned for me.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 34,256
Missed the opportunity to post it last night, so this will be short and to
the point, unlike everything else I've ever written. I'm keeping to the
schedule and hope to reach 40,000 by the end of Saturday. If I can, and then
reach 50,000 by the middle of next week, that will give me a few days for
the most horrible part of the job.
Revising. Which means I'm gonna have to read this crap.
_____________________
_____________________
Current Word Count: 39,339.
It just struck me, believe it or not. The greatest incentive to writing has
been your encouragement, and I thank you most sincerely.
But the second greatest? That first line up there. Current word count.
There's a definite urge to make that number as big as I can.
That may be the secret, to have a visible goal that I can post, much like
the photos of paintings in progress. Once this NaNoWriMo affair is
concluded, it would be an interesting experiment.
Possibly more later, I know you all can't wait.
UPDATE: Well, here it is later. Current Word Count: 41,140.
I never, ever thought I would see a number like that. Heck, I
thought 400 would be a towering monument in an empty, bleached desert. This
number is unbelievable. I still don't believe it. Here's hoping I
haven't set Microsoft Word's "Options" to "Lie like a rug for
ego stimulation."
I owe it all to those who would tell me, time and time again that I could do
this. Despite my skepticism. You guys are the greatest. I'll kiss you or buy
you a beer, or both, depending on gender and/or preference.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 44,884
Considering that it’s not quite 9PM, and my goal for Saturday was to reach
40,000 words, I am thinking that I’ve not done too badly today. The
narrative is coming along pretty well, though there’s lots of talk, I
don’t really think it’s bad talk—by which I mean, it’s not dull. I
hope. Ideas keep branching into other ideas which in turn lead to new paths,
and thus new scenes, new parts to the narrative. Some of them completely
unexpected and quite interesting indeed (says the author).
I’m thinking, since it’s the 19th and I’m less than 6000 words from
the finish line, that I shouldn’t have much trouble reaching that line. I
may have a few days for revision, to try and actually make the thing good.
I’ve read elsewhere on the web that the typical short novel is 60,000
words, so that the “No” in NaNoWriMo might actually stand for
“novella.” I ought to go back to the main page and poke a bit more in
the rules of the contest. Does it have to be just 50,000 words, or can it be
considerably more?
Wow, I just re-read the last sentence up there and can’t believe I typed
it. "Considerably more." Sheesh. Talk about hubris!
_____________________
Current Word Count: 45,678
Haven't done much today, as the narrative is heading into the final stretch.
But I did want to post that word count. How many times am I going to stop on
a number like that?
I've been thinking of letting that one character I "killed"
(haven't written the scene) actually not be killed. What the gods taketh
away and what not. In fact, I may give him a bottle of something (like me,
he is overfond of libations). And then I might kill him, after he's drunk.
(It would be a good lesson to me.) We'll have to see how it all works out.
UPDATE: Current Word Count: 48,084. Another pretty cool
number, being an anagram and all.
Pity my villain is becoming sympathetic. Man, I bet, you know, *cough* the
Big Man Upstairs hates when that happens, as much as I do. I was pretty much
hoping for Bleeding Entrails and All, I sure hate to settle for Rueful
Furrowed Brow Regrets--it's just not cinematic. Still, the stories
write themselves. Particularly this one. Though not without help.
Which leads me to my usual tribute. I didn't arrange the fireworks in time,
sorry about that. Cough. I'll just do it in the quiet way, then.
Thank you, my Heroic Quartet. I owe all this to you. You are the best. I
feel just like Oliver Twist, who dared to ask for more, or maybe that one
orphan guy who wanted all those explosives, because he dared to ask why the
universe wasn't --oh damn it. (He was raised with cats. )
GRUMBLING Be right back
MOMENTS LATER: Sigh. No, make that Highly Regretful Sigh.
Where was I? Oh, some well deserved thanks--and here thy are!
*Fireworks in all their glory, because I was able to arrange it all at the
last minute*
UPDATE to the UPDATE: I meant palindrome, not anagram.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 48,650
Not a terribly productive day, but that’s all right. I wrote some stuff
last night that was pretty bad, so I had to remove it and then make up for
that. At first I was afraid I had a Killer Line in there, but I didn’t so
no worries there.
It’s getting to the point, obviously, where I can’t just throw stuff in
there and “make it work” later on. I have to start closing the elements
down, like closing an umbrella, so that it all intersects at an ending.
It’s a bit harder now. The words don’t flow as easily, but they’re
still coming.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 49,502
Ran into a bit of a snag, today. To put it in non-writing terms: There I
was, the vegetables chopped, the sauces prepared, the wine allowed to
breathe, the settings and plates all arranged on the table. The only think I
lacked was any idea of what kind of food to make.
My POV character has been caught between two opposing forces since about the
mid-point of the book, or so, and it’s getting time for me to resolve
those forces. The only problem is he, like the author, has no idea what
those forces are up to. It’s not as blunt as good versus evil, in fact
it’s much vaguer than that. We’ve spent more time with one
representative than the other, but that doesn’t mean his cause is the
right one to pursue. Both my forces are good to their own purposes. I
suppose. Like I said, no idea of what they’re on about. They tend to make
noises about how what they're up to is incomprehensible to outsiders. Pretty
good dodge for "I don't know," isn't it?
I suppose that’s the problem when one starts writing with only a bare
notion of what to write about. At least I have several days to think of
something.
UPDATE: I think if I ever become a published author, and
make a bit of money at it, I'm going to install a swimming pool. I get more
useful ideas in the pool than I do almost anywhere else.
I have an idea of what my two forces are oppossed about, and why they've
come to their respective viewpoints, and why they disagree with their
opponents.
Still no idea of how to resolve the whole thing, but it's a start.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 50,065
How about that. I actually did it. At least in terms of making the
word-count goal. I still haven't finished the story, though it is getting
close. Just felt like posting the number.
More later, perhaps.
Site Update: This is my 199th post.
UPDATE: Now up to 50,475.
I'm having the one guy explain his side of what's going on to the POV
character, but boy, writing this conversation is like steering a shopping
cart. It wants to go everywhere but straight down the aisle.
Maybe I'll just have someone say, "Hey, what's the sound?"
followed by a whistling noise, then an explosion, and the words THE END.
Wouldn't fit with anything, but heck it would end it all. More later,
possibly.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 51,185
Happy Thanksgiving to all and sundry. I'm celebrating by being the only one
at work (which means I can write). You can celebrate by watching a swell
Thanksgiving special--why, how about The Star Wars Holiday Special!
That's a traditional Thanksgiving show that would put everyone in a nice
thankful mood.
Also happy 200th post to me, of which this is it.
As for the novel...I wrote the antagonist's speech last night as a
speech, in a separate document. Like he was lecturing a class, or something.
I then intercut my POV's remarks and questions into it. I did a lot of this
via beer, which helps loosen up the ole writin' gland a bit, though toward
the end I ended up with something I'm not sure I follow. Here's a bit of it:
“I’m no longer worried that I don’t understand you. I’m worried
that you don’t understand me. Understand anything other than yourselves.
Your dreams have grown so vast and all encompassing, you no longer
understand what it is to have nothing.”
We understand nothing. We came from nothing! We know all too well what
nothing is!
I'm sure once I break out the old Fireball XL-5 Decoder Ring, that will make
perfect sense AND work in context, somehow. As it is, well, as Jerry Lee
Lewis might have sung once, "It Was the Bud Light Writing, Not
Me."
Most of the rest of it, though, I'm fairly happy with. He sounds like a
sympathetic Doctor Doom in a way, and when you see what he's trying to do,
you can stand back and say, "Yeah, I can see where that would make
sense, where you could look at that and say it's a good idea."
I don't like the traditional evil villain ("There's not enough light
for me to read, so throw another peasant on the fire"). I prefer my
villains to do what they do because of a different perspective. To be, in
essence, good men working toward bad ends.
Or something. I'm still not sure my antagonist's goals are all that bad.
UPDATE: Current Word Count: 52,070
Well, I can't get anywhere with my ending, though I know what should happen
and about what order it should happen in, it's just resisting my ability to
write it.
So I've started on the awful part: revising. And truth to tell,
it's no worse at the beginning than it is at the end. That's something of a
relief. Though there's definitely adapting that needs to be done, so that
what I have will match up with what I've got. But it's coming along at an
okay clip. And I've only cringed, like, twice.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 53,100
Second day of revising, and it's still going pretty well. I'm trimming and
inflating here and there, and the whole thing's not reading as bad as I'd
feared...says the person who actually wrote it, and who thus would have a
tendancy toward forgiveness. An actual physical reader might
entertain an opinion which would differ substantially.
And I think the conversation pieces hold up pretty well. I was afraid, with
all the talk, it would seem like an Isaac Asimov story, but I've got enough
other stuff happening that I think the story holds interest. Again, says the
author.
Still got to write the actual ending, but we're five days away from the
finish line. I'm not terrifically worried.
More later, possibly.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 55,130
Pretty decent number, I must say, oh no question, that is definitely a
number to be reckoned with, eh?
Here we are, on the third day of revising. I’m on page 52 of 97, so it
seems to be coming along all right. I’m right in the middle of my
“Good” Opposing Force’s attempt to explain what he’s up to.
There’s some stuff in there that I think I’m going to have to simply
tear out, and replant, but I’m not worried too much about word-count being
affected. Obviously, I’ve completed that aspect, though the story itself
remains unfinished.
And now I have to think of what might happen on December 1st, after I’ve
finished this story. Will I continue working on other stories, or has the
imposed-from-without deadline been the sole motivating force behind this
work?
I’m rather dreading the answer to that. Still, it’s a few days off.
Plenty of time.
Way cool numbers on the rest of you, at least according to the NaNoWriMo
main site. As you have saluted me, so I now salute you all. Couldn’t have
gone this far without you. I may actually buy your books in HARDBACK.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 55,606
Sick as a dog today, so I didn't do as much as I wished to. I was hoping to
be done with revising, so that tomorrow I could move on toward the ending I
need to write. Starting to feel a little bit panicked about the approaching
deadline. Funny how "five days" seems like all the time in the
world, but "three days" seems like not enough time to accomplish
the simplest tasks.
I am finding, on balance, that I like the story, and I like the characters.
Always a plus. And the revising is going well, though I miss the raw
creative stuff, writing out the story and having it invent itself. Like the
bit where a powerful, deadly, nearly indestructable monster, who kills
people for the bad guys, turns out to have his own agenda. Didn't expect
that, but it was sure cool when it happened.
Ah well. I'm really hoping this doesn't end at midnight on November 30.
We'll see, worry about that when it gets here. See you later.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 56,200
Should be done with revising shortly, I’m on page 92 out of 100 and I know
the last couple of pages are sketched-out notes for things I want to have
happen, but haven’t yet fleshed into writing.
This is actually pretty exciting. It’ll be nice, after all these years, to
actually accomplish something (other than splitting infinitives). Provided I
do finish, that is.
Later that same day: 57,007
Largely finished with revising, though the sticky bit near the end is still
somewhat sticky. Then I decided to write part of the ending I'd been mulling
over. Actual writing, not revising.
Wow, about 500 words in a fifteen minute span. Cool.
There's a lesson here. "I must not revise. Revision is the mind-killer.
Revision is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my
writing. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has
gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the writing has
gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
I'm sure old Frank wouldn't mind my bits of...revision. Oops!
_____________________
Current Word Count: 58,505
Finished the revising bit, and wrote out a version of the Bad Guy's
Motivation Explanation that used all the notes I wanted to use. I think his
motivation, and his missteps, are pretty well limned. There's a good
argument between him and my POV character. Though the work is a whole lot of
talk, I kind of like it.
Now all I have to do is end it, which is kind of already done but
needs to be shaped. For the record, my alcoholic secondary character lived
after all. OH, and I also came up with a title. Didn't have a title for the
thing until just today. Funny how that works, eh? Sometimes a work searches
for a title, other times a title searches for a story.
Woo Hoo, etc, brief spin of party noise-maker. I am not in a state of
panic.
Effusive congratulations to FilthyRottenAngel
and Cullen
Waters for completing the NaNoWriMo journey. Henry,
I'm sure you're almost there and Kerry,
next year you're going to compete or I will, uh, hold my breath until I'm
underwater. RVH ought
to do one as well, but I sure wouldn't want to read it.
Love on all of ya. More later, maybe.
UPDATE: "We are down to the wire folks, we are down to the wire."
I'm working on the last few paragraphs.
_____________________
Current Word Count: 60,693
Even better is this:
DONE.
I am totally exhausted. I was up past 2AM, seized around the throat by the
novel, finishing it up and putting an end to it.
Is it any good? Probably not. I like it, but I recognize flaws in it that I
can overlook, since I knew I had to put them there to solve certain
problems. Someone else would probably see nothing but the flaws. Well,
they're never going to read it, so who cares?
The main thing is that I did it. It's done, a story with a
beginning, a middle and an end, not just some pages, sketches and notes to
revise forever.
It feels great. At least, it would if I could feel anything other than
exhaustion.
_____________________
So, what did I learn during the month of November?
I learned that I can write, given the proper motivation and proper
preparation. In this case, the motivation was NaNoWriMo,
and the preparation was (pretty much) none.
That’s right, none. I joined at the last minute, thinking I’d work (if
at all) on an abandoned project, then I read the FAQs that say that the
novel can’t be anything previously written. I think the organizers’
reasons for this are excellent—it makes the author concentrate on the act
of writing, rather than agonizing over character arcs, back-filling and
what-not (though with a new project that also has to be done, somehow
there’s a lot more psychic baggage with an old project—one has to not
only write the work, one has to somehow regain the mindset one originally
had when the work was conceived).
So I think a great part of my ability to achieve this goal was the simple
fact that I’d jumped out of the plane without a parachute and needed a
bale of hay to land on, and by the gods I was going to have one
when the ground (labeled “November 30”) and I finally met. Put it
another way, the only way to dive off the high-dive is to do it without
thinking about it. Thinking about it leads to fears and anxieties, and they
become overwhelming, and in the end, one backs down the ladder and goes back
to the shallow end. A third analogy (“Have you noticed how everything
about them seems to occur in threes?”) would be an attack by an animal. If
you analyze why the animal is probably going to win, you’re probably going
to lose. If you snarl and fling yourself at the creature—well, who knows?
Actually, upon reflection, I think that the lack of preparation also meant a
lack of concern. If the whole project collapsed, I had no real emotional
stake in it; this wasn't one of the stories that I really cared most about
(though I did grow to enjoy it great deal). So I had no fear of falling
elsewhere than on that bale of hay, since I would simply tear through the
fabric of the world and find myself sitting in a comfortable chair.
(Just to take a moment here and say that THE greatest impetus for me was the
accumulation of so many wonderful notes of encouragement from all of you.
More than likely I would have given up without you guys, and I thank you
all.)
Oh, and as to the “pretty much” bit above—I had a concept from some
years back which I used as the backbone of my novel, but the concept’s
details were almost completely discarded in the first few moments of
writing.
What does this mean in terms of my other stories? Since they fall under the
aegis of “preparation – a lot,” are they dead? To be honest, I don’t
know. I’m no longer physically exhausted, much, but I feel as if my
creativity has been given a good, hard squeeze and wrung out of shape, like
one of those sponge-things people have on their desks. It’s slowly
resuming its normal shape, but right now I have no desire at all to write a
sentence of fiction. There was not a single day in November when I did not
write at least a little, while doing a lot of thinking about what still
needed to be written.
So I’m tired of writing and tired of thinking and just plain mentally
tired in general. My internet surfing has also dropped to almost nothing--I
just don't want to think about anything, I just want to be mindless for a
while. But I’m thinking this is just due to the lifting of panic at the
end of NaNoWriMo, not due to the Block easing back into
position.
Only time will tell. In a few days, maybe, I’ll drag out one of the old
stories and see if I can bring it back to life.
In the meantime, NaNoWriMo was a wonderful experience, exhilarating, and I
highly recommend it to anyone serious about writing. For at least one month
out of the last six or seven years, I actually wrote a story and finished
it. There’s no feeling in the world like that.
_____________________
Henry points
out that for NaNoWriMo winners, you have the option
of having your book printed up as a paperback.
Honestly, my first reaction to that was something like “Eaaurrrggh!”
However, the idea wouldn’t be so easily dismissed. It would sure be
nice to have something tangible, a book I could hold in my hand, I
thought, but then followed up with I’m just not sure I want this book
in my hand.
Don’t misunderstand me, I like the book I wrote, and I think (with a bit
more polish and a bit less gab-fest) others might like it too. But it’s
definitely not ready for prime time. Which is what made me ultimately decide
to forgo the printed copy, not without a touch of regret but only a touch.
Also on the same page at NaNoWriMo, it mentions
January as another novel writing month. The only stipulation is that you
have to be a member of LiveJournal. Well, still feeling a tad stoked after
November, I went ahead and signed up for both LiveJournal and JaNoWriMo (as
it’s known), thinking that it would be fun to participate.
So there I am, all signed up and all, and I happen to read the FAQ a bit
more closely. And it turns out I have to post my writing to the site.
Well, for someone who thought his book not ready to be read by the great
unwashed, this is a tad of a dilemma.
I mean, here I go from a book that will be read by none, to a book
that will be read by, ooo, nearly, gosh, [counts silently on fingers],
nearly, ooo, I should say, hm, carry the five, nearly…nearly one. One?
Call it none, then. That's quite a leap!
UPDATE: LiveJournal is confusing. For all its faults, Blogger
definitely has the "ease of use" market cornered. I guess it's
like the AOL of blogging stuff.
So, that was my NaNoWriMo adventure. Here, on the fifteenth day of December, it behooves me to mention that I have not done any writing since the end of the competition; however, I'm not worried about that. As mentioned, the process was such a mentally exhausting one that my store of creativity was brought to a pretty low level. As always, it takes a while to refill.
December 15, 2005