found_drama

The copy/pasted/validated word count came in as 50,198…

…but that was a story without an ending.

So I plowed ahead and tacked on an ending that kinda/sorta worked well enough^[1] and used Scrivener’s word counter^[2] to get my new “completed” word count of 52,520.

So yeah…  Go me!

Thanks to everyone that was understanding and/or patient and/or encouraging and/or interested in this project.  I don’t know how I managed to get anywhere near the 50,000 mark (let alone break it), what with everything else going on this month—massive project at work, The Boy getting sick, our Thanksgiving holiday trip, and everything else that always seems to crop up.

For folks that expressed interest in the novel, let me know if you want to see this ugly first draft.  I like to share.  But I warn you, it’s a far cry from “any good”.

Also:  Scrivener review to follow.  (Short version:  it’s bad ass.)

1. Except that I just sort out outlined the post-climax denouement portion a la David Foster Wallace’s “Adult World (part II)” only with fewer abbreviations and much shorter and really just basically outlined what I really wanted to do to actually finish this novel but that will be later when I get the time to do edits etc. because really at this point I am so done and fried from the first draft of this story. [↩]
2. Which is a little more liberal, I might add. [↩]

If you’ve been keeping track, we are (as of typing this) past week three and into week four of NaNoWriMo.  According to their little widget, there are eight days left in the writing sprint.  I’m currently claiming 45,058 words committed to the manuscript.  To put it into perspective, that’s about:

• 5 days aheads of schedule (with 4,942 before the goal marker); or
• 197 letter-sized pages of double-spaced 12 pt. Courier typing (currently without any embellishments to indicate chapter or scene breaks)

Daily output looks a little bit like this:

The columns represent each day’s total word count.  The descending line represents the average words-per-day rate necessary to reach the goal by the November 30 deadline.  (Note, that goal starts at 1,700 words per day.)

I feel pretty confident that I’ll make it.  And I’m looking forward to my discount on Scrivener^[1].

Also, curious what I’ve been writing about?  Click the little “Novel Info” tab on my NaNoWriMo profile for a sort-of-synopsis and an excerpt.

1. And I’ll admit that I’ve grown kind of attached to it. [↩]

Friday the 13th.  I am 13 days into NaNoWriMo and have hit that weird spot where the hours don’t all match up in a given day any more.  I apparently picked a hell of a year to give a crack at the contest again.  Whew…

A few observations at this point in the writing sprint:

• I could do this full time.  Perhaps some day.
• I’m only slightly behind 2006′s pace.  I’m over 28,000 words as of tonight; in ’06 I broke 28,000 on the 12th.  So not bad—more complicated situation this year, I’d say.
• The story is flowing a bit easier.  Though I must say that for something that’s supposed to be self-parodic, I’m not sure that it’s really all that funny.

And/but that’s the rub right there.  By the time you get to about 20,000 words or so you have introduced most of your core characters, your setting is established, and you’re just sort of trudging through… plot?  Or something like that.  You follow the characters for a bit.  Then they lead you somewhere else.  It’s a fun game of tag.  But there’s also this thought:  ”If you’re going to write yourself, please write yourself and let me go to bed.”  But damn is this ever a great exercise in discipline.

I’ll make it.  So help me, I’m going to make it:

If you didn’t hear, I went ahead and did “the dumb thing” and enrolled myself^[1] in NaNoWriMo 2009.  For the uninitiated, “NaNoWriMo” is “National Novel Writing Month” — the challenge is to write a novel (defined as 50,000 words or more, for the sake of the event) between midnight November 1 and 11:59pm November 30.  The novel doesn’t have to by any good — it just has to be 50,000+ words.  In fact, the event’s motto is: “No plot? No problem!”

Why do such a thing?

It’s fun.  And if you aspire to write (and/or publish) a novel then it’s pretty motivating to participate in a big collective event like this one.

So I’m doing it this year.  In what has turned out to be one of the end-to-end busiest Novembers of my life.  Well…  So be it.

I’m using it as an excuse to write out a novel-length idea that I had about a year ago.  A kind of self-lampooning science fiction story that toys with a few popular tropes.  Anyway, we’ll see where it goes.  So far progress has been well:

About two days ahead of pace.  With my birthday last night^[2] and some big looming crazy project deadlines at work and a crazy little toddler at home and the Thanksgiving holiday here-before-you-know-it…  Well, wish me luck.

1. Look me up as user “founddrama”. [↩]
2. Now 30, thank you. [↩]

Re my own writing:  this is kind of vindicating and kind of disheartening:

So…  Who wants to be my editor?  Agent?  Writing bully buddy?

I’m beginning to think that I need someone to assume an Authority Role and give me deadlines and direction.  After all, bosses work so well elsewhere, don’t they?  Setting my own goals for this whole writing thing only seems to get me so far.  There comes a time when you need a slave-driver to insist that your output isn’t enough, that a few sleepless nights are needed to meet the deadline, to demand a re-write of a pivotal scene that is barely a decent-enough start.

Of course, this will only work if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.  Like a book publication that lands on shelves somewhere.  But for now a little arbitrary pushing and shoving might be a welcome motivator.

Staying committed to this writing craft is one of the hardest things to do.  It shouldn’t be, because it’s all passion and inspiration and “the thing that drives you” and all that.  At least it’s supposed to be.  But it’s also a long-arc game that requires patience and perseverance.  Especially if the writing winds up coming second to your other responsibilities.  Even when in your heart it comes first, it still comes second.

That said, I printed off some blank calendar sheets earlier this year.  March or April.  And every time I write, I get to put a “W” on that day of the calendar.  I told myself the “W” is earned after at least 60 minutes.  Then relaxed it to 30.  I can’t go any lower than that.  Except for those rare exceptions where 10 or 15 minutes really did produce something so much better than the previous night’s hour-long crap-fest.  But that’s helped.  More so than some chart, it’s been helpful to have these sheets laid out on the table, or stuck up on the refrigerator; the idea being that it’s visual and honest and everyone can see it.  Getting involved in an online writing group has helped a lot, too.  (Jib Writers: thank you.)

The bad news: that all of this still feels a million years away.  That every time I sit down, the words go nowhere.  That I’ll be stuck making this wish forever.

The good news: I know that none of that is true.  I’m sitting down and doing this writing thing pretty consistently.  I’m reaching out to other aspiring writers.  I’m reading a lot.  And I feel like maybe (just maybe) I’ll have something in print soon.  Hell, John (whom I’ve always thought of as one of my harshest critics) thinks that I’ve got a short story that is (in its current state) worth putting out for publication.

Finding the right market is probably going to be the hardest part there.

Which brings me to my new strategy.  Novels take a long time — to write, to place, to publish…  And though I have no intention of giving up on these grandiose projects of mine, I have also tried to focus in on shorter pieces.  I wouldn’t say that I’m reinventing myself (there wasn’t much invention in the first place) but after what feels like a decade of stabbing blindly in the novelist’s dark, there seems to be another path worth taking.  More of a supplementary path anyway.

Wish me luck.

Well, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, that is to say). Had a hell of a time of it last year^[1]– made it to 50,688 words in 25 days with what really did resemble a complete story by the end of it all. Still haven’t revisited that story as I’d planned to… but there’s plenty of time for that later.

Undecided if I’ll do it here in ’07. The rules state that you need to start fresh — with a blank canvas notebook. In other words, you can’t just “continue” with something you’ve already got started. And as I’m 12,932 words^[2] into my current project, that’s pretty much out. I may “follow along” and see if I can’t put 50k worth of material into the current project in the spirit of the ‘WriMo — but we’ll see… In any event: for those of y’all out there rocking the pen and paper (or word processor or whatever) in ’07: have fun hitting the 50k. It’s a fun trip.

1. See also: NaNoWriMo 2006 photo set. [↩]
2. Approximately. [↩]

The writing outlining and revisions prep-work for the re-write of The Great Big Writing Project continue. Averaging somewhere in the 1-2 hour range each day. Working in these small chunks seems to be working. Concentrate on segments, do it in blocks. There’s an element of frustration in there too though; the small blocks of time are all I can manage but each one shapes up like this:

where did I leave off? > go from there > cross that out, that won’t work > but if I change this > BREAKTHROUGH! > churn-churn-churn… > run out of steam…

The breakthrough moment is if I’m lucky; having to double back and make sure things fit together is a common theme. Fortunately, this weekend had three such nice moments (at least one of which was an indirect result of forcing myself through a weird writing exercise on Thursday instead of working on the outline itself).

I’ve also made liberal use of the Oblique Strategies (with varying success) and assorted links to tips and phrases and “hacks” that I’ve accumulated as (how shall we put this?) fertilizer. I’ve set an arbitrary deadline of October 1st to wrap up the outline and start with the writing again. I think I can probably make that happen. Just need to work through this next part…^[1]

currently playing: Josh Wink & Dave Clarke “BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix”

1. Isn’t that an echo of the last five years? [↩]

• Six Lies About Creative Writing You Should Never Believe

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