Category Archives: Meta

Tiny Little Update on Week 3

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I’m tired. But back on track. What a difference a holiday makes!

Thanks to Francesca, my family, and my friends, all of whom cheered and encouraged me while I explained why I wouldn’t be attending their Thanksgiving dinners. On Thanksgiving, I was able to double my previous max daily word output, and get to 3500 words in a day. Yesterday and today, I busted just a bit past 5000 words. That gives me about 12,000 to go.

If tomorrow I can get to 5k again, then I just need to edge past 2000 per day during the week to get to the finish line.

Barring calamity, I think this is a done deal. Lotta work between here and there, but I see the finish line and I’m cruising toward it at a respectable pace.

Also, I kinda like some of the words that I’m putting together. I think they are real English and create actual recognizable sentences. So I got that going for me.

Speaking of going for me…

Go go go!

Before/After the Hump

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Wednesday was the Hump Day — not just of the week, but of the month, the first day of the second half. Writing’s going well. I like the stuff that’s coming out, better than the “first shitty draft” I expected though it will certainly need some polish time and elbow grease (er, brain grease? ew.). Haven’t quite gotten into the right rhythm for style or dialog or even balancing description and action, but as they say, you’re never really qualified to do a thing until after you’ve done it.

Right now, I’m running almost exactly 60% of what I should be; this means every day for the first half of the month I was behind by 40%, so every day for the second half I’ll need to be 100% plus that 40% make-up. So during the second half of the month I’ll need to more than double my average per day to hit the finish line of 50,000 words by November 30.

I think it’s possible. I think I’m still in this race. Francesca wants to remind me that if I don’t make it I’m still at nearly 20,000 words of a novel that didn’t exist a month ago. Yes. True, dat.

It’s important to me, though. Not because if I miss the 50,000 I’ll feel like a failure, because my happiness is not tied to the end result. And not because it will be worthless if I don’t reach the deadline. This ain’t a cake. If I get 80% of the ingredients in there, things will be just fine.

But 50,000 is audacious. There is value in striving toward an audacious goal. And hitting that goal makes it even more powerful. So I’m reaching for that power. I think it’s worth it.

I spent yesterday and today researching, plotting, filling my head with images and conflicts. I know more about the correlation between latitude, dark days, degrees of twilight, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and Solipsism Syndrome than I ever felt necessary. (BTW: the tendency toward Solipsism Syndrome in isolated Antarctic stations is a main reason my tough-as-nails detective cares for a greenhouse. That’s also the source of this great “See Also” pic.) Today or tomorrow I plan to watch two years’ worth of webcam footage from above the arctic circle to get a real sense of what “Night At Noon” is all about.

That set me a little behind, but in order to get a running start sometimes you need to start a little behind. Thanksgiving is coming up, I’ve set those days aside and the boss won’t wonder where I’ve disappeared to. Also, I’m counting on a little last-minute panic and over-the-hump momentum to build me up to a few 3000-word days near the end.

Go go go!

Power of images

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I spent some time last week making pictures that didn’t exist before for stuff that used to only exist in my mind. I found it motivational, but given that I hadn’t published them I figure I was also embarrassed — I was supposed to be plotting the novel. Much like I’m supposed to be doing now.

Which is why I’m here, publishing this, instead. Procrastination!

Oh, crap. I just did it. Procrasterpated. Watched three Ze Frank videos, just cuz I was looking for that one. Dammit.

First week in stats: 4045 words, just about half what I need to keep on target. And on the downside, I was completely unable to do much writing this weekend — work intrusions, etc. Also, procrastination. But, some good things:

  1. I think I’m still on target, because I’ve got it all plotted out. That is, after I stop writing in this blog I’ll have it all plotted out. At least for tomorrow. Right!
  2. I’ve shown that so long as I have a plan when I wake up, I can get out of bed at 6 and write for 3 hours and generate about 2,000 words. That doesn’t suck as bad as it sounds.
  3. The guys at work never even suspect. Shh.
  4. Peet’s chocolate covered espresso beans are far superior to Trader Joes’ version.
  5. The chapters thus far are good. Enough that I think after a rewrite or two they may be real good. I hope.
  6. The story is translating to novel format well. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Ok, so the unix script I had running in the background while I wrote this is wrapping up, so I probably should too. Here are the pics:

Dark Month, the current book cover. The city of Frankfurt stands in for Antipodes City; the aurora was from NASA and is the borealis not australis; and the guy is just a guy.

The Right of Rule RPG has some modern-esque technology, like daguerrotypes. This is a picture of a gypsy woman and her baby; I made it all daguerro-like, slapped some tattoos on there and gave Souchart his trademark vitiligo.

Another faux daguerrotype, showing a yurt made from modern-ish materials but otherwise low-tech.

One week in, One week behind

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Seems to be how it goes. “The faster I work, the behinder I get.”

Last week I wanted to explore whether I had the creativity, energy and brainpower to get writing done in the evening. Most of my writing days in the past were done that way — after school, after work, etc. But probably a good half of the words actually written issued forth on the weekends, though, and that should have been a forecast of what I found out.

Writing after work doesn’t work.

Last week was an odd one, too. I work under a monthly contract for a certain number of hours to certain clients, and so the “vacation” Francesca and I took last month was about two weeks long, one week at the end of August and one at the beginning of September. That way, I could cram 30% more work in the other three weeks of those months and still come out right.

So last week was crammed with work. AND it was Francesca’s birthday. AND we decided that we’re going to be moving to Portland, and we have no idea what that entails. Busy week.

Lesson learned: going to write in the morning. I should have known better.

I missed my Sept 30 story. That one is going to stay missing. (Feel free to pretend it was awesome.) I’ll hit both this week before Friday, and then just keep going according to plan.

About “The Cure For Everything”

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The Cure For Everything is an idea I flirted with years ago. All I remembered was the first line, about a Tuesday in April. Sometimes, that’s all I need to go on. The novel I’m planning had its genesis in a single note that I scrawled while driving on I5: “Film noir detective in Antarctica.” How can you get more noir-ish than a night that lasts months?

This story clocks in at 2614 words, written in about 3.5 hours. So I overshot my target a bit, but I think the initial test came back positive: I can think up and physically type out the 2000 words I need, in one sitting, in a time period that could conceivably fit before work.

I welcome comments about the story on that story’s post. I don’t think it’s a particularly good story, but it served its purpose. I hope to do things more interestingly in the future. There may be some exploration of my Antarctic Noir, and maybe some stuff set in a friend’s RPG setting that I’m currently playing, and maybe some original mish-mash.

Onward!

Go Go Go!

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I used to write.

I still consider myself a writer, one of those writerly types, a storyteller, a guy who fibs for entertainment’s sake, or education’s sake, or just to win an argument in my own mind. (Trying to cut down on the latter.) But I haven’t actually strung very many fictive words together — much less sentences or paragraphs — in quite a while.

I used to be good.

Not published. None of my screenplays got filmed. I had some actors actually say lines I wrote while on stage nearly twenty years ago, but that was back in school and they needed to do it in order to get their passing grade and move on to things more interesting. Some marginal success in writing competitions — won some local-only awards and placed more than a couple of times in national Big Time™ contests — but I haven’t won, and the producers who called to inquire never really called back. But I enjoyed writing, and I imagine that some few others enjoyed reading those strings of words I made.

I want to recapture that.

This blog is just so that I can exert myself in public. Or what I imagine might be public, despite my day job as an internet professional telling me that most blogs are abandoned in the first 30 days, and most that survive rarely achieve a readership beyond Mom, bless her heart. So, Mom, this blog is so that when I write, it is published in the etymological sense of the word — the Latin publicare, “to make public.”

I want to publicly challenge myself.

In November of every year there is a little-known event called “The National Novel Writing Month,” or NaNoWriMo. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, from November 1 to the end of the month. That’s about 1700 words per day — eminently doable, but rarely done. I like round numbers and I tend to use two words when one will do, so I’m shooting for 2000 words per day, for 30 days. That should give me something like the first draft of a 200 page novel. I know I can do it. I have written an entire 92-page screenplay over one weekend. It’s a typical romantic comedy, but the plot hinges on the Y2K bug so it’ll never get made — and it has some of my best scenes and lines. I’ve never once rewritten any of that screenplay after that weekend.

I want to learn to rewrite.

For almost everything I do — programming, homemade ice cream, bad jokes — the first draft is the final draft. I suck at rewriting, because I like creating new things from nothing. I’m pitiful at motivating myself to perfect good things that already exist. I need to be better. Writing a novel in such a way that I’ll need to rewrite it for me to tolerate reading it… that might just be the recipe.

I’m rusty.

I figure I need to stretch these writing muscles. To rebuild what has atrophied, to reinvigorate what has stagnated, and to focus what has been redirected. I can’t run a marathon tomorrow, but I could certainly run a marathon at some point. It’s not beyond me. NaNoWriMo is going to take some practice. Here’s what I plan to publish here:

  1. By Sep 26, a 2000-word story. Just to see if I still can form a sentence or two.
  2. By Sep 30, another 2000-word story. Because the first story was probably something I had already thought out.
  3. Oct 1-7: two 2000-word stories. Good grief. I suppose I need to do more of this.
  4. Oct 10 & 14: each day, one 2000-word story. Cuz schedules are important.
  5. Oct 16, 18, & 21: each day, a 2000-word story. All of this writing will occur before I start work for the day, but I can take multiple days. Note to self: figure out how to not fall behind on work.
  6. Oct 23, 25, & 28: each day, a 2000-word story written that morning only. Still before I start work; still without falling behind on work. Can I do it? I need to answer that question.
  7. Oct 28-31: nuttin’. You ain’t gonna see nothing here. I’ll be holed up, plotting and characterizing and generally panicking.
  8. Nov 1-30: Novelizing, bee-yotch. I’ll post updates. Sample bits. Whimpering and cries for help. Desperate requests for caffeine. Etc.
  9. Dec 1: I will post Cake. Downloadable, delicious Cake. It is not a lie.

Deadlines. Love ’em.

I might find that I cannot do this. I might find that my clients and co-workers who depend on me are being short-changed, and I can’t allow that sort of selfishness so I must re-adjust my aspirations. It won’t be the first time reality won.

But it’s worth challenging. Reality, on occasion, does back down.

And now, I need to go.

Go.

GO!