Sick and sleepless: it’s not all bad

 

Because in one of my wakeful times during the wee hours this morning I was able to go to the NaNoWriMo site and using the validator function that was activated as of midnight, get my winner status made official. 

Well, actually, except for that, sick and sleepless is pretty bad.

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Winner

Just passed the 50,000 word count for my NaNo Novel. This has been a 12,600 word count day. I am pooped and my throat is still sore, but I am a winner. A NaNoWriMo winner.

A week early no less.

Thanks to all of you for all the moral support. It has meant a lot to me.

Oh, about the novel? It’s a first draft, it’s a lot of dreck and I will probably write a few thousand more words this week to wrap up the story a little better than I did tonight. But all that is beside the point, which was to write 50,000 pages of a first draft novel starting November 1, and ending no later than midnight November 30.

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Milestone

Forty thousand words.

Just now I paused in my work on my NaNo Novel to note that I’ve passed the 40K mark in the word count.

I have felt like cr*p since about bedtime on Friday and didn’t write at all yesterday although I’d planned a couple of serious writing sessions, one here at home and the other at the weekly write-in group at the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover store. I’d not even worried about not writing Friday as I was running around taking care of things in advance of yesterday.

So instead? I slept very little Friday night, by yesterday morning had sore throat and other ugly symptoms. 

Thank goodness for Mucinex, antihistamines, hot coffee, chocolate treats, hot tea, Advil, my warm puppy, my comfy new supportive Travel Sox, snuggly Hanes sweatshirts, and all the other things that have supported me through the last 24 hours. I still feel crummy but I’ve been sitting here writing for 45 minutes and am determined to keep at it all day long. Not one long session but a series of them, broken up by such mundane daily things as showering, doing laundry, walking the dog, and eating.

But I just passed the Forty Thousand Word mark. With a goal of writing Fifty Thousand by midnight on November 30.

Dayum. I just might DO this, huh?

UPDATE: I finally quit writing about 2:30 p.m. with a total word count of 47,854. After dinner? Maybe I’ll just polish this puppy off by passing 50,000 words. The story won’t be all wrapped up neatly but honestly, this NaNoWriMo thing isn’t about that, at least not to me, this time.

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Seventy-five percent

It’s not over till the NaNoWriMo word count validator says I have written 50,000 words, or midnight on November 30, whichever comes first.

But I’m pleased to note that my current word count is 37,644. Which is 75.2% of 50,000.

My first draft novel is a mish-mash of dreck with a few decent scenes, and not something I really want to discuss in detail. Not right now. Maybe not ever. But I will say that the word output speeded up yesterday when I killed off a main character in a random street crime. In a medium sized midwestern US city in 1939, which I learned while writing it has more shock value than, say, such a random crime on the streets of almost any American city in 2008.

Hmm, is that the finish line I can see out there in the distance?

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Of all the things I had not considered

At least now I know this:

Another sign of my lack of intellectual curiosity? That I haven’t been contemplating my aging hulk in the mirror and assessing its recyling potential?

But, peeeeeple! I’ve been writing a novel, OK?

Thanks to everyone for the moral support in my NaNoWriMo second-half push to the finish line. I’m at something like 29,723 words as of bedtime last night, after an 8000+ word weekend. At the moment I just want to get ‘er done and get on with my trip to Thailand.

PS: I did something for the first time last night: printed out and read the last half of my draft. I had introduced characters and not made notes of their names and generally felt I was losing control of the so-called plot which I had *not* outlined. I read the draft to make notes of character names and a few other details. But I have edited NADA, thank you very much. Maybe because it was late and I was tired, but for whatever reason I noticed a few inconsistencies, like a person who had made a prior trip to a country saying several scenes later that she’d never been there (and no I didn’t intend her to be lying), and let them be. I’m not wasting time fussing over words already written, the point is to get more words down on the page, er, up on the screen.

Oh, whatever.

This is turning out to be quite the learning experience. I’ll leave the finer points of plot, character, dialogue, setting, etc., etc., to those who have actually written a novel in the past. I haven’t.  My first NaNoWriMo is turning out to be a matter of experiencing the writing. Getting characters onto the page, and the action, and the settings. The mechanics of it, to put it somewhat crudely. If I do this again, I may be able to focus on the finer points. This time it’s really all about just doing it.

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Halfway point

I’m writing and posting this just before 11 pm MST on November 15.

I am halfway through National Novel Writing Month.

The NaNoWriMo goal is to write 50,000 words during November.

My current total word count after pounding out 4,787 words this afternoon and evening is, TA DA: 25,617.

Halfway there as to both days and word count. That feels pretty good.

My Inner Editor is just going nuts, but I’m getting really good at ignoring her growls from the kennel where she’s been locked up since November 1. Sure, my first draft sucks. That’s what first drafts are FOR. OK?

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Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab

Thanks to a post on the forum at the Official NaNoWriMo site, I discovered “Write or Die” at Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab.

W-or-D is an ingenious – and maybe devious – little web application that just may help you blast through a writer’s block.

It works like this. You choose your time goal, your word goal and the mode: Gentle, Normal, Kamikaze or Electric Shock. Then you hit “start” and get a screen with big empty white space to write in, and a countdown timer and a word counter at the bottom. I didn’t set a challenging goal, just 100 words and 10 minutes. Got another 100 words or so plopped down, then cut and pasted it into my NaNo Novel. After writing yesterday and last night, and that little bit this morning, my new word count: 8,548.

Dr. Wicked, you devious genius, you ROCK.

And, Suzanne, Darla, Brenda, M. H. Pixie, Miss Kitty and all the others in my cheering section: you do too. Thank you so much!

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Word count

My goodness, all these years using word processing software and I’ve rarely used the “word count” tool.

Until yesterday and today. Until I started my first ever National Novel Writing Month.

Now, the word count tool is frequently consulted.

I didn’t start writing until about 4:00 o’clock yesterday afternoon, at the Tattered Cover store where a write-in event for NaNoWriMo was held. We wrote, with some talking of course, until about 6:30.

Then I started again this morning and now, at about 9:30 a.m., I have written, according to the Word Count tool in the Word software on this computer: 6,098 words.

Remember, this effort is all about exuberant imperfection. About getting the butt in the chair and 50,000 words into a document. My Inner Editor has been kenneled up for the month.

Now and then I hear her whining but the message isn’t clear and I’m not paying enough attention to the whining and growling to make it out. Something about inauthentic dialogue, clunky transitions? Nah. Not this month. Go gnaw a bone, Inner Editor. You can come out to play next month.

In the meantime? I’m following some characters along their chosen path which may not lead where I had expected, and that’s just fine.

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Storyteller

Tony Hillerman died yesterday at age 83.

I never met him though I saw him at a couple of events. I feel sad that he’s gone, because I would have welcomed another of his stories, long or short, about Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn and their world. The last time I felt this way was when I heard that Michael Gilbert died, and before that when I learned of the untimely death of Anne George.

At times like this I think: There ought to be a special physical immortality for our master storytellers. They should be given extra-strong hearts, forever supple hands, clear voices never scratched up by passing decades, and the eyes and ears of young wild critters. 

But of course the best of our storytellers? Wouldn’t take that if offered on a platinum platter. Because they are human and understand so much about that condition, and the difference between humans and God, and the perils of hubris.

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Today’s Stats

Total hours I have served to date in 2008 as a volunteer ambassador at the airport, according to the program’s scheduling/tracking system: 116:45.

My ranking as a customer reviewer on amazon.com under the new system unveiled this week: 784. Yikes, I am now a “Top 1000 Reviewer” on that site. 

My “classic reviewer rank” on amazon.com, which is the old system: 5,437.

Words I have yet to write for National Novel Writing Month 2008: 50,000.

Days left until my vacation trip to Thailand: 39.

Simple Thai phrases I can speak or understand: 0.

Edited to add: Estimated attendance at today’s downtown Denver campaign speech by Barack Obama, according to the Denver Police Department: 100,000.

Yes. 100,000 people went downtown to see and hear Sen. Obama, with only a few days notice. First photo from the Denver Post, second from the Rocky Mountain News.

 

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It’s official.

I’ve lost my mind. Next Saturday I am going to embark on an impractical, time-consuming and totally unnecessary project that will last for exactly one month. I am going to write a novel. OK, the first draft of a novel. 

And the really scary thing?

I’m not in this alone. It’s been done by thousands of people, 9 times before this. This is the tenth time.

Seriously, run don’t walk to your bookstore or library and get hold of No Plot, No Problem. Which is fun and joyous and very well-written. Well, I’m sure the first half of it is anyway, because I’ve read it at least twice. The second half is to be read in installments corresponding to the weeks of November, and for once I’m not reading ahead in a book. Instead I’m making all kinds of notes in my little notebook, in anticipation of November 1.

Until November 30, my middle name is Exuberant Imperfection.

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Gazing into another time

A little piece in today’s newspaper led me to this blog. The short version: photographer finds excellent photographs from the 1930′s and 40′s among the other offerings at an estate sale and buys as many as she can. Then she follows up and finds that they were taken by Ellet N. Shepherd (1901 – 1965), Denver lawyer and judge. She gets the rest of the unsold photographs and has shared several of them with the rest of us on a blog.

On reading the article I clipped it out, grabbed my coffee and moved into the study to visit the blog. And I’ve been somewhere else for the last half hour as I look at the pictures and read some of the newspaper articles about Ellet Shepherd’s time as a prosecutor and a judge.

I’m visiting a Denver I have often wished I knew, a much smaller town that I might not have liked but suspect I would. It is I’m sure a longing driven by the desire for simplicity and certainty.

I have visited that place before, often by way of some of Sandra Dallas‘ novels – especially New Mercies. And I pored over the details of the town and people in Mainliner Denver (heck, I even met one of the lawyers in that case, who was still around many years later when I moved here fresh out of law school and passed the bar).

Honestly? One of these days I may just go down to the public library and read old local newspapers on microfilm or however they are stored now, just for the heck of it and not in search of anything special.

In the meantime, I am engaged with Judge Shepherd’s pictures, and the places I go when I look at them.

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Memorable

I just read a terrific short story, and I think you should too: Blue Waltz, by Brenda WIlson Wooley.

It’s available online here - in Wanderings magazine.

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Wowzer

My amazon Kindle has been a constant companion for the last six days.  In airports, on airplanes, in my hotel room, at home, at a couple of restaurants when I ate alone, and in the doctor’s waiting room yesterday. I’ve read three books on it – all mysteries, my favorite kind of escape from reality.

I’m still mainly using the Kindle to read books. I still haven’t figured out using it to read my email although it’s supposed to be possible, but I have used it for a little web browsing.  

As an e-book reader it’s a winner. After a little use it really has seemed to “disappear” and I’m just focused on the words on the page. Yes, the page. Not the screen. It seems that natural now.

The “wowzer” is not only about the Kindle. It’s about the book I just finished reading on it: I Shall Not Want, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. It’s the sixth in her police procedural series with soap opera overtones (it’s also been called “strongly character-driven”) featuring rugged Russ Van Alstyne (police chief in small Millers Kill, NY), the unconventional Rev. Clare Fergusson (local Episcopal priest and military helicopter pilot), and the elephant in the living room which is their deep attraction to each other. This book rocked and rolled. I forgive a few too-convenient plot twists, because besides some fast and furious scenes of violent confrontations, it had me literally laughing out loud toward the end, and finally sniffing with a few sentimental tears.

There’s an afterword in which the author briefly describes her evolution as a writer. Starting with science fiction, then moving into romance, then finally realizing what she was really doing (whodunits with strong characters). She writes:

I’ve come to believe that the work chooses the writer, and not the other way around. We’re not creators so much as we are dowsers, wandering over the literary landscape until our forked twigs twitch. We dig, and in the digging discover if our wells are sweet or bitter, rock or clay. I thought I was going to be a science fiction writer. I would have liked to write romance. But it turns out that what I’m really good at? Is killing people and hiding the bodies.

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Ink-stained riches

I hear that the future of American newspapers is in doubt.  Which makes me sad.  As much as I love rooting around online, I also love hearing the slap of today’s local daily hitting the doorstep, and paging through the paper while sipping the day’s first cup of coffee.  And I’m even used to having slightly ink-smudged fingers afterwards.

And if we lose the Denver Post, who will bring us stories like this?  Not TV, this whole tale is a little too complicated for the average 1.9 millisecond (or whatever the time is) TV news story.  We may see some very simplified blurb about this on the tube.  But it won’t be the same. 

So thanks to the Post.  And hooray for Wray, where you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And another reason I like the newspaper:  the daily advice columns.  In the Post, it’s Ask Amy.  Today, Amy Dickinson included this observation when handing out some relationship advice:

Love is patient, love is kind, and sometimes love leaves you in a quivering heap by the side of the road.

The perfect Quote of The Day After.

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W00t

Fightingwindmills asked a very good question yesterday:  what’s the origin of “woot” – also spelled “w00t”?

After fooling around with irreverent responses to her question, I decided to act like the responsible educated adult I play in real life.   And look it up.

The Urban Dictionary has several pages of definitions of Woot/W00t.  The top one says:

Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as [sic] coincides with the gamer term, “w00t”.

“w00t”was originally [a truncated] expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for “Wow, loot!” Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.

I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!”

“woot! i r teh flagmastar!” (Think Tribes)

“Woot, I pwnzed this dude’s boxen!’

My fuddy-duddy old self was sad to see the garbled syntax in the second sentence, and that “truncated” was misspelled and preceded by “an.”  Back when mastodons roamed the earth and dirt was young and you could buy nickel Cokes at the drugstore fountain counter, I was taught that dictionaries are created by the world’s pickiest fussiest most precise and inexhaustibly thorough wordsmiths.  Dictionaries, I learned, are the last books in the universe in which typographical errors, misspellings, or grammatical mistakes could be found.

To which my spontaneous INFP self responds, the Urban Dictionary is a wiki thing, an organic social creation.  Mistakes happen.  And English is a living language, always changing.  So chill out and switch to decaf already, ’cause you know you love technology and the innernets and email and digital photography and all that stuff we didn’t have back then.

Even though the domesticated mastodons were kind of sweet, and handy as pack animals.

W00t!!

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Quality, quantity and new sandals

I would give every damn blog post I’ve ever written, and almost anything else I have, in exchange for the ability to tell stories like Brenda Wooley’s.

Brenda shares some of her stories with us on her blog, One Kentucky Writer.   She doesn’t post every day.   But everything she posts is worth reading.  Not scanning, not glancing, not skimming.  If her stories were food, they would be low-glycemic:  the stuff that gives your blood long-term nourishment.  Not the slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am spike-plunge-vanish junk of empty calories.

Her latest blog story reminded me of how it felt to be a little kid in a big crowd, jostled and spilling my soft drink, and of looking down at my feet to admire a new pair of sandals.

Thank you, Brenda.

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