Word count today: 0

Total word count: 50,072

I fully expected to be writing furiously tonight; I was hoping I'd be done by about now (it's just a little shy of 11 PM), so's I wouldn't get too nervous about making the 50,000 word deadline by the time competition ends at midnight. It's a little like running a marathon and then standing by the finish line to watch the other runnners come across (except my feet don't hurt and I haven't had any Gatorade). It actually feels a little weird not to be writing (except for the entries on two blogs I've been working on for the past two hours...oh, never mind).

NaNoWriMo '07 is over--and so is this blog (new entries, anyway). I have no idea if I'll do this again next year; if I do, I'll blog about it here. In the meantime, this blog will stand as a silent witness to my complete loss of sanity in getting involved in this.

My wife's asked me a few times if I'd stop at 50,000 words or keep going. I stopped, because I got to the end of the story. I definitely could dive back in there and flesh out elements of the story to arrive at something of a more substantial novelly length (100-200K). At least for the time being I don't plan to do that. I've got a couple ideas for non-fiction books that I think people might actually want to read, so if I do anything, it'll probably be that.

About once a week, the National Novel Writing Month organizers sent out an email pep talk from an actual working writer (a couple I've even heard of, like Sue Grafton). I also ran across a piece on NPR's website in which they asked a bunch of writers about their process, writer's block, etc., in a piece they did for NaNoWriMo '06. In no particular order, here are the things I've learned this month, both from my own experience and from those authors:

1. Write about things that interest and motivate you. Don't just "write what you know." Write what you love.
2. Don't try to sell the story first; get it written and then decide what you're going to do with it.
3. Don't get hung up on the intended audience; whether it gets read by millions or just by Aunt Millie is secondary to whether you get it down on paper.
4. Write every day; if you feel blocked, uninspired, or unmotivated, do it anyway.
5. At most, do some proofreading and light editing as you move through the book. Forward momentum is critical, and tearing your book apart as you're putting it together is counter-productive.
6. Don't tell other people (in great detail) about what you're writing; save it for the book.
7. Don't show your book to friends and family or solicit feedback while you're writing it.
8. Having 50 pages of bad writing to revise is far better than having zero pages of brilliant, perfect, could-not-possibly-be-improved-upon nothing.

Word count today: 2,525

Total word count: 50,072

Words to go: -72

Today was an intense day at work, and I had some stuff going on at home (nothing intense, just busy). On top of all that, my daughter had a hard time getting to sleep, and pretty much nothing else is going to go on in the house while that's happening. By the time she finally settled down, I was pretty tired, but determined to pound out some wordage. About 9:30 PM I found myself literally dozing off at the keyboard. The National Novel Writing Month website has a tool that tallies your word count (and that serves as your official word count, no matter what your word processor might say you've done). When I pasted in my novel, I realized I only had 750 words left to go. I shook myself out of my stupor and kept going. I couldn't quite stand the thought of getting that close and leaving the last little bit for tomorrow (especially since I was in the middle of something I thought was working pretty well). A while later (another half hour, I think), I pasted the novel in again, because I'd jumped around a bit and lost count of where I was supposed to be. It turned out I needed exactly 25 words to finish the novel. I don't think it's cheating, but I used those last 25 words to write a dedication to my wife:

This book is dedicated to my loving and long-suffering wife, Stacey, who
granted me leave from family duties to write this book in a month of stolen
moments. You've always believed in me, even when I haven't. Thank you.

Editor's note: driven by guilt and unreasoning perfectionism, I went back and added a few sentences here and there to take me over the 50K mark without the dediction. The New total of 50,072 does include the dedication and the title, but it's got well over 50,000 words of actual prose.

It's truly been an amazing experience. The book isn't great; I liberally (and unintentionally) borrowed ideas from at least half a dozen novels to drive the plot of this one. At the same time, I came up with some ideas I don't think I've seen anywhere, and have a few scenes I'm really happy with. The incredible thing is that I actually do have a 50,000 word novel with a beginning, a middle, and and end that's not completely horrible. If I wanted to flesh it out to a 150,000 or 200,000 word novel (rather than the novella it is now), I would definitely have enough material to do that. I think I'd also be able to refine quite a few of the plot elements so they don't seem quite so derivative of what's come before. I guess what I'm saying is that I actually have a first draft of something I could turn into a second draft.

Will I ever do that? Probably not. Will I ever write something else? You bet. I think I'll start the outline tomorrow.

Word count today: 2,438

Total word count: 47,547

Words to go: 2,453

Not bad for another day when work and life conspired to give me less writing time than I'd counted on. It was a very stressful day at work, and I wasn't really in the mood to write. If I've learned anything this month, it's the obvious fact that writing is like anything else worth doing; it's fun sometimes, and difficult sometimes, but it needs to be done. I learned that a long time ago with my work, and that basic life lesson is re-introducing itself to me in the arena of writing.

November, it turns out, isn't the optimum month for me to try to write a novel. We had a pledge drive a couple weeks ago. It's hard to explain what it's like, but it's sort of the mental equivalent of mountain climbing. You do something incredibly difficult and taxing, get a little sleep, and get up and do it again. I actually love doing it (I like a challenge), but it really beats you up by the end of the week. We also had performance reviews throughout our company, and in my position I'm both getting and giving them. That's not the time I would have chosen to try to fit something like this in. That's one of the really cool things about it. If I can write a 50,000 word novel during a month like this (and judging from my word count, apparently I can), I'm able to do it pretty much anytime. Setting aside the time for it--or using my available time for that instead of something else--seems to be the main ingredient to hot, fresh booky goodness.

Word count today: 3,106

Total word count: 45,109

Words to go: 4,891

I did much, much better than I'd hoped to today. I went to the library after work and wrote about 1,900 words. I added another 1,200 this evening, and ended up with a really solid word count. I'd been hoping to hit 2,000 and just stay on pace. This actually puts me a little be ahead of the game. I only need to do about 1,600 words a day to hit the goal. I'm hoping to finish up on Thursday, but life could intrude again. Barring some catastrophe, I think I have a good chance to finish without taking it down to the wire.

The story has gone in a direction I wasn't expecting at all, which is kind of cool. Last night I had a great session of writing, and had a ton of ideas about where I'd take the story as it nears the climax. This afternoon, it started to go in a completely different direction. By the time I left the library, I had written the reveal of a major plot point, and it wasn't what I had expected at all. It was much more interesting (and unexpected, I hope). I have a ton of continuity problems, and this reveal sort of creates another one, at least with the narration. The narrator is supposed to be omniscient, but based on the direction I just took, the narrator didn't actually know what was going on. I think I'm going to have to stretch a little to resolve one of the plot points early in the book, and it's something I would take out if I worked on a second draft. The beauty of being forced to move forward (as the authors kept saying over and over in their pep talk emails and in interviews) is that you end up with something on the page that can be edited. Otherwise, you end up with a whole lot of nuthin', and you can't turn that into a second draft.

I have also been terrified of getting 30 or 40 pages into a book and realizing I have no plot, nowhere to go, and no way to end things. Another big fear has been plowing ahead and realizing I have 200 pages of useless, unfocused crap. Having done this, I realize that I can actually write something that I can work with. I wrote a beginning, there was a big ol' middle, and I seem to be hurtling toward something resembling an ending. It may not be pretty, but I wrote me a story!

I think I might try something serious in the nonfiction arena. The things I've learned through this experience have been incredibly instructive. The first thing is to write; the second is to not let myself stop writing, for any reason. If I hate what I've written I need to just let it be hateful and move on. That way I can end up with a first draft that I will have the luxury of hating entirely; it's possible that I might find I don't actually hate it all that much.

Word count today: 1,582

Total word count: 42,003

Words to go: 7,997

8,000 words to go, and just four days left. That's about 2K per day; it's doable. I hope I'm not feverishly typing the end of the book at 11:55 on Friday night--but if that's what it takes to finish, that's what I'll do.

I thought today might be a good word-count day. We got our daughter to bed about 7:30, and I thought I might be able to settle in and get a couple hours of writing done before bed. I ended up needing to take care of a couple things and didn't get going until 9:00. I had a burst of creative...er, creativity, and lots of useful dialogue came gushing out of my brain onto my computer screen. I feel like I could have written for a couple more hours. I had some great ideas, and the prose seemed to be just burning of my fingertips. At one point I kind of felt like I was taking dictation from the characters (the National Novel Writing Month folks kept saying that would happen toward the end, but I never quite believed it). I still have some dialogue rattling around inside me--but I also have a job with a 5:45 start time. I've got to get to bed.

I'm happy with where things are moving. I think the various plot threads are going to come together in a reasonably coherent manner (at least for a cheesy sci-fi novel). I'm not having to stretch too far to make everything gel. I know there are some serious continuity issues as I've discarded some ideas, orphaned some plot lines, and stranded some characters along the way, but that's for the second draft I'll probably never write.

Word count today: 1,799

Total word count: 40,421

Words to go: 9,579

In addition to posting my daily word count and the accumulated total so far, I'm also going to count down how many words I have left to go. I decided to add that bit of information because it's really starting to hit me that I'm going to do this. I've got under 10,000 words left to go, and five more days to get there. At the beginning of this month that would have seemed like a lot, but I think I'm actually in good shape. I've written all but three or four days this month. Aside from those zero-output days, my daily word count has varied anywhere from 343 words to 4100 words. My average has been about 1900. That's about how many words I'll need to write every day to hit the goal. Thursday's not looking too good this week, but the rest of the week I'm hoping I'll find some time during the day to write.

The big question for me beside the word count is whether I'll actually find an ending to my story. Some of the big threads are starting to come together (including a couple I had no idea would make any sense at all). I've got a couple issues to tie together, including a time-travel element I've never really explained. I'm pretty sure it's going to come down to a character who has been missing but isn't neccesarily dead; I haven't figured out how to explain his ability to travel through time. I'm sure it will come to me.

I stumbled on an interesting question as I was writing tonight, and one I think would be worth exploring further. How would the world's major religions deal not only with the existence of aliens, but with an event that resulted in the destruction of the earth and some kind of remant of survivors? What if the world ended, but humanity didn't? If there's anything so far that would potentially be the seed of a novel, that question might be it. I also thought about some groups to whom a comping apolcalypse is central to their worldview (Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Fundamentalists, and Jehovah's Witnesses came to mind). How would they react if they survived the end of the world--not in a heavenly place, but through ordinary physical means? I think Catholicism allows for some interesting (and theologically plausible) answers to those questions. Some other groups would have a hard time even asking them.

Word count today: 930

Total word count: 38,622

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of my post-Thanksgiving holiday putting together a home gym that's been languishing in its boxes for over a year. I had bought the floor model of a home gym at a local sporting goods store (way back in October of ought-six). I got it home and had it almost completely assembled when I realized one of the cables was missing. After a couple months of being promised new cables that never arrived, the store offered to swap my incomplete home gym for a brand new one. They also offered to deliver and set it up for free, but when I went back to the store with the pieces of my gym, the manager brought out a big box (I mean REALLY big) and several small ones on a flat cart. I wasn't sure how wild I was about having a couple guys in my basement anyway, so I gladly loaded up the boxes in my van and went home. After I wrestled them down to the basement, I wasn't that keen on setting the thing up. After all, I'd already just assembled and disassembled one. Anyway, I finally got around to putting it together. It went really well (only one major misstep in the assembly process, and that only took a few minutes to fix), but took a long time. I started at around 1:30 PM and finished up at 11 (with a break for dinner). So, no writing yesterday.

I sat down tonight hoping to catch up, but I only got around 900 words cranked out. I'm falling asleep (it might have something to do with staying up until 1 AM). I'll need to write about 1800 words a day for the remainder of this month to hit the goal, but I know I can do it. I'd love to have a big day tomorrow and get 4000 words out, but I don't see how that will be possible.

Word count today: 1,425

Total word count: 37,692

Bloated and groggy from my Thanksgiving meal, I still managed to crank out almost 1500 words. That should keep me on track. I still am hoping/planning for a couple of big word-count days over the remainder of the holiday weekend.

I'm about 70% of the way through the month and 71% of the way to 50,000 words. I've been able to cover enough ground in the past few days to make up for pretty sparse output before that (especially last week, when my focus was almost entirely on work because of our quarterly pledge drive). Based on my blog entries, I've only missed 3 days of writing in the first 21, meaning I'm averaging six days a week of writing. That seems pretty good to me.

I'm enormously disciplined about my job, but I tend to be sloppy about a lot of other things. One thing I often find myself doing is starting something new, going strong for a while, and then starting to lose steam after a few months. I have a bunch of unfinished home improvement projects and hobby stuff around the house as proof. Having a deadline and sticking to it has helped to focus my attention on getting it done rather than striving for perfection at every point along the way. One of the recurring themes in the NaNoWriMo pep talks (via emails and articles) is that a first draft is by nature kind of raw and flawed. The whole point of a first draft is to have something to edit into a second draft. Without actually finishing the book, you don't have a starting place for refining (or rewriting) it. I tend to worry too much about getting things perfectly the first time. The irony is that nothing I now do well came to me by using a process anywhere near what I so often apply to a range of things in my life.

My radio skills came through years of very hard work and no small amount of failure. I can recall at least two shots at live radio that were abysmally bad; I was so nervous training for weekend shifts at a small radio station in Washington State that I lost the job (even though I'd already done live work at two other radio stations) before it even started. I wanted the job so badly I psyched myself out of it. I eventually got a job at another station in town as Production Director. A few months later they put me in morning drive; that experiment lasted two days (again, because I was so nervous). My next job (at a major Seattle rado station) lasted for two years; I was let go because the Program Director felt I didn't have what it took to earn a permanent spot on the on-air roster. I was stupid enough to find another on-air radio gig (and I guess they were stupid enough to hire me), and 16 years after that last firing, I'm still on the air every day, talking to more people than at any other point in my career.

All I'm saying is, that doesn't really appear to be a clear path to success, but it really is. You have to want it badly enough that you're willing to work for it, and you're willing to keep showing up even when they don't want you to. Having some degree of talent doesn't hurt, of course; but as a programmer, I would always take a less talented person with drive over an immensely talented person with sloppy work habits. It's the tortoise/hare thing; the disciplined person who has a good strategy and works it will end up surpassing the one who's trying to get by on charisma and connections.

So, just finishing this novel (and I'm determined to do it) puts me way ahead of any point in the last 20 years when I told myself I wanted to write a book, and then proceeded not to. I still honestly don't know if I'll try to revise this into something resembling an actual, finished novel (I'm still guessing I won't), but it's sure given me a lot of insights into my own creative process, my own output ability (and doing it during a pledge drive month has certainly helped me to get a realistic gauge on that aspect of things). It's a great reminder to me that the most powerful secret to succes in anything is just showing up--not once, but over and over.

A few years ago I ran across a quote (it was on a calendar, and I haven't been able to find a source for it) that has become something of a life motto for me: One thing that keeps a lot of people from being a success is work.

Word count today: 4,100

Total word count: 36,267

Another really good day...I went to Barnes & Noble this morning for about two hours (thanks to my very understanding wife) and got within striking distance of 4000 words by the time she and my daughter dropped by for biscotti and conversation. This evening I wrote about a third of a page more, and finished up at exactly 4200 for the day.

Changing the setting by advancing the action forward in time has continued to help a lot. I brought back one character who was in one scene earlier in the book; I was actually a little surprised at how his scene played out today. I could see this story going a lot farther than 50,000 words. The 50K mark doesn't mean you have to stop, or even that the novel is necessarily done. The object is to get that far along in a month, which is still a big undertaking.

Word count today: 3,396

Total word count: 32,167

I'm 60% of the way toward the goal! WooHoo!

I had a nice burst of creative writing today, introducing two new characters. The second half of the book is set in a different time (20 years later) and a different place (outer space) than the first half (now-ish, earth-ish). Since most of the characters from the first half of the book are missing or dead (or, um, missing), I had to populate the new setting with mostly new characters. This feels easier and more natural than creating the first batch of them did. It remains to be seen what will happen with the two characters I introduced today, but I think I did a somewhat better job of fleshing them out.

It's been an interesting journey with this story so far. I started with the protagonist, his psychologist, and the protagonist's drug-addicted brother. The brother never made a reappearance, and a couple other characters I introduced didn't end up going anywhere, either. The psychologist has kind of become the lynch pin of the whole thing, drawing together the original characters and some new ones. He's also going to serve as the element that bridges two or more time frames in the story.

The novel began in contemporary America. I got bogged down in some plot issues that I felt were overwhelming the story. Since it already had kind of a sci-fi bent, I ran with that part of it and advanced the story 20 years. It now takes place on a starship of unknown origin, which has scooped up the remaining inhabitants of earth and promises to take them to a new home. I have an idea where this is going, although it's entirely possible I'll end up in a completely different place. Resetting the story has allowed me to introduce new characters, possibly tie up the dangling plot elements involving some of the original characters, and create more conflict and interaction. I realized the scenario I had set up had boxed me into a corner in terms of both dialogue and conflict, and I needed more opportunities for both. In a moment of absolute lunacy about 10 days in, I had seriously contemplated scrapping the whole story and starting over. The deadline forced me to find a way to tie the original story and characters together with the new setting in a way that makes sense within the framework of the novel.

A few days ago I was ready to throw in the towel; now I wouldn't dream of it. I've had three days of fairly high output (3194, 2523, 2296), and I've gained a lot of lost ground. The needed daily average to finish on time was 1667 words at the beginning of the month. After several days of inactivity, my need average output jumped to about 2100 words. Today it's down to 1793. I'm hoping for several more days of significant progress. I hope I can get that average down to 1667 words again, and then go below it. If I can average 2500 words a day for the next five days I'm on vacation, that would get me to about 45,000 words. Even if I can't maintain that pace, I'm not going to have any trouble finishing if I just keep writing every day.

Word count today: 2,534

Total word count: 28,774

I went to Barnes & Noble again today. It's just the right kind of place. Some people go there to eat and talk (while I was there a group of people from a retail store were having some kind of departmental meeting, and later a group of pre-teen girls were giggling at the table next to mine), but a lot of folks are there to work or to read. It's a great place to be creative and to get out of my usual routine. With my rewards club discount at chai latte is about $3.50...not bad for a couple hours' worth of creativity. I spent another hour or so working on the novel after my daughter went to bed. All in all, not a bad day in terms of output. I'm starting to feel like I can do this.

I've solved the continuity and plot issues in a Deux Ex Machina sort of way--but one that I think actually fits the story and moves it along in a reasonable fashion. It's sci-fi story, so I advanced the story 20 years and set the action aboard a starship that kind of popped out of nowhere. I've managed to kill off almost the entire population of the world, but I think I have somewhere to go with the remaining 1.5 million humans (and the five or six people I'm going to track for the rest of the book). For the first time I feel like this could actually gel into a first draft of something that could live on as a second draft. I can see ways to double back and tie up the major plot elements from the first half of the book; I think I'll end up coming back around to them at the end. I was kind of despairing of ever having this story make sense, but I think it might actually end up tracking. I'm not going to go so far as to say it would be readable (or even good), but just the idea that I might actually finish with something fairly coherent is kind of exciting. I feel pretty good about what I wrote today (although I'm afraid there might be some pretty uncomfortable parallels between my interstellar vehicle and one in a book I read about 20 years ago). The prose is flowing a little more freely, and I feel like I have a better handle on the story.

Under the NaNoWriMo banner on this page, there's a link to a progress report. One of the things it does is track how many words I'd need to write to hit the goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. When I started the month I needed to get 1667 words a day out; after I missed a few days last week, that daily average crept up to 2100. I got almost 3200 words written, and today I wrote a little over 3500. That's brought the average down to under 2000. I'm hoping to have a few good days of writing under my belt over the long holiday weekend (I took Wednesday off, and don't go back until Monday). I'll probably hit 30,000 words tomorrow.

I wrote quite a bit more after my last post. Here are the revised numbers:

Word count today: 3,247

Total word count: 26,248

Things actually flowed a lot better during my second round of writing tonight. I'm not sure how this scene fits into the others, but it felt much better to write.

I had the novel listed under the category of Mainstream Fiction; I think I need to revise that to Science Fiction. There was always a sci-fi element to it, but that has clearly become the dominant theme.

Word count today: 1347

Total word count: 24,377

I'm way behind, but it's still possible to finish this thing. I'd need to do about 2100 words a day to get finished by the end of the month. I'm hoping I can kick out between 1300 and 1600 words a day for the next few days, just to kind of tread water, and then do a big surge over the Thanksgiving holiday. I only work two days this week. I think I could get away with disppearing for a few hours on Wednesday, and possibily making up some of that ground then.

Last week was a very busy one at work, and I thik I only wrote on two of those days. This is something I very much want to finish, but work had to take precedence last week. The people behind National Novel Writing Month say you reach a point where the prose flows, but so far that hasn't happened for me. So far it's been a matter of the prose sucking more or less on a particular day. As a whole, the novel is a mess with huge holes and a plot that seems to be collapsing in on itself like a black hole or an underdone souffle.

Word count today: 349

Total word count: 23,054

Word count today: 1,735

Total word count: 22,711

Today is the exact midpoint of National Novel Writing Month. In theory I should be a 25,000 words. Being 3,000 words behind isn't that bad; I have five straight days off next week, so I'm hoping I can make up some of that ground then. Of course my wife has other plans for me, which involve remodeling a bathroom.

I haven't written anything for the past couple of days. I work for a nonprofit radio network, and we're having our quarterly pledge drive this week. It's an extremely intense week for me, and this one is even more intense than most. It's just more supporting evidence for the overall insanity of my trying to attempt this novel-writing thing at all.

The past couple days have been very intense at work; I've been working long hours and pretty much brooding about work when I wasn't working. I wrote nothing yesterday or the day before. Today I got away and went to Barnes & Noble for a little while. I sat in their little cafe (soy chai latte...yum) and wrote for about an hour. It was actually the best writing experience I've had since I started this. I usually write at the end of the day right before bed...not the best time to be creative. Sitting there with my latte, it was a nice opportunity to really get creative. I think what I wrote was a little more character-driven as a result.

The weekly pep-talk email went out yesterday or today from the NaNoWriMo folks, and one suggestion was to just write the interesting bits instead of trying to tie everything together. That was really helpful. The plot is getting away from me a little bit (I think I can tie it all together, but I need to come up with a couple more plot elements to do it). Switching to what's more interesting--for me, that's looking at the relationships the three main characters have with one another--might be a nice way to move into a more creative stratum.

Word count today: 964

Total word count: 20,997

I have no idea where this story is going; however, I've still managed to write every day, and at least put something on the screen that is in some way connected with what I've written before. That's not much, and I don't know if it's going to be enough to get me to 50,000 words. I realize this exercise has become as much about what I've done wrong than what I've done right. In my experience, learning from my mistakes can be highly instructive.

Word count today: 2070

Total word count: 20,043

I broke 20,000 words today. There's still about a 200 word discrepancy between my word count and the word counter on the NaNoWriMo site, but it's not really worth quibbling about. The NaNoWriMo word counter just went live this weekend, so for the rest of the month I'll use their word count rather than mine. I'm 36% of the way through the month and 40% of the book is written. That's very good. I'm probably two days away from 25K, which would take me to the halfway mark.

I almost gave up on the book today. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm really not wild about where the story's going. I keep feeling the need to create new plot twists to advance the story, probably because the characters aren't that compelling. It's taught me a lot, though. I would need to have a much better handle on my characters before attempting to write another work of fiction.

I went to the NaNoWriMo forums to try to get some help or inspiration for getting through the point where I seem to be hopelessly mired down in lame plot elements. Instead, I found people giving pointers on how to cheat to get to the 50,000 word mark (don't use contractions, have a character become fascinated with a real novel and then quote extensively from it). It's great these folks are writing, but that's pretty sad. It would be like cheating at solitare, or telling your friends and family you finally completed the NY Times crossword puzzle when you in fact did not.

I think the point of this exercise (at least for me) is to have the satisfaction of getting through something difficult, and having something tangible to show for it at the other end. It may not be great, and it may not be deserving of a second draft, but it will be something I've actually written. I do hope this experience will pave the way for me finally getting serious about writing a book-length something. I just don't know what, quite yet.

Word count today: 1851

Total word count: 18018

A few minutes ago I pasted my document into the word-counting robot at the NaNoWriMo website. It came up with 17,795 words, a discrepancy of 223 words (the word count I've been posting has been based on the word count tool in Open Office, which I use as my word processor...it has more features than Works, and there's no point in buying Word so I can write a few letters). Either way, the good news is that I'm closing in on 20,000 words, and that in turn puts me within spitting distance of the halfway mark. If the ratio remains the same, there will end up being a 600 word gap between my word count and theirs by the end of the book. That's not the end of the world; it's only about 2/3 of a page.

I hate, hate HATE the story I'm writing. I went with sort of a sci-fi, Quantum Leap/Journeyman vibe (my character travels through space rather than time, and has quite a bit more control over the protagonists in either of the sci-fi shows I just mentioned, but the basic question of who's behind it, and why are similar). I feel like I'm so caught up in trying to advance the plot that the characters are suffering. I'd start over, but I'm so far into it that it would be difficult to finish the novel if I scrapped it and went with a different premise. I tried killing off one of my favorite characters to ramp up the tension. It opened up some new possibilities, but nothing that's going to serve as a reset to the storyline. I almost feel like that's what it needs at this point. I might try throwing in some horrendous Deus Ex Machina plot twist to try to go a whole other direction (not that there hasn't been a fair amount of that already). The novel doesn't have to entirely make sense...the whole point of doing this is to learn how to do it. So far, I've learned that I don't want to try to write watered-down sci-fi.

Word count today: 422

Total word count:16,167

Another late night...my production has dropped off dramatically. I've all but burned up the lead I generated in the first few days by writing more. This weekend the goal is to get to 20,000 words or better. I think I can get there.

Tonight I concentrated on being a bit more visual, and making sure I was including enough details about the surroundings and the look of the characters.

Next week is going to be an intense one at work, so I need to come up with a strategy that help me to baance writing time with work and family time. The work and family time haven't suffered, but the writing is getting pushed back farther and farther. If I wite when I'm fresher I'll have a much easier time hitting my target word count

Word count today: 665

Total word count: 15,740

Still very tired tonight...my week has been jam-packed with some long days at work and family commitments after that. Last night and the night before I didn't start writing until after I'd have normally gone to bed. It's caught up with me tonight. I did get some work out, but only 665 words. The good news is that I'm still ahead of where I need to be to finish the book on time. That's good, because last night's and tonight's output combined is less than what I need my daily average to be to hit the 50,000 word mark by the end of November. So, that's bad news, too, I guess.

One more bit of good (I think) news is that the few words I did write tonight served to advance the plot significantly. A character I've been really invested in is the protagonist's therapist; he has been emerging as a sort of conscience for the protagonist, a bit of a sleuth into the intricacies of exactly what's happening to him, and an interesting character in his own right. In the loose sort of outline that's been unfolding in my head, I saw him as a major character spanning two timelines (the one I've been following, and a sort of alternate timeline in which the major characters would have had much different experiences, and would be profoundly changed as a result). Tonight I killed him off instead, and have ID'd the protagonist's potential love interest as the killer.

I was reading an email from the NaNoWriMo folks, and the author who wrote it was talking about the fact that, when writing a novel, you're the master of the universe. If a storyline seems like it's going nowhere, or if you feel mired down by a character, you can introduce an element that completely changes things. You can kill a character, for instance, and change the entire dynamic of the story. I've just killed off my second favorite character, so hopefully his death won't have been in vain.

Word count today: 1102

Total word count:15,075

Another long day, another late night to get some writing in. This is the part where it gets a bit tougher. I've kind of been writing until I finish the scene I'm working on at the moment, but tonight I stopped in the middle of one. I just can't stay awake. Still, I've crossed the 15K mile marker, and that feels pretty good. That put's me 30% of the way there, and this is only day 7. That's good.
I'm going to sleep now.

Word count today: 936

Total word count: 13,973

Today marks 20% of November gone, and I'm 28% percent of the way to the goal. Today I wrote less than the target daily minimum of 1667 words (for the first time, I think). Most days I've written more, and yesterday I was right on the money. It's getting late, and I need to go to bed.

It was a long day; I worked into the late afternoon at the office We went to the library's big used book sale after dinner, and Stacey and I had some work to do on an upcoming fundraiser at Julie's school. Then, like the brilliant mook I am, I decided to transfer all my NaNoWriMo posts to a separate blog to de-clutter the Joe Convert site. I wasted too much time trying to get a custom template to work (it didn't), and finally started writing about the time I should have been turning out the light. I'm happy I got something written, though.

I'm finding myself looking forward to spending a little time with these characters every night. I have at least a rough idea of where the story's going; one cool aspect of this is how plot elements I've laid down end up getting used to advance the story in ways I wouldn't have imagined. My grandmother wrote potboiler romance novels to pay the bills during much of her adult life, and she used to talk about how the characters took on a life of their own. I'm starting to see that with these characters. I can see where the plot was forced early on, but now it seems to be settling into more of an organic rhythm as I get to know the characters and understand what motivates them. I still don't think you'll ever be spilling coffee on this book at Barnes & Noble, but I'm learning a lot about how to write a story with big arcs. That's one element of trying to write a book that has always seemed the most daunting.

Oh, and the NaNoWriMo folks are right; the best way to write a book is just to make yourself sit down and do it. I've able to kind of power through plot and pacing problems just by continuing to move forward. If I were writing this book in hopes of having it published, I can see where I'd jettison some pretty big stretches I've written, but the key is not to do that until after the first draft is done. I'm only six days into this, and it's already been an extremely rewarding and useful excersize (not to mention sleep-depriving).

Word count today: 1711

Total word count: 13,036.

Word count today:

Total word count: 7577

I've just finished up day two of my Great American Novel (that in all likelihood you'll never read). My word count is 7577, which puts me a little more that 15% of the way there. At this rate, I'd have the book done in 14 days; I have no illusions that this rate will continue. I'm hoping to bank a few extra days' worth of words (the average needs to be around 1667 a day to get to the 50,000 word goal by the end of November), so I'll be able to keep going when life catches up with me.

I started with an idea that wasn't wildly original, but had a nice twist to it. Yesterday I thought I'd already written myself into a corner with the protagonist's ability, kind of quirky sci-fi thing that I was afraid would overwhelm what little storytelling might otherwise occur. Today I'm feeling more optimistic about it. If nothing else, it's giving me a tremendous education in writing through problem spots. That's always been my problem in the past in trying to jump from short-form content (which I've been writing for years, and have actually gotten paid to do), to something that requires continuity across chapters. I don't know if my Great American Novel will ever be that great, but I'm hoping to take whatever I learn this month and possibily plunge into a nonfiction project that could actually end up not being too horribly horrible.

Word count today: 1700

Total word count: 9250

This isn't the only thing I'm going to write about in November, but I will weigh in with short updates to document my progress. I wrote about 1700 words today, and my total word count is 9250. At this point I'm a bit ahead of schedule, because this is the first day I've "only" written the required 1667 or so words (it's a requirement in the sense that it's the pace needed to stay on track; nobody's having me turn in my work at the end of the day). I would describe my two-plus pages today as uninspired (to put it very kindly). It's the kind of thing I would have deleted without the pressure of the word count, and that's kind of the point.

I ran across an NPR article on National Novel Writing Month in which they asked a number of published authors about their writing habits and how they deal with writer's block. They generally described some kind of routine (anything from keeping regular office hours to grabbing a table at Panera--preferably one with a power outlet nearby), and a commitment to work through moments of weak inspiration or bad writing. In other words, they treat it like a job.

I have some experience with that; one of the first and best lessons I learned in my line of work was that a radio show that lives and dies on rushes of creativity will mostly die. My core philosophy (from a programming standpoint) is to find a place where I can create a consistent product every day, rather than serving up my best show ever on Monday, followed by my worst show ever on Tuesday. I shoot for a level of quality I can maintain over the long haul. That's pretty much how these authors describe their work. Regarding writer's block, a number of them said that you can edit two pages of bad writing, but you can't edit a blank page. So, today was one of those days. I'm only three days into this experiment, and I've already learned some useful stuff:

1. Two pages a day is not unreasonable output for a person who's writing
part-time.
2. In all likelihood, you'll never read this or any other novel with my
name on it.
3. The Internet is a great place to go for research, although you have to
work a bit harder to verify your sources.
4. I'm much better at reading sci-fi than I am at writing it.

My favorite response to the writer's block question was the woman who said that when she wrote her first novel, she was a working mother with several small kids, and didn't have time for the luxury of writer's block. If she had ten minutes to spare, she wrote something.

Total word count:

Total Word Count: 7577

I've just finished up day two of my Great American Novel (that in all likelihood you'll never read). My word count is 7577, which puts me a little more that 15% of the way there. At this rate, I'd have the book done in 14 days; I have no illusions that this rate will continue. I'm hoping to bank a few extra days' worth of words (the average needs to be around 1667 a day to get to the 50,000 word goal by the end of November), so I'll be able to keep going when life catches up with me.

I started with an idea that wasn't wildly original, but had a nice twist to it. Yesterday I thought I'd already written myself into a corner with the protagonist's ability, kind of quirky sci-fi thing that I was afraid would overwhelm what little storytelling might otherwise occur. Today I'm feeling more optimistic about it. If nothing else, it's giving me a tremendous education in writing through problem spots. That's always been my problem in the past in trying to jump from short-form content (which I've been writing for years, and have actually gotten paid to do), to something that requires continuity across chapters. I don't know if my Great American Novel will ever be that great, but I'm hoping to take whatever I learn this month and possibily plunge into a nonfiction project that could actually end up not being too horribly horrible.

Day 1 Word count: 3961

I pounded out almost 4,000 words today. I'm off work this week, so I can spend a little more time than I normally would on it (barring temporary insanity, I'd usually be asleep by now--11:00 PM--since I show up at work around 5:45 in the morning). So far, it's been a surprisingly good experience. Two pages a day is going to be doable, assuming I set aside the time for it. I wrote two scenes, and ended up introducing three characters to the story--the protagonist, his drug-addicted brother, and his therapist. I honestly don't expect anything to come of the novel, but I'm hoping it might help kick-start the creative process and lead me to do something I might actually want people to read. If you're interested, here's a link to my author profile at the NaNoWriMo website.

National Novel Writing Month starts on Thursday. For some, that label is quite literal; for the past several years, this organization has sponsored an event in which participants attempt to write an entire 50,000 word novel in a month. That means you, sitting down at your computer, and pounding out an average of 1666 words a day (or about 1950 words if you take Sundays off) to finish a short novel (about 200 pages) by the end of November.

If this seems, well--insane, it strikes me as being a lot easier than, say, becoming a contestant on either "The Biggest Loser" or "Survivor," entering the 12 week body-building makeover contest offered annually by the author of some book I own (but can't recall the name of right now), or finding a video game system for under $500. I did a test the other night, and 1600 words only works out to two pages on my word processor (in fact, two pages actually comes out to around 1700 words).
The goal of the event is to finish the novel and hit the minimum word count, rather than to strive for literary greatness. It's actually not a bad plan. As the official NaNoWriMo website says,

There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it...Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.

This past year I've been learning Spanish, for much the same reason (or lack of a reason). I think it's very positive and useful to do something or learn something with no readily discernible justification. Certainly, doing something for a good reason is important, but doing something for no reason is one of the things that sets us apart from the lower creatures. I can now order a beer and ask where the restroom is in Spanish; I also know more profanity in that beautiful language than is strictly necessary for me to navigate the waters of life.

Down the road, there will be good things I can do with somewhat more Spanish than I speak at present--help young mothers fill out forms for assistance at the ministry where my wife volunteers, or help immigrants with their taxes--but for now, learning a new language because it's challenging and beautiful isn't a bad place to start.

Neither is writing a novel because it's there--or at least it will be, when I've finished it. So, I'm taking the plunge. I've signed up to write my novel next month, I've put a banner up here saying I'm participating and I look forward to creating some execrable prose, and perhaps a little beauty, too.

I think that doing something just for the sake of doing it is not only good but can be godly. God didn't create us because he needed us; he created us because he felt like it. To me, that is one of the most daunting and wonderful things about trying to understand him. God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. It wasn't useful or expedient, and it didn't fill a need in him. There is no us-shaped-hole in God. I Am who Am is perfectly content to go on just Being, but for reasons we'll really never fathom, he decided to invite us to the party. It is the extravagant and unnecessary beauty of creation that, to me, is one of its best attributes.

Are we alone in the universe? Only God (and his agents, I suppose) know the answer. I think the bigger question to ponder is: even if we aren't, why is there so much more real estate than a billion earths could ever use, need, or explore? We haven't found the limits of the universe; most likely we never will, because it is, as far as we know, infinite. If it's not, there's something even bigger, more mind-boggling, and beautifully unnecessary waiting beyond its borders. Either way, creation never will never cease to be one glorious, cosmic kick in the pants.

The Canticle of the Sun

by St. Francis of
Assisi

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all
honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal
lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my
lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is
beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the
likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you
have made them, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms,
and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble,
and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the
night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and
rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those
who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most
High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no
living
person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those
she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve him with great humility.