NanoWriMo Update 11/21

Well, somehow I've hit 20,000 words. 20,483 to be exact. I couldn't tell you how many of those are good though. I'm having a tough time figuring out how not to go back and rewrite things. But I think that's really the point of the Nanowrimo when you think about it; it's not the quality, it's the accomplishment.

Still, I'm not sure how I feel about hitting 20,000 words right now. Behind the pace to finish, it now seems as though I've still put too much effort into this to abandon it. And yet I've got to be honest, right now I hate what I've written. And not in a "oh god I can't write this is horrible" way. More like a "oh god I've written about 30 pages of a novel and haven't come close to a plot."

As I've stated before, I've switched voice, I've switched tone, I've switched a lot. I have huge chunks of description just floating out there, doing nothing to advance the story. Yet I find these are my favorite pieces.

It's fun to be schizophrenic.

So anyway, while I still try to figure out how to trudge along, I figured the least I could do was include an excerpt - the same excerpt I have on the nanowrimo page. So, if you'd like take a look on the flip side...



A quick note. I have already changed the name of the protagonist. And I already hate the name I changed it to. But I didn't feel the need to update this, so there you go. Enjoy. And please leave any comments (if you have them). And not just I love it. I'd rather read "I hate it." If that's the true sentiment. Without further adieu...

An excerpt from an untitled possibly never finished novel:

There were moments in an entity's history that gave it it's heft. Regardless of it was: a country, a person, heck, even a car - every physical object - both inanimate and breathing - had a history of events that sculpted it into it's current existence. A lightning strike could be a monumental moment of historical significance to a tree; two planes flying into two buildings will definitely have an impact on a nation. Those moments in history however small or significant they may be, made everything what it was at that very moment.

Reed felt this introduction held such importance.

"Reed. Me too."

"Good. At least I won't be the only one looking like an idiot."

Reed didn't think Stacy could ever possibly look like an idiot in any situation, but didn't say it. And then wondered why he hadn't, because it was a good line. It certainly would have given the significant moment a direction, and defined it at least a little clearer than the current muck it was in.

She turned away to give Frank more of her attention once again. Reed took this opportunity to gaze at her discreetly. Even her imperfections: the misplaced strings of hair she hadn't cared about to make sure were pulled back; a small purplish bruise with yellowing edges on her forearm; a dent on the top of her knee; a paper cut sliver of a scar on her ankle; were all perfect. All those blemishes put together grounded her in the reality of the now, and gave her a certain weight in Reed's mind.

He just fell in love.

"HEY!" a gruff, nasally shout interrupted his daydreaming. The second time today.

"You lose focus like that on the stand and a kid goes down what do you do? I'll tell you what you do. You piss your $8 Target board shorts, get dizzy and pass out, thinking about how you're going to tell the parents' of the two year old that's blue and motionless at the bottom of one foot of water - because a toddler can drown in a PUDDLE, that's been PROVEN! So now they can go buy that RV they've secretly wanted but put on hold because of college tuition prices for their little sport...their little scooter. Because he wasn't going to be big enough to play football and get a scholarship, and because he was going to be smart, but not a genius, at least nothing you could count on for an academic scholarship...and financial aid? Not the way Mr. Bennington was advancing. Sure, he'd be making a nice living, but not a college tuition throwaway type salary. But those worries won't be theirs anymore because you took care of it. You took your eye off the pool to drool over some prepubescent girl, and in that second of lapsed concentration, a boy will never see another Christmas. I hope you brought another pair of board shorts!

Reed looked up to see a not fat, but certainly skinny man bending down to bring his mirrored glasses and attitude down to Reed's face level. "Stout" might have been a word a lady used to describe him to one of her friends going out on a blind date with him; "portly" if stout got a negative reaction. Reed, based on this sudden introduction mentally chose "pudgy."

NaNoWriMo Update 11/18

For any of you paying attention to my plight: 14453 words. Semblance of a weak plot. Already feel like going back and changing most of what I've already written. Have pretty much changed the voice from third person limited to third person, which is jarring in places.

But there are good things too, I think. A couple of decent lines I like. Some characters too. Some unconvention. I also have a weird "post modern" (and I hate the label too) that I've thought about doing, though it might be jarring as well. Time will tell.

I will say thing thing I hate the most is the Flesch Reading Ease Scale Googel uses in its tool. Every time I do a word count, it comes up. It's unavoidable, and now it has consumed me. I'm currently writing on a 4th grade level. It's a little humiliating.

Oh well.

To all you who are participating in this who might stumble across this. Don't give up. I'm finding that the lows are not that bad, and the highs are kind of cathartic. I doubt anyone is going to read this when I'm finished, but when I am finished I will at least be able to say I have a completed novel under my belt - an accomplishment in and of itself.

Write on.

NaNoWriMo Update 11/14

10,000!

Learn more on the flip side!



Yup. Reached it wound 5:00 today.

I took the rest of the night off. Bad idea? Sure, but I'm one fifth the way finished.

NaNoWriMo Update: 11/13

It's been a roller coaster. After breaking the 7000 word mark, I of course went back and fiddled around with some stuff, and dropped back down to around 6600 words. I really wanted to be at 10000 by the end of tonight; that seems like a pipe dream. I mean, 30 Rock is on - and this week Jennifer Anniston guest stars.

She's back on Thursday nights!

Anyway, I still am not 100% sure of my plot - story of my life - and I've tinkered with some conversations and who's having them. Have I mentioned this thing is like 90% dialog? I'm not sure if that's good or not. My voice stinks, and my grasp of third person limited narration certainly needs a brush up. Also, I really wanted to keep a Dabney Coleman reference in (a response to Buffalo Bill) but my protagonist is supposed to be 18. And the person making the reference was an 18 year old girl. You can start to get an idea of how this is going to turn out with these clues, right?

Maybe I'll just up the ages of everyone. There are a lot of swim clubs with 30 year old guards, right?

NaNoWriMo Update 11/11

Quick look at how it's going. Kind of a good news/bad news thing.

Good news: I broke the 5000 word barrier.
Bad news: I'm pretty sure I hate my intro to the piece, which is probably about 1500 words.

And that's what is making this so difficult for me. Every sane person doing this is not editing themselves; unfortunately I can't get away from that. Everything I've written so far I think is shit, and therefore want to change it. But if I do that, I'm not going to come close to finishing.

Then there's the ol' thing of still not having a plot. It's still a series of events, roughly (stress roughly) sewn together with a location backdrop. Maybe it can still work. Who knows?

One bright light (small but still) is that I do have at least a structure (in my head) of how the next few chapters are going to go. I'm not sure it's the right thing, to do, and the time (no it's not about time travel unfortunately) is being slowed down to accomplish it, and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do or not, but whatever. At this point, I can't think of another way to conquer it.

So there you have it.

NaNoWriMo Update: 11/10

Writing a novel with no plot is hard.

As you may have read in an earlier update, I after a lot of head scratching and restarts, I finally went with an idea I thought had potential to work.

Unfortunately, in going with that idea, I left a number of plots on the table that I now can't use. Plots that probably would have been a lot easier to flesh out and come to a conclusion with. As it stands right now, I have a weak beginning, a few ideas I want to put in the novel, and no ending.

It's not the world's best position to be in with only a few weeks to go. However, I plan to soldier on, and hope I can come up with a hook to make this at least somewhat interesting; I would hate to have the drawer I put it in when I'm done to be bored with it.

I will tell you what it's about. I won't tell you what the other ideas that I'm not writing are though. There are plenty of plot poachers out there, ready to cash in on my brilliance (I might be a slight bit over paranoid about some things).

It's a story of a teenaged boy's last summer at a swim club before college.

Slightly autobiographical (at least the location and many of the hijinks that ensue), somewhat whimsical, mostly crap.