All In

I guess you could say that I embarked on this year's NaNoWriMo with an unspoken challenge to myself. It was a notion spawned by an essay written by Benjamin Percy and in it he described writers as conservative, sparing in how they dole out ideas to certain projects, always keeping a stockpile under lock and key, saved for other projects should the time warrant.

I've never been the type of writer who has a such a stockpile, but I've also never tried putting every drop of myself and all of my best material into a story. But with this novel, I thought why not? Thirty days of writing with abandon is just the start to this and writing the first 82,000 words now has left me feeling emptied and that it would take me at least another thirty days to recover. And that's what the past five days of November have felt like, wondering whether or not I could pick this project up again when I haven't even finished it.

But then a glimmer of inspiration came to me yesterday, which indicated to me that my well of ideas have yet to be depleted, that although I felt like I had gone "all in", I still have more to give, and that maybe this is just a brief reprieve before I continue with this project at a more rational pace. So even though the month ended with a bit of a whimper, I am celebrating the process of creating.

And for the wrap-up of the final days of November:

Nov 26-27: I swear after that big push to 80K, I didn't have anything left in me. Took Friday off and even today I don't feel like there's that much fuel left. I may change my mind later tonight, but so far only logged in 1500 words. (81,777 words)

Nov 28: Another Eureka-in-the-bathtub moment… although I doubt I can pull it off, I'm pretty excited to try a little Moliere in Chapter 30, which was feeling rather stale until now. (81,829 words)

Nov 29: Deleted about 2K words and rewrote it so not making the word count progress I hoped, but I'm certainly feeling much better about several weak spots that were troubling me. Still haven't rewritten Chapter 30 because I need to take a detour and read a little Moliere first. (82,009 words)

Nov 30: Without 175,000 writers to draft along side, I'll need to set my own goals so in order to get through the rest of the novel, I'm going to commit to writing at least 1,000 words each day. It's just four new pages but will also give me time to edit as well.

Punchlines
I never knew playing darts was such a dangerous thing.
A hard pointy thing... that you use to score? Oh yeah. Danger.

Bari Improv

I love this moment in the movie when August Rush discovers music for the first time. He plucks the string of a borrowed guitar and what issues forth is magical. Watching him in this scene is like watching someone wake up from the inside.



The song Bari Improv is actually performed by guitarist Kaki King, whose hands are also filmed in this sequence.

How many times have you watched a movie, read a book, heard a song or if you're blessed with the talent  that you've created a thing and thereby experienced a connection to whatever is out there? I was watching Dead Poets Society last night and was reminded by the quote from John Keating, "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

As if it warranted any further explanation, this is why I write.

Punchlines
I am highly strung. I suspect it’s all because of the hand cannon shoved down my mouth.

Gobble, gobble

Well, I did it and just in time for turkey! Although I achieved my word count goal for NaNoWriMo for the month of November, it turns out I am far from done with the first draft. I have roughly fifteen more chapters to write which at the rate I'm going will yield a manuscript of roughly 115,000 words. I didn't think I had that many words in me, but I guess I did.

Anyway, I'm taking a break to serve food to the homeless downtown and then this afternoon, I'll prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the family at home. I am thankful for so much this year, that for once, I'm at a loss for words to share here. Much love and happiness to everyone during the holidays!

As soon as I captured this moment, I already changed the target goal to 100,000 which I hope to achieve by November 30th. It's always good to keep raising the bar, isn't it?

Here's the daily chronicle over the past few days:

Nov 22: Part of me is really wondering who's in charge: me or the muse? (70,010 words)

Nov 23: Grinded through another day. Feeling somewhat stale and spent. The A-story feels like it is heading to its natural conclusion but it's happening six chapters too soon. I need to prolong the conflict/debate a little longer. Maybe I'll spend more time on the B-story over the next few days. (73,616 words)

Nov 24: Still working on the A-story and finished up Chapter 29 which I'm pretty happy about and starting Chapter 30. (78,050 words)

Nov 25: Took a breather at the 80,000 mark to get ready to serve food to the homeless and later I'll be preparing Thanksgiving dinner at home for the fam. Have a happy turkey day everyone!!! (80,080 words)

Punchlines

In the midnight hour babe she cried more, more, more!

Well, that's all well and good. But if you've been drinking, and it's late, do not listen to anyone who encourages you to trim your pubes.

I heart DFW

During my slump last week, I spent a little time trying to get a little more grounded in the face of the doubting voices in my head that really called into question what I was trying to accomplish with this piece. And then I found this little gem which set me straight.

"I realized that the point of being post-modern or being avant garde wasn’t following a certain kind of tradition, that all that stuff is BS imposed by critics who can’t follow it afterwards, but what great artists do, and it sounds really trite to say that line. What the really great artists do is that they are entirely themselves. They’ve got their own vision, their own way of fracturing reality and if it’s authentic and true, you’ll feel it in your nerve endings." ~ David Foster Wallace

Charlie Rose interviews David Foster Wallace

The words didn't exactly pour forth easily from then on, but it did flow with purpose and I've eeked out another 15,000 words since. Here's a chronicle of the journey for the past few days:

Nov 18: Even though I wrote a couple pages this morning, I plan to take the rest of the day off to recharge so that I can tackle a full day of writing tomorrow. (56,370 words)

Nov 19: A change of scenery helped a little today. I went to Café Amandine and parked myself there for a couple hours despite having only had less than four hours of sleep. Powered through Chapter 23 after skipping over Chapters 21 and 22… Not sure if I like them very much and will have to think about that particular subplot later when my mind is fresh. (59,050 words)

Nov 20: Once again skipped over a tricky subplot comprising Chapter 24 to focus on the A-story and fleshed out Chapter 25. This is one of those days where I feel like the novel is becoming quite a pastiche of incongruous ideas. (62,415 words)

Nov 21: Chapter 25 is turning into an interesting metafictional piece that may draw too much attention to itself. Hopefully I can keep most of this and not be forced back into conventional storytelling with this one. (65,010 words)

Punchlines

Twelve inches ago, I could have helped you. Twelve inches ago, something could be done, but now I'm afraid it's too late.

Sometimes, it's more than a foot that can come between two people.

Mash-ups

I'll have to thank my friend Shannon for getting me on the Glee bandwagon. They've actually done a phenomenal job introducing the world to mash-ups, something that I had discovered a couple years ago when my friend Pete who's a disc jockey gave me a copy of his mash-ups. It's the musical equivalent of being able to have fries and onion rings. This mash-up brings Singin' in the Rain together with Umbrella.

From a literary perspective, I've used the mash-up equivalent a lot in my own writing. Luscious Dumplings was a parody of the final court room drama in A Few Good Men but twisted up because I cast a celebrity chef in place of Colonel Jessup. Mash-ups are just the perfect amount of surprise and comic delight that comes from writing punch lines and sometimes it's the collision of disparate ideas that really can create some imaginative material.

Speaking of which, here's the latest daily update on my NaNoWriMo progress:

Nov 15: 5K sprints for three days in a row is a little nutty. Chapter 17 is shaping up nicely and I'm a little anxious to get to the midpoint when the story really starts to take off. (50,110 words)

Nov 16: What an emotional let down after that push to 50K. I need to stay focused on pushing along at least 3K per day for the rest of the month. Also need to find some other writers I can draft along side so I don't lose the competitive edge. Chapter 18 and 19 need a little more girth, too. (52,925 words)

Nov 17: My early morning writing produced probably the most enjoyable 750 words since the beginning of this manuscript. It's the last 750 words of Chapter 19. I'm torn between wanting to go back to the first chapter and begin rewriting with this same voice and to keep it consistent versus pushing forward with the second half, complete that, and then go back to the beginning. Even if I don't reach 80K, by the end of the month, I think I'll be better off crafting the story that doesn't make me cringe. If I produce no more than 750 words each day similar to this then I'd be a proud writer. (55,070 words)

Punchlines

Dear Abby, Lately I've been craving a glimpse of daylight. Just a brief moment once every couple of years. Is that too much to ask?

Yes. Next?

Uluru Redux

Ah, here we are in Uluru again. For those who haven't sojourned through this treacherous wasteland in the middle of Australia, I must caution you. It is not for the feint of heart. Make sure to pack supplies including a map, compass and two tons of caffeine. Well, maybe something lighter than that. It is after all 1,752 miles from Sydney. Since I am in Uluru once again, this could mean only one thing. That I am deep, deep, deep in the middle of novelling this month. So how is it going?

Well, true to my Type A nature, I've been keeping track of a variety of statistics along this journey called NaNoWriMo. Friends could hardly expect less from me, so I wouldn't want to disappoint them. For those visually inclined, I have a dashboard that updates all of the relevant stats on a daily and project basis.

Exhibit 1.

This tracks my overall progress toward achieving 80,000 words, where I am today, how many words on average I've written per day or per hour as well as how much far I have left to go. The good news is that at my current rate, I am tracking towards completing 80,000 words in time for Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble.

Exhibit 2.

This second chart shows the slow and steady march toward 80,000 words along with my mood swings. After a couple of off days from the 10th through the 12th which I describe below, it feels like I'm back in the swing of things.

Nov 11: I need to go back to the basics with the inherent conflict and motivations of each character, especially the hero's. (32,018 words)

Nov 12: More of the same. Just feels like I'm going through the motions and I'm hoping tomorrow - without the pressure of having to reach word count minimums - that I can rework passages with more heart. (35,300 words)

Nov 13: hahaha - I rocked the wordcount today and really constructed some great scenes. Still leaving some juice for tomorrow and hope for another monster day. (40,090 words)

Nov 14: Really excited about how Chapter 15 and 16 are coming along and it feels like I've hit the equivalent of a runner's high. At the same time, I can't believe I have 8K words left before I reach the midpoint of the story. Yikes. (45,090 words)

Punchlines

Remember: A frown is just a smile upside down, always split pairs, and I before E except after C.

Dreamy

OMG what a fantastic performance of Teenage Dream this week! Such a breath of fresh air. This one is going on heavy rotation until my ears bleed.

And for those following along, here are some quick updates including an excerpt available for a limited time on NaNoWriMo:

Nov 6: Had fun taking a novel-related detour researching both the history of television in America as well as the history of written languages. Completed writing about my portal to the fantasy world and ended it with a snowball fight. What could be better? (16,435 words)

Nov 7: Weaving subplots within the narrative is starting to get tricky, especially staying on track with the internal journey of the hero. There are too many interesting external dynamics playing out that it seems "louder" somehow. (20,180 words)

Nov 8: Hit a really boring transitional section today so the wordcount slowed. Will probably need to rewrite it to make it more meaningful to the hero. But all is not lost, I came up with a pretty cool device that's relevant, if not a bit sci-fi-ish. Hope to make that part stick. (23,025 words)

Nov 9: Eureka in the bathtub moment in Chapter 9 which was a lot of fun to write. Chapter 10/11 didn't have enough story based on the outline so I had to combine those two chapters and split up Chapter 2 which was too long anyway. (27,201 words)

Nov 10: The early Act 2 chapters are becoming a major problem for me. There's not enough conflict and so I struggle with accelerating reveals from later chapters into these early sections. Perhaps a complicating subplot is in order. It's going to be a low-output day unless I skip ahead and work on a different chapter. (29,227 words)

Punchlines

CORNER CHICKEN SUIT DANCER: So I've been doin this gig for a month now...It's pretty cool.

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL DEAN: Congratulations. You're now qualified to run Goldman Sachs.

NaNoWriMo

It's that time of year again, when 179,o00 enthusiasts embark on a new writing adventure called NaNoWriMo. This year I was a little reticent in participating until a friend posed the question after signing up herself. I really had not given it that much thought at that point and with tepid agreement, I hedged and said that if I could come up with an idea then I would.

A few weeks later after reading a couple novels and getting back into the rhythm of writing prose with my experimental short story Charm of Ivanhoe, I returned to this question. After a bit of brainstorming, I decided to write an urban fantasy in the vein of The Eyre Affair meets Back to the Future.

Living with the Cosby's

When a young boy immigrates to the land of opportunity, he discovers that life in America is fraught with greater moral peril than his native village in India. With no one to turn to for help, he escapes to TV Land only to discover he is now trapped living with the Cosby’s.

Unlike last year, I spent a few weeks outlining the story beats and then fleshing out the chapter outlines. This pre-work resulted in about a 40-page outline compared to Seasons of Conflict's 3-page outline. I'll let you know thirty-days from now whether extensive preparation served me well or not. So far, the first week has been productive, largely because I committed to a 5K Day One dash to build a sufficient cushion. I achieved that goal just barely, but I'm glad that I did. I don't feel as anxious if I decide to take an evening off here and there to be a normal person.

Here are my daily thoughts on the first week:

Nov 1: Pacing of Chapter 1 and 2 seems to be loose. I'm letting language and atmosphere take over rather than be overly concerned about reaching plot turns within 400-500 words. (5,045 words)

Nov 2: Had a really slow start in the morning, spending too much time re-reading passages written on Day 1. Worried about too much exposition in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 feels like it can easily stretch into twice the length given so much material to cover. This is turning into a 120,000-word novel at the rate of 3,000 words per chapter. (7,202 words)

Nov 3: Did a little bit better in the morning, but not strong enough IMO. Made up for it at lunchtime and felt good enough tonight to sprint to 10K. Still feeling good about the storyline and solved my “moral peril” issue and decided against writing about a meth lab in favor of euthanasia which feels more organic to the story. (10,020 words)

Nov 4: Seriously feeling like Chapter 4 is a little light on story. It needs to be more complex but I think it struggles because the action is too rushed and urgent. And the euthanasia argument needs to be recast in a more dynamic way. Maybe have him argue with his Uncle instead of doing research. (12,500 words)

Nov 5: Resolved it by making it into a philosophical debate. Now I need more action, maybe a physical confrontation to serve as a metaphor to convey the internal struggle he is facing. (13,400 words)

Punchlines

You know, I'm getting real frickin' tired of this. I mean, one, maybe two times I can give it a pass. It's just annoying. Then I mean. However, I really can't let this go this time without saying something. So let this be your final warning...

No hand-to-hand combat before breakfast and absolutely no decapitations until the back nine. Comprende?