AntSaint

2 Days After NanoWrimo

It's been a couple of days since I crossed the 50,000-word mark of Nanowrimo, and it's been a good time:

• Took Monday night off, do some errands and cooking and catch up on life
• Tuesday and today, I've written between 500-1000 words each day
• Compiled a list of other content about the novel that I want to draft scenes for

It's been a relief finishing Nano, but also a little weird. The pressure of the deadline is off, and the new challenge is not some huge daily output, but consistently doing something, every day. I may take Thursday and Friday off writing, the better for me and Jodie to enjoy the holiday weekend, and during December I know that I intend not to touch the manuscript, though I may still continue to draft up scenes.

What happens next? It's hard to say, and I don't know. At some point I'll have written up all I think the novel needs for now. At that point, I'll put down the manuscript for a month or two, to get some mental distance from it, and then come back to it for the first editing and rewriting.

Day 23: 50216 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Sunday, November 23, 2008

• Word Count: 2588
• Total Written: 50216
• Total Remaining: 0
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2183
• Time (minutes): 75
• Avg. Time (minutes): 61

Notes & Observations

I did it. On Sunday, November 23, 2008, I crossed the 50,000-word finish line, and won Nanowrimo. Not that I really win anything, mind, except the joy at actually having a manuscript. But that's more than enough for me. For now.

And now? Now I think I'll keep going. There's still a week left, and there is still much I'd like to draft out. So I'm going to keep at it, until I feel done.

Jodie – this is all for you. Thank you for believing in me, and for kicking me in the arse whenever I've needed it. I love you.

Excerpt

"For a moment he closed his eyes and his mouth; still floating in the middle of the column of golden light, raised his legs and bent them at the knees, as if he were crouching in mid-air, and at the same time he brought his hands to his chest, palm-to-palm and finger-to-finger. He bent his forward, towards his touched hands.

He could no longer see the world, but he knew the world. He was the world.

He could no longer see the people around him, but he knew the people around him. He was these people, all these people, every person."

Day 22: 47628 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Saturday, November 22, 2008

• Word Count: 1736
• Total Written: 47628
• Total Remaining: 2372
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2165
• Time (minutes): 45
• Avg. Time (minutes): 60

Notes & Observations

Thought this evening would only be around 1100 words, but I hit a good grove and got more than the minimum. No other thoughts today – I've got beer to chill and, soon, guests to welcome. But the end is in sight!

Excerpt

"He took one last look at the woman, and for a moment his eyes teared up. I never really knew her, he thought, a mix of pity and anger and disappointment welling up in his. But now I know all I need to know.

He turned and walked towards the roof stairs. He had opened the door and set his foot on the first stair, when a bullet hit him in the shoulder, he heard the loud report of the pistol shot, and then the force of the impact knocked him forward, off his balance, and he fell down the stairs into darkness and pain."

Day 21: 45892 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Friday, November 21, 2008

• Word Count: 1794
• Total Written: 45892
• Total Remaining: 4108
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2185
• Time (minutes): 50
• Avg. Time (minutes): 61

Notes & Observations

A mellow night of writing, full of many short sections leading up to the main action of the novel. The sections were short and full of pace – lot of potential here.

Excerpt

"J— stood in the empty street, and hated feeling like a bad Western movie. He waited for the twanged notes of a guitar, for the tumbleweed to roll-bounce past, for the clod-step of a dusty boot to come into frame, in the middle of the street, opposite him.

But it was just him.

The sky darkened as clouds gathered. The sun was a memory; daylight and brightness were the stuff of fancy.

There was only J—, and the empty world.

Or so he thought."

Day 20: 44098 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Thursday, November 20, 2008

• Word Count: 2035
• Total Written: 44098
• Total Remaining: 5902
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2205
• Time (minutes): 80
• Avg. Time (minutes): 62

Notes & Observations

Tonight was a grueling evening of stalling, false starts, disjointed dead-end ideas, and internal resistance. I wanted to dink around on Facebook. I wanted to constantly check the wood stove. I wanted to look up TV shows on IMDB. I wanted to, well, do anything but writing.

Jodie called me a few minutes after I was all but banging my head on the desk, trying to tough out a couple of hundred words. I explained how slow the night was going, the way my brain felt like treacle. "Give yourself a set time, then," she said. "Write until, say, 8:30, and then just call it good."

People love to talk up the artist and solitude. Nonsense. If you truly want to endure in anything creative, you need a good partner.

So I took Jodie's advice (and made coffee). Twenty minutes later, even though everything was disjointed and I was just doing up wee vignettes and jumping to something else, at least there were words coming out. Then I got my second cup, and mixed in a healthy dram of Drambuie. I thought more about what Jodie had said.

Things got easier. I was approaching 800 words, and it seemed a shame to stop there, when I was so close to 1,000. So I kept going. And if I could hit 1,000, well hell, surely I could struggle on to the bare minimum of 1,667? Well, okay... well, look, if I can get that, well, I've tried to hit 2,000 words each night, surely I could give that a go?

And suddenly, I was there – 2035 words. It wasn't easy. But I did finally hit a groove, and suddenly the time and the words flew. Or, in other words, I stopped giving a damn, got myself out of the way, and just wrote.

The home stretch is in sight. It's possible that I'll cross 50,000 words by Sunday night. If I can get through a night like tonight, then that's definitely doable.

Excerpt

A cool breeze blew in from the fields around the cabin, and they smelled of wood smoke, leaves, and roasting meat.

Home.

J— felt a tear in the corner of his eye.

Home.

The real thing – more real than his dreams and memories, and at last, possible.

He turned and looked back at her.

“But… it’s been so long.”

“Has it really?”

“Hasn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be, if you don’t want it to be.”

Day 19: 42063 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

• Word Count: 2041
• Total Written: 42063
• Total Remaining: 7937
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2214
• Time (minutes): 50
• Avg. Time (minutes): 61

Notes & Observations

This evening's ride on my sidecar motorcycle did not in any way influence tonight's nano output, I swear.

Excerpt

"She loved the world through the goggles, and rush of the wind over her, blocking out all sound but the twin roars of the wind and the engine. How the world changed, here, blurring by so fast, but yet all so slow, so slow as if it were all riding with her, as if she was standing still in the middle of all of it. C— pressed in the clutch, kicked down her heel to shift up a gear, and released the clutch while snapping the throttle. She grinned at the feel forward, at the way the engine buzzed and hummed and was so powerful, so vibrant it was damn near alive. She could get used to this."

Day 18: 40022 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

• Word Count: 2514
• Total Written: 40022
• Total Remaining: 9978
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2223
• Time (minutes): 60
• Avg. Time (minutes): 61

Notes & Observations

Less than 10,000 words to go. I'm too shocked to say much. It's not the home stretch – but the home stretch is now in sight.

Tonight I decided to step back from a bit of action I'd been working on, and dip back into some ideas for material that might be in a prologue. The prologue is further along in time than the main action of the novel, and while I don't think much of it will be in the final product, it was fun to try something different and approach and set up some of the plot from a different angle.

Excerpt

“He’s a friend o’ mine from long back, you see,” said one of the men.

"From long back? I was having coffee with him this morning,” said another.

“Feck’s sake, I still want to belt the fecker for shaggin’ my wife,” said a third.

“Since when do you have a wife?” replied the first.

The young man was feeling confused again, but then the older man — the man who had brought him here and who had said nothing ever since blurting to the bar the young man’s ignorance of all things J— — spoke up.

“Hush it lads,” he said. “None of you’s know J— as I know him.”

“Oh yeah? And where do you know him from?”

While the older man looked only one of them in the eye, they all felt as if he were staring them down. “Everywhere,” he replied.

No one had a snappy comeback.

Day 17: 37508 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Monday, November 17, 2008

• Word Count: 2069
• Total Written: 37508
• Total Remaining: 12492
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2206
• Time (minutes): 52
• Avg. Time (minutes): 61

Notes & Observations

A good bit of output. Not necessarily in terms of quality, mind you, but in terms of getting myself out of my imagination's way and just running with the images in my head. That was a pretty fun set of words to crank out.

Excerpt

"He put his head in his hands, and leaned forward in the chair. “None of us could have even seen something like this coming. And I still don’t know enough. There’s so much to know, so much I have to know, so much to try to make certain of, so much to not let happen, so much to make sure to let happen — and I know nothing. And the worst is that there’s something wrong, there’s something none of us know"

Day 16: 2520 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Sunday, November 16, 2008

• Word Count: 2520
• Total Written: 35439
• Total Remaining: 14561
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2215
• Time (minutes): 64
• Avg. Time (minutes): 62

Notes & Observations

As of today, I've crossed the 35,000-word mark, and have less than 15,000 words to go. I'm not quite in the home stretch to 50,000, but I'm close.

What happens when I get there?

I may well keep going, and see where I wind up come Nov. 30. It's going to look a lot more like real manuscript, like a real novel, than I ever could have hoped.

Excerpt

S— walked over to C—, and picked her up off the ground. They stood close to one another, and he looked at her with an almost fatherly concern. “I’m… I am sorry, my C—,” he said. In all the eons, he had never spoken such words – or meant them. “You have done nothing wrong. But there is something wrong, something very wrong, and it threatens everything. I can tell you little. But what I can tell you –” his smile grew larger – “is that you can help make it right.”

Day 15: 32919 of 50,000 - 2008 Nanowrimo

Today's Novel Writing Stats

Saturday, November 15, 2008

• Word Count: 4021
• Total Written: 32919
• Total Remaining: 17081
• Avg. Words Per Day: 2195
• Time (minutes): 102
• Avg. Time (minutes): 62

Notes & Observations

Today's output was done in two stages. I wrote for an hour this morning, and churned out about 2,000 words. Then, tonight, I put in another 45 minutes and managed to crank out another 2,000 words. I'm over the 30,000-word mark, and after tomorrow, may well be over the 35,000-word mark. It's hard to believe how far this has come.

Today is "halfway day" for Nanowrimo. I could wax philosophic, but I guess for me, I'm just proud and relieved at how far this idea has come. I'm glad that I've proven myself wrong about not being able to do this — and that I wouldn't be able to make progress on the idea that's mattered to me most. It's gratifying, and I look forward to seeing what I can shape all this mess into.

Excerpt

"Forty drapees, I’ll show him — I want a marble and a stick and to run to the canal with Kanesh — This can’t be happening if it is the disgrace the shame my mother my father — There can’t be much life left in me today — Milk want milk want milk want milk — I am sorry to charge you so much but the debts the debts oh how will I get by today — The moon is no farther than your eyes, What are the cries of this world but lullabies, Come with me and we will sing sweet songs, We only know each other now, But we have loved one another all along — If only my parents hadn’t made me marry him — If only my parents hadn’t made me marry her — This is all I have and all I’ll ever have, this is all the empty world — I will leave here and go to America and I will come back and make all this town a clean and glittering palace —"