November 2003 | Join me or die. Can you do any less?

I have joined the legion of the insane by deciding to participate in Nanowrimo's (National Novel Writing Month) challenge to write a 50,000 word novella in one month (this November). I am out of the gate with my first 2,500 words. So far I think my main character needs a clue, stat. My working title is Escape Velocity which was randomly grabbed from the text just now. Will I burn out in a hail of random sentences, brick walls, and meandering plot sidebars, short thousands of words of the goal? Most assuredly.

Update: I'm at 7,500 words. Things are out of control people. My characters are ping ponging around on a clueless journey of bad dialog and random situations. For more information hit the Random Fiction Corner...

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Well, I am just past the halfway mark on the nanowrimo debacle that I have undertaken, and I don't know what to say to you peops about this, except that I am hanging on by a fingernail, and neck deep in pointless flashbacks. It is remarkable to note, however, that no matter how meandering the plots or characters, if you force yourself to average 1,700 words or so per day, these things will appear. I mean, you will have to write something, and after awhile, half baked personalities and strangely long-winded dialog and car trips and people's living rooms start to form on the pages, sort of like they do in your life.

After awhile things plague you like, what was Mary's mom's name that I only mentioned once a billion pages ago, and did what's his name live in the back house for one year, or three? Also, what the f**k do I title this thing? Plus, I now know the reason why people (like myself) usually avoid writing under normal circumstances (if you are one of those "I'll write the Great American Novel" types). Because writing is not a magical manifestation of inspiration and creative force! It is sort of like cleaning the bathroom! When you are done you may have this nice shiny bathroom that smells like lavender (surely a better prize than your average 1,700 word draft), but cleaning it was not inspiring or fun. However you probably were singing a song or otherwise having a better time doing it than you imagined while avoiding it.

Anyway, whatever. I am just basically procrastinating. I will now go back to dwelling on the issues raised in the column at right, and cranking out more dubiously positioned flashbacks.

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People, it's getting grim as the death march toward "the novel's" conclusion rushes toward me like a retaining wall to a skidding car. Suddenly as I reached the halfway mark, it occurred to me that I would need a plot, a purpose, a conclusion, to give a skeleton to the jiggly, formless flesh of my prose. Which would require some sort of planning and thinking, on top of insane degrees of word count spew. Rome wasn't built in a day my peeps, and so it follows that a coherent novel isn't written in a month by a neurotic, plotless, coffee addict who has not brushed her hair in 24 hours and has a propensity to overuse the phrase "in fact." A few people have expressed an interest in perusing this first draft debacle upon its completion, but I would hiiighly recommend that you back slooowly away from this idea unless you are the nup, who will read it anyway.

***

Behold: the novel

Update: Peops, you will now stand back in awe as I perform the unofficial nanowrimo victory song that goes a little something like this (performed while running through the house throwing and trying to catch leftover marshmallows from thanksgiving in mouth:)

It's my novel
I know you're jealous
Of my novel
It's 50,355 words
I know you want it
Chorus, etc.

Is the novel written better than this song? Only literary history can be the judge.

Well, that's about all I have to say at the moment because I have written a gigaton of words today already just to make this deadline and so I will leave you to ponder the greatness of my 150 page single spaced epic of drunk depressed people driving around the bay area in a Toyota, and its awe inspiring reverbations upon literature's weighty canon... wait now that I am not on a deadline I have to know what words like "reverbations" mean before I can use them huh... Crap.

Hey, peeps. Send mail to mail@tiny-dog.com.