The update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/14 I have 72,565 characters...but only 17,028 words.

Morale:
Eh.

Yet another dialogue-heavy passage of the day (if only it were NaPlaWriMo):

I find my mind wanders more than it used to, and I’ve developed the unconscious habit of singing aloud the fragments of songs that continue to spill into my thoughts from nowhere.

"In time the Rockies may crumble
Gibraltar may tumble
They’re only made of clay - "

"What’s a Rocky? What’s a Gibraltar?"

"I don’t know. Pots, I guess."

"Huh. Why would anyone make up a song about pots?"

"No idea."

"Well if you’re going to sing them it would be nice if they made some sense."

"I won’t sing them."

"Fine. That’s fine with me. It’s not like I can get up and leave if they get on my nerves."

"I know that."

"I’d just think you’d have some consideration."

"Excuse me?"

"Some consideration. For my predicament. I’d think you’d have some."

"Our predicament."

"Oh, no. I’m not talking about our predicament. I’m talking about my predicament - being subjected to these incoherent little fragments."

"I said I won’t sing them."

"You always say that. And then a day or two or three later, there they are again, pieces of ridiculous songs about the pot of Gibraltar."

"Maybe it’s a statue."

"What?"

"Gibraltar. We don’t know it’s a pot. We only know it’s made of clay. Maybe it’s a statue. Would that help? Would that be less irksome for you, if it were a statue? Let’s just say it is, shall we? Let’s see if that makes everything better."

"You know, I’m really beginning to hate you."

:: link ::

November 13, 2002

Contractual Obligations

The update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/12 I have 16,011 words. Hundreds of them are "the".

Morale:
Better. I finally slogged through a pretty depressing section of the book, and now I can have a little fun again. I'm also feeling better about the word count, although at one point I briefly considered searching on apostrophes and expanding my contractions. That's - I mean, that has - got to be good for at least 1,000 words right there. Do not you think so?

Favorite passage of the day that has no contractions and only one instance of the word "the":

Now that I know what to look for, I see them everywhere, clinging desperately to their names. A fully armed Achaean warrior haunts the cleanser aisle in a grocery store; he looks sad and confused, and relieved when someone puts his name in a cart. Only market share can save him from oblivion.

:: link ::

November 12, 2002

"Insouciant"? Er, no...

The update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/11 I have 14,042 words.

Morale:
So-so. I'm not completely caught up, but I'm not really behind enough to justify despair. And I guess I feel pretty good about the amount I was able to write, considering I ended up going to work on Monday after all.

On Sunday I finally understood that if I'm going to make it, I'll have to stop rewriting on the fly. No more taking the time to think of a synonym if I'm repeating an adjective, dammit. I'll just have to fix the 27 instances of the word "ragged" in December. And if "insouciant" feels wrong, it stays anyway - I'll have plenty of time to think about the relative merits of "casual" versus "nonchalant" later.

Favorite passage of the day:
Too tired. Too many words to pick from.

:: link ::

November 09, 2002

But Wait There's More

The update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/08 I have 6,412 words.

Morale:
Pleased as punch that I have the whole plot outlined, and a little worried that I'm spending too much time reworking some sections. Those sections end up longer, of course (I'm a sketch-it-out-then-fill-it-in-later sort of person), but it doesn't offer the same word count bang for the buck as entirely new sections. But I won't worry in earnest until after this weekend.

Favorite chunk-of-dialogue-between-two-characters-one-of-whom-is-up-in-a-tree of the day:

When a second leaf skimmed my cheek after only a minute or two, I began to suspect I had company. A third leaf on my nose confirmed my suspicions. I blew the leaf away with a puff of breath.

"This defies the odds," I called into the air.

"Funny you should mention defying the gods," a voice answered from up in the tree.

"Odds."

"What?"

"I didn’t mention defying the gods. I said ‘odds’ - it defies the odds, three leaves from such a large tree falling on me and nowhere else. Or didn’t you mean for it to seem like a natural phenomenon?"

"I just liked dropping leaves on you."

"Ah. Carry on, then."

"It’s no fun now that you know I'm up here."

"So you did mean it to seem like a natural phenomenon."

"Or an unnatural one. That would have been preferable, actually. More disruptive. But now it’s only me dropping leaves." Another leaf came falling down.

I puffed it away. "You’re right - it’s just not the same."

:: link ::

November 08, 2002

This Could Make Me a Cat Person

The update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/07 I have 5,785 words.

Morale:
So. Very. Tired. But looking forward to the three-day weekend. I will be antisocial and bash out 20,000 words (fine, don't believe me).

How I lost an hour of writing time tonight:
You may have gathered that my story involves Norse mythology. Every once in a while I need to check the spelling of a name or remind myself just who hewed what from whom, so I do a little Googling. Such is the nature of the Internet that I ended up here, and I couldn't stop laughing.

I mean, I really couldn't stop. I was weeping. Go look, I'm telling you.

Then I was afraid that I would be under the influence of kitties and Led Zeppelin (really, you have to go look), so I had to free up my imagination with a little alternative reading.

Favorite sentence-that-I-added-to-a-section-I-already-wrote of the day:

Like so many of the very, very good, Baldur is fascinated by the alluring mystery of the horrible.

:: link ::

November 07, 2002

Yet Another NaNoWriMo Update

You know the drill:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/06 I have 5,330 words.

Morale:
Pleasantly surprised that I managed to write as much as I did considering what a long day I had at work.

Random statistic that doesn't really require me to think:
Average word length in characters = 4.28 (man, those pronouns and prepositions really drag you down).

Favorite completely-bland-but-oddly-appropriate-sentence-that-leads-to-a-major-fight-scene of the day:

"I want my book."

P.S. Didn't get around to that sex scene yet, but I did outline the whole story as far as the climax (rimshot).

:: link ::

November 06, 2002

Two Oh Oh No

One good thing about the outcome of the election: it has resolved the problem of how we should refer to the first decade of the 21st century. Now we can forgo the awkwardness of “the Naughts” or “the Ohs”, and just go with “the Fifties”.

:: link ::

Not Tonight, Honey

NaNoWriMo Update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/05 I have 4,689 words.

Morale:
Mine's okay, but I can't say the same for my characters - the plot took a terrible turn last night. I thought I'd try to make it up to them with a sex scene, but I had a headache.

Maybe tomorrow night.

Favorite chunk-of-dialogue-between-two-characters of the day:

"How full is it?"
"You know it doesn’t help to ask."
"What else is there to ask about?"
"Well you could ask me about my day."
"How was your day?"
"I held a cup. How was your day?"
"I was tied to a rock."
"All day?"
"Yep."
"Sounds boring."
"My wife keeps me company. That helps."
"Oh yeah? What does she do?"
"She holds a cup."

:: link ::

November 05, 2002

NaNoWriMo and Kahlo

NaNoWriMo Update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/04 I have 4,265 words ("'Quo Tah'? What is this 'Quo Tah' of which you speak?")

Morale:
Good (in denial). I have next Monday off work...if I haven't made up the deficit by the end of that day, then I'll panic. In the meantime - hooray, I wrote more.

Today's good excuse for not meeting my quota:
Instead of going straight home to write after work, I went to a reception at the Seattle Art Museum and saw the exhibition on Mexican Modernism.

To write at length about it would be stealin' novel time, so instead I will just mention that while I was there I bought a book of Frida Kahlo temporary tattoos. Next Halloween I will put one in particular on my forehead and go as "Jane with Frida with Diego on Her Mind."

Favorite passage of the day:
Nothing I wrote today was anywhere near as cool as the very idea of Frida Kahlo temporary tattoos.

:: link ::

November 04, 2002

It Be Gin (yarr)

Another NaNoWriMo Update (yeah, there are gonna be a lot of these):
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/03 I have 3,741 words. This is really behind the Original Unrealistic Daily Quota That Gave Me Five Free Days to Edit (2,000), but only a little behind the More Realistic 50,000 / 30 Daily Quota (1666.6667, aka Quota of the Beast).

Elapsed time between quota revisions:
Two days.

Morale:
Still good. No problems with writer's block. The story is coming along, and I'm spending all of my time at the computer actually writing and not staring into space. But clearly I am going to have to start spending more time at the computer.

Favorite passage of the day:

Hela is Death incarnate, fierce-looking but beautiful, with skin like alabaster on one side and blue like cyanide poisoning on the other.

"Mom!" she says, as I enter her hall. It’s our little joke - she claims I’m not wicked enough to be her stepmother.

:: link ::

November 01, 2002

It Begins

NaNoWriMo Update #1:
As of 11:59 p.m. today I have 1,229 words. This is below quota (2,000 words a day), but I feel confident I'll make them up tomorrow.

Morale:
Very good. I have momentum, woo hoo!

Favorite sentence of the day:
"Frey even put together a catapult and launched an entire roast pig at his head - it was such fun!"

:: link ::

Tall Drip

I went to a Starbucks for coffee and pastry this morning because the boy behind the counter at the bakery I usually go to has developed the not unwelcome habit of grazing my hand with his fingers when he returns my change, and I don’t want to make the poor thing sick. It’s not that I wanted to make the people working at Starbucks sick - I was just fairly confident they’d been made to watch a corporate video instructing them to avoid the dangers of hand grazing.

There was a line at Starbucks, and when it moved forward the wench in front of me opted not to step up. She was exuding this "I’ll move when I damn well please" vibe, and since I was in the mood to seethe rather than 1) politely ask her to stop blocking the view of the pastry case so I could figure out what I wanted before it was my turn to order, or 2) knock her skinny little ass out of the way, I just stood there, well, seething. I thought, "What kind of pathetic life do you have that you need to play power games in line at Starbucks?"

When she got up to the counter and ordered a "tall doppio half-decaf extra hot latte, no, wait, dry cappuccino" my pretentiously unpretentious two syllable coffee order and I shared a snotty, "Of course."

And then Miss Dry Cappuccino went behind the counter, and after a split second of confusion when I suspected she was going to show them the right way to make a tall-doppio-half-decaf-extra-hot-latte-no-wait-dry-cappuccino, I realized that she worked there.

And then her petty act of passive aggression against the people in line at Starbucks made perfect sense.

Anybody know where I can get a "Sorry I Developed a Silent Hatred for You While We Stood in Line Together" greeting card?

Oh, shit - I'm supposed to be writing a novel right now.

:: link ::

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