Trying to write 50,000 words in a month felt like holding my breath under water – everything else was suspended while I worked on writing. I basically ate, slept, went to work and wrote. I cut out television, most socializing and practically all other stuff that invades my day. Trying to keep the house clean, pay attention to twitter or running errands all those distractions went on the back burner. (Facebook was a must, though – because interacting with the NaNo Indy group was a lifeline to keep me going.)

It worked, largely because I removed a lot of barriers to focusing and getting in the zone to writing, and the forced deadline can work wonders.

Is that sustainable, though? Can I really zone out my friends, turn off the television and blow off the house all the time?

I wish there were a better way to balance. Because not writing is not an option, now.

Cutting out the television is pretty easy. Helping around the house, running errands and socializing are more difficult. I’m considering whether twitter really has much of a place in my life anymore.

I need to simplify things so I can both write and interact with my spouse and go to my job without becoming an ascetic.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this matter.

So.. I won NaNoWriMo again this year.

I finished three days early – with 50,058 words written this year added to what I wrote last year. Now I need to write the actual final chapters and not just scenes from the climactic ending, but hey – I’m a lot closer to a complete work than last year. Now it’s not a question of if I will ever self-publish, but when.

Last year at this time, I was reading over my novel, and I was really frustrated, because it seemed complete unrealistic. At about the half-way point of the story, I had one of my two main characters do something completely out of character for the way I had written about her up to that point. I did it because I couldn’t think of any other way to get her in the excruciating position she needed to be in so the villain could torment her and drive the rest of the plot. But that false note made all the rest of it seem really hard to believe. It just didn’t read right, and all the following events seemed flat and desperate, like a huge rationalization. I chewed on that for the whole rest of the year and didn’t know what to do. I loved the beginning and loved the characters, but I hated the middle and the end.

This year Garrett Hutson said something at the being of November about plot development along the lines of – “know where your characters are going to go, but to get them there, use a compass, not a map.” That set me thinking – okay, if that plot point seems out of character for my main character, what would she actually do instead? I threw out everything except the end where the characters needed to go, and started writing from just before that false note… and I realized if I changed the villain slightly, and added secondary villain who was working with and also at cross-purposes to the first one, I could get the MC into that excruciating position in a more real way, and then all the dominos started to fall one by one. Now I like the whole story from beginning to end. Even though I threw out 23,000 words I wrote last year and started over, this is a much better story, and one that makes me really happy to read throughout.

I’m in danger, though, of not keeping up with the story now. I hate that the 50,000 word mark was a finish line of sorts, because it’s not done at all, and I still need to keep writing it. It’s good, I think, and original, and interesting, so I need to actually push through and finish.

It was a huge accomplishment that I never thought I could do once, let alone twice. I need to make it work for real. If you could – cattle prod me, please? Bug me about it as much as possible so I don’t get complacent. This was cool, and something that was important to me to do, so I don’t want to let it slide.

I’m validated at 50163 words.

Technically I’m “done” writing my National Novel Writing Month project. Except that I still need to write chapters 12-15 and chapters 2 and 5. But 50163 words makes it “finished” for the purposes of the contest. I’m a winner. I’ve written more than Slaughterhouse Five and The Great Gatsby. Not “better than” just “more than.” 🙂

So here’s the general plan for the rest of this – I’m going to edit/write through December, but put together an outline for another story in that time, too. Then take January to write that story, and edit/rewrite more of this one in February. I hope to keep a daily word count every day, and I’ll track it the way I tracked the word count for this, so I can keep up a daily routine and not get off track.

I’m at 43,506 words. That’s 6,494 words away from “winning.” And I have 4 days. I think it’s a safe bet that I’ll get there, especially since I have all day tomorrow to work on it. I didn’t write at all on Thanksgiving Day, but I wrote in the car both to and from Iowa (not easy at all; it’s very distracting to try to write with cars whoosing by and the bumps in the pavement) and on Friday while everyone went out shopping.

Interesting to try to explain to family members what I was doing. My family is not always supportive of creative endeavors unless they’re attached to work or school requirements, so… yeah. I basically explained it as “I’m in a contest to write a novel in a month, and I’m close to winning, so…” because if you’re trying to win a contest, that’s okay. If you just writing a novel for the sake of writing – a bit on the loony tunes side.

And of course, everyone wanted to know what it was about, and yeah… haven’t even shared that with Stephanie, yet. Too afraid it sucks ass. Actually, I know it sucks ass, at least right now. Hopefully it will not suck ass in the future when I get a chance to re-write it and remove the suck from it, replacing it with less-than-suck, or possibly even with pretty-damn-good if I can figure out where to get that. Chances are you will never get to see this novel. I’m sorry about that. I make no guarantees. I’ll do my best, I promise.

My word count is now 35,521 words. Not quite beating out Ole Yeller on the “famous books word count list.” I’m under par by 1,153 words, but I should have time to get caught up (and hopefully ahead) tomorrow on the road to Iowa for the family Thanksgiving. Stephanie is driving, and I’m planning on writing in the car on a lap desk that I’ve used to write in bed several times. It should work fine. If not, I’ll come up with a new plan. I have 14,479 words left to write, and 9 days left to write them. If I keep averaging as many words as I have, I’ll pass the finish line on time. I’ll have the basics of the plot built, with lots of back story and character development to return and add in during December and January. The whole thing should be well above 50,000 words when I finish.

I’m at 28,932 words – above par for the first time since the first week. (Par for day 17 is 28,339.) Around 115 pages. Parts of this story are poor, parts of it make me really happy and there are large chunks that need to be better researched. I know what the end will be but I’m still working out how to arrive there.

But just getting this far makes me pretty giddy. This is definitely more than I thought I could achieve.

It is NaNoWriMo 2011 Day 13, par for yesterday’s work (Day 12) should have been 20,004 words/80 pages. Mine was 17,234 words – about 68 pages. I’m 2770 words behind par, which isn’t too bad.

This is definitely more than I have ever written before in a single sustained effort on any single subject, so I’m proud of myself for getting this far. Some of what I’ve written is really pretty bad. Some of it is pretty good. And I can see that some of it, when I get to the editing phase in December and January, could be really good. And I’m entertaining myself with the story at least.

I’m hoping that at worst I can finish this up, get it cleaned up, and self-publish it. Probably under a pseudonym, to tell you the truth. But I still have a long way to go and there are many potential pitfalls, so I’m not counting chickens yet. I have some vague hope about some chickens, though.

I didn’t say anything about joining National Novel Writing Month this year because I haven’t gotten very far with this in the past, and I’ve learned talking about stuff tends to kill projects before they get off the ground. I’m doing much better this year, though, and I’ve managed to keep my word count up four whole days in a row. And I’m realizing that I can indeed actually write 1,667 words per day, if I hit upon the right thing to say. This is not unpossible. My word count right now is 7095 out of a par of 6668 for day 4. (50,000 words in 30 days being the criteria for “winning.”) Not as great as some of the folks in the Indianapolis Facebook group, but definitely a solid effort.

What I’ve written so far is pretty terrible, but I can see where it could be good later, maybe, when I revise. Which will be after November. First drafts, first… editing later. Right now, it’s all about getting words on the page. Which I can do, it seems. So…

And I’ve notice an insane new trend in my writing – lots of ellipses all over the place. I like to imply things. I probably do this all the time without noticing it, but it’s really jumped out at me. Ah well; no editing under after November. Thems the rules.

This year, for National Novel Writing Month – I have a plan! I’m going to do something really innovative — I’m going to spend the month of November…

… building a website for my friend Chi.
Yes! I know, it’s not a novel. However…

1. I actually know how to build websites (unlike novels, which I seem to be unable to achieve).

B. I promised her I’d do it months ago.

3. It will be fun, and not stressful, like trying to write a novel was.

D. Chi is an actual published writer, so, it’s LIKE I’m getting some writing done, because I’ll be helping her.

So, that’s my grand plan for National Novel Writing month – to once again NOT get a novel written, only this time with less stress and some actual pretty, creative stuff to show for it at the end of the month.

Think it will work? I hope so.

I’m hopelessly behind and have no reasonable expectation of ever catching up by the end of November deadline. I know what the general story is, but when it comes to writing scenes that make any sort of sense, I’m completely stalled. And the stress of being so far behind is really interfering with my actually sitting down and getting any writing done. The idea of this is no longer fun, it’s a chore, and a painful one. I realized yesterday, after I had a big argument with Stephanie about how we scheduled our time this weekend, that this is ridiculous, because this is a stress I can control.
Unlike the other stress that is occurring in my life right now, which includes, but is not limited to:

1. The Stress of The House that Would Not Sell
2. The Stress of Attending Meetings with Potential Renters Who Do Not Show Up to Appointments 2/3rds of the Time
3. The Stress of the Shitty Roofers Who Would Not Show Up To Complete Their Work
4. The Stress of Attempting to Merge Two Households Worth of Stuff and Not Knowing What to Get Rid Of
5. The Stress of The Weather that Rains Every time I Want to Rake Leaves
6. The Stress of the Looming Apocalyptic Chaos That is The Impending Holiday Season (refer to Ghosts of Holidays Past)
7. The Stress of Four Cats Who Just Don’t Want to Be Roommates
8. The Stress of Not Being Able to Get a Good Night’s Sleep And the Ensuing Problems of Walking Through Every Day Fuzzy Headed and Bleary-Eyed
9. The Stress of the Work Projects That Spiral Out of Control
10. The Stress of the Cascading Style Sheets That Just Don’t Seem to Work in IE6, No Matter What Hacks I Apply (AKA, I Hate Microsoft, Part 987)

… The stress of NaNoWriMo is one I imposed upon myself. So I hereby release myself from the the deadline, in the hope that I’ll actually be able to accomplish the task at some point in time, because at the very least, the story I was planning on writing cracked me up, and I got much further in the task than I was ever able to do before.

Okay, I really, really have the plot all worked out and I’m very excited by my idea, which I think is fun, entertaining, and a Big Idea, also.
But I have to do some more research, in the form of purchasing the Historic Plan for our neighborhood, at a cost of $5, from the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Society.
Back in a flash to get caught up on the actually writing. And if you been following along with my blog posts over the past several days, you can see hints and drops of my idea scattered among them. Except for the Slush Mug commercial; that’s just silly fun.