November 2004 Archives

Well, that may be the lamest chapter I have ever written (and considering the chapters that came before it, that's saying something!), but I wrapped it up. Leaving room for the sequel, of course. Not that I am ever going to write a sequel (*shudder*), but because when you introduce a murder plot at 40K, it's hard to wrap it up (and three other plotlines) by 50K when you're already beyond bored with the story. I did do a very short epilogue, though. The title basically shows how little I cared by that point. "Epilogue: Where Dana Ends This Month Long Insanity."

I then gave one sentence summaries for each of the characters and further strung along the sequel insanity.

But at any rate, it is done. The final toll:

Chapters: 24 plus a prologue and a very short epilogue
Words: 51021
Dead bodies: 3
Changes in mood/themes/coherence: 1,276,894,345 (did I mention it is very schizophrenic?)

Okay, only 335 days til NaNo '05! :)

So, I just put the disk I typed all my NaNo stuff on into my computer. Apparently, my parents' computer has a virus. As I have never had a virus I didn't know that "quarantining" a file is synonymous with "deleting" a file, at least in the Norton Anti-Virus dictionary. So, everything I wrote at my parents house - poof! - gone.

Actually, it's still on their harddrive so once they clean their computer (my BIL is a computer whiz and will take care of that for them next time he's over there), I can recover it. It sucks so bad though, I don't really care! :)

So, now I know why I was so adamant with myself that I had to take 37 minutes to upload the novel for verification "in case something happens" instead of waiting until I got to work this morning and could have uploaded it in 30 seconds. Whew! Now that 37 minutes seems like time well spent!

Also, this whole virus thing hasn't helped with my complete lack of motivation in writing that final chapter sometime in the next 5.5 hours.

Well, I hit 50K words here in Michigan and uploaded the novel for verification on my parents' dinosaur of a computer. It connects at 9.6 KB. Yes, it did take 37 minutes for the verification process to run!

I still have to write one (maybe two) chapters to really wrap everything up, so I'll probably do that Monday or Tuesday back in D.C. I just don't think I'll feel like it here with my niece to play with and my sick dog to take care of (he's taken a very bad turn for the worse the last few days). I will do it before the 30th though, because even though I got verified and hit 50K words, if I don't actually finish the novel in November, I'll feel like I cheated.

But this is such a load off my mind! I survived the sophomore jinx! :)

There.

I said it.

I can't believe that about this time last year, I had written almost 64,000 words. And while I am very grateful for my current 45K and change, it just feels like this stupid story is never going to end. I swear, these last 4,437 words are gonna kill me! :)

In good news, two of the four plots have wrapped themselves up. Which just leaves two more to go, and I think I can see a way to intertwine them and wrap them up together. Hopefully.

One of those plots is Joe and his obsession with his wife's death. Last night she told me she was murdered, so at about 40K, I opened up a whole new can of worms! But, thanks to Leigh's suggestion, Gabi can help Joe resolve this - she just doesn't realize it yet. Turns out she knew Joe's wife. That came out in yesterday's writing session, too! :)

So, with any luck, Matt can take a turn at driving tomorrow and I can finish this puppy off. I did write 4,178 words today and my record this year is 4,969 in one day, so it is doable. If not, maybe I can finish it off Thanksgiving morning before the festivities begin. That way I can get verified as soon as it opens at the NaNo site and BE DONE WITH THIS!!!! ;)

At any rate, I don't know if I am going to write anymore tonight or not. AS I said, I am pretty sick of this novel at this point! Plus, I need to pack to go to Michigan!

So, it's up in the air as to whether or not we're actually going to get to GO to Michigan for Thanksgiving. And, if we do, Matt has informed me that he will need me to drive so that he can bring a laptop and work on a journal article that his boss just informed him HAS to be submitted by November 30. Which means that all of that wonderful car time I had planned to work on my novel just went out the window.

But, if he can't work on the laptop, then we don't get to go to Michigan at all, and that is NOT an option as far as I am concerned. We were going to take Monday off and drive back then, but now Matt can't, so he wants to leave at midnight Sunday night, drive all night, and then go straight to work. I just don't see myself with a pen light, typing furiously all night long on the ride back, so any NaNoing on the ride back is out, too.

At any rate, I'm just praying that his meeting with the scientific equipment rep goes well this afternoon (Matt can't get the data he needs for the paper until the rep from the company comes out this afternoon to help him), and we're actually going to get to go home. Oy.

Well, I can officially say that this NaNo is nothing like last year's NaNo. Last year the writing was easy and the story cohesive. I hit 50K on November 20 with what felt like no effort. The words flowed.

This year, writing has not come so easy. I am very easily distracted and find myself wandering the internet when I should be writing. The story is not cohesive at all.

One minute it is a sarcastic, funny look at being thirty-something, the next minute it's all sinister with the presence of two dead bodies (both dead long before the story began), and the next minute it's kinda uplifting and about people following their dreams. If these were all sub plots leading to the same place, I would be okay with it. But I might as well call this "A completely UNcohesive and schizophrenic look at four different people's lives." ARGH!!!!

I wish it would just decide what to BE and then maybe the writing would be easier and I could actually concentrate on the story and not find myself surfing instead.

In good news, though, my QuickPad came the other day and I managed to eke out an extra 500 words yesterday when the Metro was delayed. I really wanted the Alphasmart Neo (or even the Dana, heh), but I got it off of eBay and the deals for the QuickPad were better than the deals for the Alphasmart. Which probably means the Alphasmart is more in demand, and therefore, better, but this was a splurge as it was, so I had to go cheap. Including shipping, I paid less than half of what the QuickPad goes for retail without shipping.

I researched both products and a lot of writers and journalists have been using these or their ancestors since the eighties and absolutely love them. I figured if it was good enough for professional writers, it was certainly good enough for me.

I've been using it two days and have been really happy with it so far. And, since I am CLEARLY not going to have this travesty finished before I go home next week for Thanksgiving, now I can get some writing done during the eight hour drive home (which will most likely be ten hours in Thanksgiving traffic). Always a bright side, right?

I can't believe that I have actually managed to write 7,924 words in the last two days. So, I only have to write 1,528 more tonight before I go to bed and I will be where I "should" be today. That's a relief after falling so far behind in Chicago.

Now, if I could just decide on a plot...

So, after the women got preachy, I switched to Joe. Who proceeded to spend his entire chapter being really depressed and mourning his dead wife (she died three years ago, Joe tells me). What happened to my comedy? My sarcasm? My lighthearted look at three thirty something women?

Oh, and Joe informs me that he has decided that one of my three female protagonists may have had something to do with his wife's death. Or they might know something about it. Or maybe not.

Sheesh!

I think taking 5 days off to go to Chicago has allowed the characters to think they can just run amuck.

Also, last night involved a 3 hour emergency visit to the vet with Chance (he's okay), so my plan to cruise and catch up was an utter failure. *sigh*

My zany, sarcastic, light hearted yet somewhat darkly comedic look at the lives of three suburban woman just took an unexpected and not too pleasant turn. Suddenly, the three main characters are getting all preachy with each other. Yuck.

I think I need Joe again.

As such, they're going into the extended entry!

As i was looking at the eight names I have picked out for my current characters, I noticed a trend: Biblical names. So, I research the origins of all eight names. It turns out that half are Biblical in origin and the other half are all Greek in origin. Are Biblical and Greek names so common that it is likely that I would choose nothing but those? No Scandinavian? No English? No Irish? Just Hebrew and Greek?

I also named my fictional town Eden. Hmmm, am I sensing a theme here? Stephen King in On Writing says that themes will naturally emerge without any conscious effort to put them there.

I must confess that Cassie's (Cassandra: Greek, prophet of doom) last name is very Dutch. Because everytime I use her full name I get two extra words: Van de Graaf. Heh. I used this little trick last year with Jennifer Van Cortlandt, but I decided to take it to a new level this year. :)

So, suddenly Cassie informed me she was going grocery shopping. Okay, whatever she wants to do. I tried to force her to do something she didn't want to last Monday and I got 824 words of crap, so if she wants to go shopping - she's going shopping.

She's standing in an aisle when someone suddenly rams her with his shopping cart. It's a new neighbor who hasn't moved in yet, but has been discussed incessantly since Chapter 1 (I'm in Chapter 4 right now). He was supposed to appear when Cassie, Rachel, and Gabi went over to his house to introduce themselves and welcome him to the neighborhood. But, suddenly, here he is ramming Cassie with the shopping cart.

But here's what startles me...

Trixie just found her way into my novel, lol.

"The next year she had discovered Trixie Belden books. Trixie was a spunky teen detective, much more three dimensional than that silly Nancy Drew, who solved mysteries between chores, homework, and being teased by her brothers. That was the year Gabi decided that she was going to be a detective."

Suddenly, Gabrielle - who is the antithesis of me, so this is extra surprising - decided to wax poetic about her childhood and the next thing I know, she's a Trixie fan! It truly is the only thing we have in common.

Okay, back to the salt mines!

Well, I pondered and pondered over my novel all last night and this morning on the Metro ride to work. I knew it wasn't going to work. But did I just keep going anyway? Or should I start over? And what would I start over with?

Then, I had a flash today at some point sitting at my desk at work - right in the middle of reviews and deadlines and annoying reviewers.

I took that flash, cultivated it, and I've started completely over - and I am much, much, much, much happier with what I've written! I was most definitely forcing it yesterday and I hated every second of it. But I'm TRULY listening to the characters now (I have three female protagonists - two of whom didn't even exist when I woke up this morning). I even figured out who Katie was - she's Cassie's friend's 13-year-old daughter!

I was going to trash those 824 words, but the NaNo Bible (No Plot, No Problem) , says to keep every word - even those you know you're not going to use. it felt like cheating, but I just did what Chris said and colored all those words white. They're invisible, but countable as he says.

So, mood elevator from the NaNoWriMo Report Card has gone from 2 to about an 8. Whew!

And I HATE every last one. I have a feeling this year is NOT going to go well. *sigh*