IFWA -- NANOWRIMO

Okay, I had to go look at the aborted foetus, because I couldn't believe it. Now I wish I hadn't. I should learn to listen to Barb. Next time I don't, someone remind me of the decapitated foetus. Barb is right. Trust Barb.

I'm done too -- these last three days have been completely hellish, averaging around 5000 words/day, and mostly complete crap. I'm trying to decide if this whole thing was a waste of my time, or not. As a plot exercise it was really quite good, because I now understand my characters a lot better. But unfortunately, I would pretty much need to rewrite everything to use any of it, so I'm unsure.

I also feel like I have only the first half of the plot worked out. I really can't end the novel THERE, it's pretty cheesy. But well, I did it, and I guess I should be proud of having written 50,000 words of crap. Oy.

Final W/C: 50,044

First, I just want to say that Leslie is an amazing human being. Congratulations, Leslie, for completing your Nanowrimo challenge. :D :D :D

We're down to the last day, and while I know I won't finish (just like when I started, I'm still a painfully slow writer), I'm still glad I took up this challenge. I've written more in one month than I ever have in any other month. And this form of therapy is a heck of a lot cheaper than the usual ;)

But seriously, I believe we should keep this blog open, to talk about our challenges in writing, our goals, and our accomplishments. And I think we should open it up to any Ifwits who want to join.

What do y'all think?

Thanks, Kirsten! Things went as well as they possibly could today. I still have to wait four weeks to get some of the results, but they couldn't see anything strange or unusual, and they were very happy, and they expect not to see me again. So I'm a happy camper. I stayed up late again and didn't write. This, really, really, has to stop happening. I saw the two towers extended edition today. It was very good. I had no idea which scenes were new, since I'd seen them all some months ago. Well, not quite all. There was one particular scene with Denethor that I thought was the best scene in the entire movie. I didn't remember it at all. It was absolutely brilliant.

Tonight Lee found the room where she'd killed (and not killed) Franklin. The chairs were still there, so she put them in the same spots, and sat where she'd sat. Then she began to realise just how much Franklin had manipulated her, and she had a wee tantrum, and destroyed both of the chairs.

LOTD: She stayed that way for quite some time, staring. She wasn't sure what she was expecting. Fireworks. Bagpipes. Maybe just that she'd suddenly understand what it was Constantine had been trying to tell her then, was still trying to tell her. It wasn't happening.

W/C: 35,235 (Today: 2249) Pages: 165

Spreadsheet to the end:

Date->Ideal WC->Actual WC->Actual Today Words->Ideal Today Words->Words Left
(NB: Actual words calculates necessary words for days that have not yet occurred)

21-Nov-03 35000 35235 2249 1678 14765
22-Nov-03 36667 36886 1651 1677 13114
23-Nov-03 38333 38538 1652 1676 11462
24-Nov-03 40000 40191 1653 1675 9809
25-Nov-03 41667 41845 1654 1674 8155
26-Nov-03 43333 43500 1655 1673 6500
27-Nov-03 45000 45155 1656 1672 4845
28-Nov-03 46667 46812 1656 1672 3188
29-Nov-03 48333 48469 1657 1671 1531
30-Nov-03 50000 50000 1531 1667 0

I'm thinking about you today, Kaye. I hope things go well, and if they don't (on the VERY off chance), then kick ass and take names.

And good for you for writing :D :D :D You are amazing.

I hate to admit that I just broke 10K yesterday... I really need to work on sleeping less than 18 hours a day. I could get a lot more done.

It's also beginning to frustrate me that I'm writing at like a grade 6 level... well, grade 6, except for the subject matter.

Anyway, all I've been writing is dirty stories, so I don't have much I can post. However, I'll be a little bold and post this one part about this one fellow, which Mark thought was pretty damn funny. Ah, quick note, this took place when I was 18 and much, much slimmer:

It frustrated me that he would never make love with the lights on. I mean never. One day, after we'd been seeing each other for months, we made love during the day at his place, where the curtains keep out no light. He took one look at me and said, "Wow, you're really good looking." Like he was surprised.

Okay, wait, here's another one--and please, please stop me if my small excerpts are too ribald for this venue. In this point of the story, Kevin is my boyfriend and Joe is a very close friend:

I said, "You'll never believe what Kevin said to me."
Joe said, "What?"
"He took one look at me and said, 'I could get lost in your beautiful blue eyes."
"So?" he asked.
"My eyes aren't blue, you dipshit."

Ut oh, Kirsten ;). Sounds like another adventure!

I almost didn't write today again. it's so easy to avoid when you avoided it the day before. And I have a gazillion excuses today. I'm tired, I'm sick, I had a meeting with a professor, lunch with Tim, got lots of exercise. Had a long talk with my mom. And I'm dog scared about something I have to do tomorrow. But I did. I got Lee to Constantine's house, and she's climbed up a tree, and has broken in through the window. After her escape from Port Arthur, in Australia, she wasn't too thrown about that.

I wrote very fast, and it's especially crappy.

LOTD: _Since when has a locked door stopped you, Lee?_ She smirked to herself.

W/C: 32986 (today = 1845) Pages: 153

LOTD for Wednesday:

"I'd heard of king size beds, but it was all theory until that night."

Very nice, Heather! I like the idea of a straggling city! Muahaha!

I decided not to work on the novel today. I had to get infotainment (the story I read at the write-off) done for 7of40, so I worked on that instead. It's out of the way now. I could stay up and work on the novel now, but I think I'll take a 0 word day, and get some sleep so I can get over this darn cold.

Erk. I think it's probably a bit to late to call you :}. I went Kayaking tonight with Joanne (Tim's wife) and we had a lot of fun. Then I came home, and futzed around, before I finally started writing again. I had 1000 words left to write. I ended up wring another 2000. Oy. It's now 3:30am, and I'm not even tired. But I am starting to cough again :P. I think I just discovered the world's best writing music. It's kinda corny, but I've been listening to 99 luftballoons on repeat. And my fingers have been keeping up with the beat. Muahaha! I will call you tomorrow to leave you voice mail, and I'll send you this by email before I go to bed. Squash story is: 5:45-6:45 or so tomorrow. And 6:00-whenever on Thursday. Also, I'm going to be playing again on Saturday morning, possibly starting as early as 8:30.

Last night, Lee had decided she needed to find Constantine. Today, I had to figure out how she was going to do that. So I wrote a whole scene of her sitting in her dormitory, trying to figure out what to do. Everyone (as far as she knows) thinks he's dead. Only, she knows he isn't. So how do you find someone, without letting anyone know you think they're alive. So, she's making a pilgrammage to London, to his last known place of residence. I sent her on a train, which is narrowing my year down some more. I keep moving further back in time, and yet, using technology that is totally anachronistic. Electric telephones (1876) and the steam train (1830 for a passenger train). This is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense at all. Franklin died in 1791, I think, and here I am having him alive in 1830 (if I can get rid of the telephone scene somehow) or 1876. Well, maybe I can do that. His health was failing when he went to France to investigate Mesmer. And Mesmer's animal magnitism was all about healing. Maybe it worked for him :P.

So, Lee is on the train on her way to London, and she hears a familiar voice. It's Marshall, who had been Sayer's partner. She seemed to have forgotten, briefly, that she was supposed to be staying at the Franklin Institute in order to disguise her residual wave pattern in the bigger wave patterns of the young stars of mesmeric research. Oh dear. So, she gets up and starts walking away from him. Unfortunately, Marshall, for his own reasons, is walking the same way, and she really has no where to go. She's about to pull the emergency stop on the train, when a hand reaches out to stop her. It's one of the other students at the Franklin Institute -- this deaf kid, who can only communicate by manipulation. Of course, Lee cannot communicate that way, so they have some trouble getting along. However, he pulls her aside, and Marshall walks past. Of course, just when she thinks she's safe, he turns around. However, he gets distracted by the conductor, and then forgets that he was looking at her. Michael -- the deaf kid -- has managed to manipulate Marshall! Lee is shocked. She tries to ask him why, but they have communication troubles, and then the train arrives at Michael's station, and he has to get off, leaving Lee on the train. Only, he's left a book behind, and Lee picks it up....

LOTD: The conclusion hit her like a ton of bricks. If Marshall was here, her father was here. For a moment, she couldn't move. She couldn't do anything. She was frozen, trapped in a body that couldn't manipulate, that couldn't do anything at all. The train dissolved around her, the sights disappeared, the sounds, everything, and in that moment, she was only panic.

Woohoo! Bad similies, and everything :P :P!

W/C: 31,141 (Today: 2927) Pages: 145

I'm glad you liked the line, Kirsten! I am also pleased to know that you are corrupting young children into the ways of the Grey Cup. Alexander Sayer would be proud of you :). Mark is probably wise so far as you staying on, if only because you shouldn't let some dumbass drive you out of there, if it's something that you are otherwise getting something out of.

Your lines for today really hit the spot to me. Especially, "To let someone who has never lived finally live." I think that is really the reason that I write. Though the reason that I read is more for "The sense that someone else has been there, and feels the same for the experience." You definitely hit the nail on the head. I remember when I first realised that Star Wars wasn't real. I cried and cried. And my mother told me, that she strongly believes that characters we create have a life of their own, and do live, somewhere else in the universe. We just tap into them. I asked her recently if she really believed that, or if she was just trying to placate me. She said she really believed it. I like that idea, very much. Though it does make me think twice about torturing my characters so much sometimes... ;)

I didn't start writing until 8:30pm tonight. I stayed in bed until 9:30am because I was coughing an awful lot, and wanted to try to rest. I also have an Evil Cancer Test this Friday, and I'm trying to be nice to my immune system. I'm sure there's nothing I can do at this point, but I'm scared shitless, and bargaining. So, I went into the lab eventually, and did no work. At least I went in. Tomorrow I'll do work :P. I left at 4:30, and went to a fitness class -- core conditioning. Lots of sit ups, and lunges, and the like. I'll be sore tomorrow. Good. I did skip out on a chance to see Pirates of the Carribean for free, here at the university in order to write my 1895 words!

Today was Anna's first day on her new job. I hope it went well for her. Hopefully she will pop in and let us know at some point!

So, it turns out I wrote 1895 words of crap between 8:30, and now (12:30am). That's about 500 words an hour, which is what Tony told me he can do, when he's really concentrating. I'm not disappointed. It's another 1895 words of crap, though. I finished up Sayer and Lee's meeting, and then I sent her home. I decided to give her a bizarre dream, where she stands as Cara (the unassuming grad student she's pretending to be) and faces herself as Lee (the woman that she really is). Hmmm. This has no relation at all to my own life, does it :P :P :P? In any case, the dream ends when she merges the two parts of herself, because really, they're both parts of her. Then her memory of Constantine shows up, and tells her she's stronger than she realises -- something he told her just before Sayer destroyed her mind, in the early part of the story. So she wakes up, and decides to go find Constantine. I think that Constantine is more and more becoming Dr. Franklin in my head, and I think he's going to have to be Dr. Franklin in the final draft :P. Ah well. It's an alternate history. I can do whatever I want with historical figures.

I think if my LOTDs seem profound to you, it's because I keep giving you the scene endings, which are meant to kinda leave things hanging, and are meant to seem profound enough to get you to read the next scene :P. I'll try something from in the middle, but I don't promise to pick something too crappy, and I'll edit it before posting it :P. It's all dialog, and takes place in my favorite setting -- a black void.

"Is this what you wanted to become?" asked Lee.

"This is where my choices have led me," Cara answered.

"No," said Lee. "That's your excuse. You're a fool. You accepted your father's view of you -- a traitor, a betrayer. You accepted what what the council said -- that you're a murderer who deserves to die."

W/C: 28,214 (today: 1895) Pages: 132

Wow, Kaye, I love your LOTD. It gives me a glimpse, and image of your characters that is so much greater than the length of your words on the page. This is what every novel should do. Except that it might be too much all the time. I wonder...

Anyhoo, I got so little writing done yesterday. Went to my aunt's (no relation, she's a very close family friend) and played with my cousin while watching the Grey Cup. Awesome game. I think little Nicole is starting to grasp the fundamentals of the game, or at least wanted to practice the parts that involved playing catch. Then I pulled out the loaner Palm to type a few notes, and of course she wanted to play with it. For a three-year-old, she's insanely smart, and of course managed to open the part with my Nanowrimo.

Well, she would have understood many of the words, but none of the context.

The past couple of days I've been dealing with some dumbass's CUUG board resignation - which will, doubtless, be blamed on me and Mark, and which was, of course, aired in public by said dumbass. And the president of CUUG sent me a vicious e-mail before that even happened, so I'm worried to even check my e-mail. And I was considering resiging, but Mark insists that I stay, if only for the sake of my resume.

Some days I find being so sensitive to others' feelings and moods to be rather difficult. Unfortunately, some days (like yesterday) I wasn't nearly sensitive enough. I think it's all just the product of a number of bored synapses.

Anyhoo, here's my G-rated excerpt for yesterday. The context is that I hate Midnight Caller to the bottom of my soul, but I still love and respect her writing:


"I was reading Midnight Caller's amazing story “Annual”. I have lived this story.

That's the point of writing, at least for me. To bring together the community of man. To say things that make others laugh and cry because they touched some memory or some wish. To let someone who has never lived finally live. To give those with a thirst for new experience another new view.

I have lived amazing things. I have lived mundane things with only my perspective to make them amazing. And I want to touch others in ways that the world touches me every day.

And, most of all, I want to give to others what Midnight Caller gave to me: The sense that someone else has been there, and feels the same for the experience."

W/C: pathetically low

Today was an okay writing day. Two thousand words, but extra full of crap. It took Lee a full four pages to get up three flights of stairs, because she was trying to work out if Sayer had her figured out or not. In the end, she got to her meeting, and had a near incident. She took out her pen, and tapped it twice on the table, to get the ink flowing. Fortunately for her, Sayer had left the room for a moment, because when he came back:

Sayer took a pen out of his own pocket and rapped it twice on the desk before taking the lid off. Lee's eyes widened before she could check the reaction. Yes, she had gotten that little habit from him, so many years ago. This whole deception might be harder than she realised.

Sayer didn't need the fluid to sense her discomfort, and it seemed to please him. His look of disapproval turned into a shadenfruede smile. "Now, Mistress Cara, I trust we can begin our meeting with no more distractions?"

Also today, I had a lifewrite meeting with Danita, Tony and Val. We have been doing Stephen Barnes' lifewrite course (http://www.lifewrite.com/html/class.htm) for the last few months, and we're coming near the end of it. Today's homework was to write some short, medium and long summaries of our novels. Short is the TV guide description. Medium is a half a page, long is 2.5 pages. So, here's my short TV Guide description:

Mesmerism triumphs over modernism, and a brutal war of demagogs erupts. To stop the killing, Leandrika must turn against everything she once believed.

And the medium:

When Mesmerism triumphs over modernism, powerful demagogs fight for hegemony over popular opinion. Trained almost from birth as a powerful mesmeric assassin, six year old Leandrika is shocked when one of her victims changes her world-perception by forgiving her at the moment of his death. Once the seed is planted, it is only a matter of time before Leandrika turns against her father, the bloody-minded Hegemon known only as Magnus. For her trouble, she finds herself stripped of her ability to manipulate, and banished to the penal colony in Australia.

When events lead her to leave Australia, she finds her father has been overthrown, and the children who were once her closest friends have been killed, or driven to suicide. Only the realisation that her father is very close to regaining the Hegemony drives Leandrika to seek the help of her the man who once destroyed her mind, Alexander Sayer. If they can learn to work together, they may be able to stop Magnus, and the next great war.

I'll spare you the long! It sounds a bit like a romance from that, but it's not, honest! I'm actually suspecting Sayer is going to have to die to get his redemption at the end of the novel, though I am very much hoping I'll find him a way out of that. I like him too much.

In other news, I got my tantrix score (http://www.tantrix.com) up to 823 today! Rock on. I didn't get any exercise. I had some of the best lentil soup I've ever had (Danita is such a good cook -- she said it was Egyptian Lentil Soup)! And I had a weird dream last night, but I don't remember it now.

W/C: 26319 (today: 2039) Pages: 124

I believe in you, Heather! Then again, this is you we're talking about. You could probably write it all on the 29th and 30th, and still win. How many words did you do at the write-off? Get your butt in gear! Personally I've taken to calling someone to kick my butt when I need help. Sometimes I just need to hear the word "Write!" from someone. (Thanks Anna, for letting me pick on you today!) If you want to call me, so I can tell you to WRITE! the number is on the slush pile :).

And you're right, Kirsten, I'm pretty much stuck in the same point plot-wise :P. For better or for worse, I have not quite written everything I need to write to get to the point where I'm stuck plot-wise. So, I keep going, bit by bit. I had two revelations today. The first is on how Lee gets to be Alexander Sayer's graduate student. Any prof worth their salt gets to choose their students, and Lee has forged credentials. However, Sayer is not a normal professor. He is like the german scientists at the end of WWII that were supporters of Hitler, but were "excused" on the basis of their research. Kinda like Werner von Braun, who was "excused" for having made the V-2 rocket, and whose other "support" for Hitler was covered up, so he could move to the united states to research the bomb, and later, put men on the moon. Ergo, he doesn't get to choose. The other revelation I had was that when Sayer destroyed the part of Lee's mind that could manipulate the fluid, he also destroyed other people's ability to manipulate her. Because she cannot perceive that manipulation on any level at all, none of the usual tricks work. This has helped me get Lee settled happily as one of Sayer's graduate students at the Franklin Institute.

Ending of today's scene -- Sayer has four new students, and he's basically told them all that he considers it his personal duty to make sure they drop out of school, for the good of society. The other three students are (1) afraid (Christa), (2) stunned (Mark), and (3) near tears (Michelle).

"Lee turned back to the door. She felt a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Somehow, she felt the closest she'd been to home in the last five years."

W/C: 24280 (today = 2622) Pages: 115

Naaah, it's that for the past 2 days I've been writing the dirty stuff, and today I'm writing about the police. And as it turns out, I'm going to be writing about the AGLC, RCMP, CPS, and city licensing and business licensing departments. I'll explain later, but I'm getting bounced around like a ping pong ball.

Wow, that's tons of writing. I'm envious.

But at least I got my computer to receive faxes.

It seems to me that you are still stuck on much the same part you were at the write-off. Maybe the rest of you Nanowrimoians or even the rest of the Ifwits could help out with this. They're often good for suggestions.

And about your line: oooooohh!

K

P.S. As for sharing, uh, some parts are really not G rated.

Woo! Are you going to let us read the biography, when you're done, Kirsten :)? Sounds like it will be extremely entertaining :). Though I am curious about one bit of logic -- you said that you were writing dirty stories, and also about the "honky in a pickup truck". Does that mean that the honky story was dirty in the implied sense, or was it dirty because you got covered in old beer? "Yes" is a perfectly good answer here :).

I wrote 2500 words today. That, plus the 3000 I wrote yesterday has me more or less back down to having to write 1800 words a day now. Tomorrow is the half way point too, at least time-wise. I won't get to 25,000 tomorrow, I don't think, but I can always make a run for it, and see if I can manage. It would mean writing another 3500 words tomorrow, so we'll see. I'm skeptical. I'm trying to pace myself, because one of my biggest goals for this whole thing is not so much getting the novel done, but getting into the habit of writing a reasonable number of words every day.

I finished a rather long scene today, where Alexander Sayer discovers that the time bomb (which consists of fragments left in a lot of people's minds that are set to manipulate on a trigger) is set. He also discovers that it was his former research partner, Marshall, who has set most of it, and that he never knew about it. He manages to remove the trigger from the mind of this one guy (Peter Laurent), but at the cost of almost killing Laurent, which makes the authorities rather suspicious that Sayer is involved, and was trying to cover something up. He doesn't care. He's very on-edge now, after the last of his experimental children committed suicide at the write-off (not at the write-off, but ... well, you know).

Once again, I have no idea what scenes to write tomorrow.

Today's ending (Constantine and Sayer talking on the electric telephone):

"I don't know what the trigger was, but it was Marshall that laid it. I found a fragment of him, inside Peter Laurent. It's gone now. I chased it out, but not without doing some damage. That's the problem."

"What problem is that, Master Sayer?"

"Marshall knows we're on to him."

W/C: 21658 Pages: 103

Spent the day writing dirty stories. Spent yesterday writing them, too. Not even 10% done writing the dirty stories I intend to record.

Currently writing about the time I saw some honky in a pickup speed in a playground zone, screech to a halt, park, and get out while drinking a can of beer. Obvously, I stepped out of my house to have a few choice words with him. He was only mildly belligerent, since he just threw the rest of his beer, in the can, at me from a distance.

Yes, I have more balls than brains. And I have an awful lot of brains.

I also possess an intense and vengeful sense of right and wrong. And a thirst for some sort of justice in this world. However, it's a thirst I'm not likely to see satisfied.

The reason I'm writing this is I'm on my "Why I Hate the Police" section. I really hate the police, and with good reason. For instance, in this case, I got the standard CPS reply of "Well, there's nothing we can do." Apparently the police only enforce traffic laws and noise complaints. In my experience, they leave assault, drunk driving, threats, attempted home invasion, and sexual assault alone. It's too much trouble for them.

I wonder if it's too late for me to lodge a complaint that the drunk guy who tried to kick down my door (and the door of the other woman on my floor) did not get dragged down to the drunk tank. He got dropped off at his apartment, in my building. Protect and serve, indeed.

I'm also still debating whether I should add words like "motherfucker" to my custom dictionary. It seems extremely applicable in this section.

Line of the day: "God it hurt like a motherfucker. Ow."

Word count: a pitiful 8000 :( And some of it is stuck on the Palm Pilot that John lent me. Thanks, J, BTW.

Well, I spent three days without writing. I just wrote a spreadsheet to calculate words/day based on where I'm at now, and I apparently have to write 2000 words per day now instead of 1666 to catch up. That's not so bad. I'm working on some plot important scenes today, not as character important as some of the others I've been working on, but okay.

I finally signed up on the NANOWRIMO web site today. I guess I had been hesitating on doing it, since it gave me an excuse if I didn't actually do the writing. After all -- I wasn't fully committed. So now, half way through, after three days of not writing, I decided that maybe it was just the kick in the butt I was needing.

I'm wondering if you all want to do a mini write-off in a couple of weeks? Maybe on a Saturday or a Sunday? Weeds might be better (parking will cost you $3 at the university, unless you want to walk a bit). On the other hand, it is easy to get to by train, and probably quieter, though you'd have to bring your own coffee. I'm easy, and wouldn't care either way, I just thought I'd make the offer.

W/C: 19,199 Pages: 88

Post Write-Off Summary:

Good things:
(1) Made my 16,000 words.

(2) Had some major breakthroughs in world-building.

(3) Had some major breakthroughs in plot.

Bad Things:
(1) Had some major breakthroughs in worldbuilding and plot.
(a) requires rewrites, which will not happen this month.
(b) requires re-evaluation of story arc
(c) requires re-evaluation of ending

(2) Not sure where to start the story anymore, either. Some options:
(a) a scene with the children communitcating with one another,
showing how great it is before the trouble starts.
(b) a scene of them killing a bunch of people and enjoying it.
(c) the scene where Lee kills (or thinks she's killed) Constantine, and
the seeds of discontent are sewn.

(3) Not sure how to structure the story. Two parallel time arcs, or linear time,
or mostly linear with a few flashbacks. Urrg.

(4) As usual, have no idea what to write tomorrow.

Word Count: 10166 Pages: 49

Weekend write-off goals are:

(1) 16000 words by Sunday night.
(2) CNN short story draft done.

I don't know what scene to start on today. Yesterday's scenes were all about Lee's arrival in Australia (which is still a prison colony). I have two kinda paths from here -- I can write about what makes her change her mind and get her butt out of Australia, or I can write about what she does once she gets back. There's also a few more in-between scenes that need to be written -- another confrontation with her father, and a trial scene, both before she leaves for Australia.

Cool! I've administratorified everyone who wasn't already, so feel free to invite anyone else you know who'd like some NANOWRIMO butt kicking. Speaking of butt kicking, Heather -- what's your word count, girl ;)? You didn't post it -- is that bad?

I've not written more than a few paragraphs yet today, and it's going to be tricky. I have a squash game and a 7 of 40 (splitter group) meeting today, so I'll be up late writing to make my 1700 words. I did have one very big triumph though -- I've got a better understanding of my setting. I'm writing in an alternate history, in which Franz Anton Mesmer was right. I had to write a bunch of papers on Mesmer, and I always found him, well...mesmerising. Ergo, the world is full of Mesmeric Fluid, and magnets can heal! Still needs more development, but basically, imeralism never died :). I'm going to go re-read my essays on Mesmer, and get a couple of reference books from the library.

Here's a segment from my story -- currently the opening, but I keep writing earlier scenes, so we'll see. It has some knee hugging I put in there especially for Barb :). I expect to see some chin-ny action from you, girl ;).

Lee sat in the creaky chair and stared at the old man sitting across the black void. "You aren't like the others," she said, as she hugged her knees to herself. "This place is very different, and there's no running and screaming."

Anna, I'm glad you've found your way here.

And Heather, too. Double yay!

Okay, here's my line for the day, but it's a bit strange, and dirty. Oh, and this is from a scene from late 2001:

"He thinks I only want him for the sex. I don't want to hurt him. But I can't love him the way he doesn't want me to love him."

I think today is going to be all about writing the R-rated stuff. Not that it can be written in just one day. I don't even know if it can be written in just one month. But some day, when I'm old and wrinkly and pale, I'm going to go back and read this stuff and smile at the adventures I've had.

And I'm learning a tremendous amount about myself. Like that maybe I should hold people's hearts with more care.

Anyhoo, I'm at only 3049 words. And I have a Matrix: Revolutions review to write. I wonder if I can get away with writing this as my review:

"Good movie. Go see it and then write your own review."

Think it will work?

Woo hoo! Barb made it :D

It sounds like you're writing something just as intense as Kaye's. I'm so looking forward to reading your finished product.

And sex scenes never hurt.

I'm now at 2500 words. *sigh*

Anybody feel like posting a line a day?

Naaah, but thanks for the offer. I'll call you anyway.

But what I'm really fascinated by is your novel. I think that if you're feeling icky, it's only because you're describing it in a way that would produce those feelings in others. And that's the point. :)

Would you be willing to let me read some of it on the weekend?

Wow, Kirsten. This sounds like quite a personal journey for you :(. I'm sorry it's so hard. Do you want to talk about the scene? I have a phone now -- you can ring me if you like. I may be hard to reach in the next day or so, but the new phone number is on the slush pile. If not, we can talk when you get back :(.

I hope I've not been making things harder by teasing you about turning your autobiography into speculative fiction. I'm just insane -- I really admire you for doing it, I have to say. I have trouble writing anything memoir-like.

I wrote a tricky scene tonight -- it's the point where Lee (one of my protagonists) has made her determination that she will not kill anyone else. Unfortunately, some people (namely her father) is not very happy about this, and tells her mentor (Alexander Sayer -- another one of my protagonists) that he has to basically, destroy her mind, because she knows too much, and is about to betray them all. Felt a bit like writing a sexual assault, but it was a mental assault :P. More tricky, because Lee is 12 years old at this point in the story :P. Geesh. I have some twisted mind. I start to feel bad about it.

Status: 6300 words // 32 pages

Fuck it, I can't finish writing this scene. I'm going to bed.

Just taking a break from writing a particularly difficult part. I don't know if it's something I want to remember, but it's such a part of me to let the memory die might be a disservice. *sigh* I don't know.

Knowing the effect the event had on me, I also don't know if I would have done anything differently. I guess that's really why I'm writing this.

Maybe next year I'll write about my mother.

So I figured out how to make the whole thing a fiction, since I was having problems with the actually lying part. I think I'm going to bookend the whole thing with a very false premise. Cop-out, I know, but whatever. At this hour, I don't really care. But it lets me claim this is fiction, and therefore a 'novel'.

Now up to 2000 words.

Today has been less about writing and more about watching Jesse James' 'Monster Garage'. Not quite as good as Junkyard wars, but still good. Unfortunately, right now they only have $4000 left in their budget and then they spent $1200 on hatch hydraulics. Then somehow they managed to afford 22 inch low pros. *shrug*

Oooooh, they just spent $898 on a nitrous system. Definitely a worthwhile expense when your project is to make an SUV wheelchair-accessible ;)

Now, I could go write, but I think I'll see if any other Unreal 2 Extended Multiplayer beta testers are online. Gaming... writing... maybe I'll game for a while.

Word count? A pathetic 1200. I wonder why...

I wrote my seven pages yesterday. It was real slogging, mostly because I was watching Yes, Minister, and avoiding writing. I wrote one of the most pivotal scenes in the whole story, too, so I was a bit intimidated by the whole thing. Wrote more this morning. I'm not to about 4800 words now, and 24 pages. Not too bad. I might add another scene tonight, we'll see.

And point well taken, on the autobiographical work, and killing off characters. However, I do have to say, it may be interesting to write an alternate autobiography. What my life would have been like if...? That sort of thing. And who says it has to be the end, if you kill off all the characters? You can write all their adventures in the afterlife. I kinda like the idea of an autobiography that begins with your death ;). It'd certainly be a novel novel!

So I wrote some more in some Edmonton bar last night. Right in between sessions of being a total and complete ass. You know, if I was a man, I could never get away with the stuff I get away with. *shrug* Sitting in a bar, drinking, smoking cigars, making questionable comments to members of the opposite sex, and yelling at the rugger match on the telly. And yet, I was probably the most mature one there. I may have been one of the oldest.

And every five minutes someone would come up to me and ask me why I was writing, what I was writing, and if I'd like to play another game of foosball.

But it was just like some nightmarish version of a SF/F con. Only it was populated solely with people from 17-23 years old. God I hate people my age. It pains me to spend time with them. With the obvious exception of the very charming Heather. And probably some other friend I've just grievously insulted.

So I wrote in the bar (while not defending my title as the best foosball player in CUP), wrote in the panels (when not sleeping), wrote during the keynote speech (when not making a brilliant commentary on the current state of newspaper publishing to the deputy editor of the Journal). And yet I'm still 2000 words behind my current goal. Or 2333.32, as you have pointed out.

But no, I did not visit the Butterdome. Though I, of course, saw it. It's so bright I could have seen it with my eyes closed. Like a giant block of sulphur sitting on a snowbank. Did you know that's how you cast footprints from snow? Melted sulphur.

Anyway, aside from renewing my hatred of my demographic, renewing my love of rye and coke, and reminding me how stupid hotels can be, it was pretty much a wasted weekend.

BTW Kaye, if I were to kill off all the characters in an autobiographical work, well... I'll just don't see how it can work. Considering how much I like the people in my life.

Kaye said:

I wrote my six pages this morning, but I calculated that if I only write six pages I day, I will make the page limit for NANOWRIMO, but not the word count (which, btw, is 1666.6666... words/day).

Must... resist... urge... to kill...

Woohoo! Way to go, Kirsten! I remember the RATT -- I had some strange experiences in Edmonton, which involved a visit there. Did you visit the butterdome too?

I wrote my six pages this morning, but I calculated that if I only write six pages I day, I will make the page limit for NANOWRIMO, but not the word count (which, btw, is 1666.6666... words/day). I need to write seven pages. Anna called me -- first person I talked to on my new phone! She and Barb are going early to Weeds to write, so I'm going to go write my seventh page there.

I don't think seven pages a day is actually very hard. There's a couple of things to remember. First, it can be seven pages of crap. Second, it doesn't have to be contiguous. I wrote a scene this morning from early in the story, and a scene from the middle. I'm not sure how they are going to mesh up in the final. It doesn't really matter. Also, there was a point where I got a little stuck, so I wrote worse-than-crap for a paragraph, to bridge a gap (more outline than writing). And if you're sick of the subject matter, change it radically? Why not? It's your novel. Kill off all your characters in a freak accident, and write a story about the investigation of their deaths, or something! You can do it!

I only have about 2 minutes to write to this blog, but I started my novel last night, just after midnight, in the U of A lounge, called the RATT. Ug. Bad bar, good music.

Anyway, I'm not sure how the hell I'm going to do this. 50,000 words?!? That's like 1500 a day. I can't even write that in a week. *sigh* Maybe it will get easier as time goes on.

It's too bad I'm already sick of the subject matter. At least this conference is totally useless, and so I have lots of time to write here.