It's Only A Paper Rose

I crossed the finish line last night - 50,000 words - at 10:30 PM, after writing roughly 5,000 words on both the 29th and 30th. (Which, I suppose, is an improvement over last year, when I did 10,000 words all on the 30th and finished at 11:48 PM.) Brian did so a little earlier, and we celebrated with a bottle of bubbly.

How do I feel about the project? Well, it's still very much a work in progress; 50K isn't really enough to consider a proper novel, let alone the first in an epic fantasy series (even for a YA audience). But on the whole, I'm pretty pleased with it. Even though I know there are large swaths of interior monologue that'll have to get cut (show-don't-tell!) and I've got a lot more scenes to add, not to mention all the revising and reworking and tightening scenes and plot arcs and the like, I have a sense of the general finished shape I'm aiming for as well as the general trajectory of the plot, which is more than I've had for any of my other writing projects. And even though I'm not entirely certain how the path will wend from here to there, the fact that I can sort of see the finish line means I feel like I'm actually headed somewhere, not just wading through the murk in the hopes of accidentally stumbling on some plot. Which is the biggest reason I didn't even bother trying to revise my MS from last year.

In the meantime, it's time for a bit of a break - Christmas is coming, and I have cards to make and a party to throw and and possibly a visiting brother to entertain. It feels odd to sit down at the computer and not be thinking in the back of my mind "I should really be writing right now..."

I'm sure I'll be back to that soon, though, if not in quite as regimented a fashion. But for now, it feels like time to celebrate. So I think that's what I'm going to be doing.

Just got a spam entitled "DSL Internet - Get access to blazing fast speeds!" Uhm, dude? 1998 called. They want their technology back. (Sadly, though, the American perception of "blazing fast speeds" probably hasn't changed much in the past thirteen years...)

I have the day off work today, in theory because the contractor was supposed to come back and paint the ceiling today. In practice, he didn't show up; when I called him after he was an hour late, I got "Oh yeah, I left a message on your phone, did you not get it? I can't make it today." In the interests of not coming off as a grump/unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt, I note here that I specifically asked him to call me if anything came up; I might also note that no such message or incoming call was noted on my Google Voice or my cell phone, and it should have logged itself on both. He's a nice guy and does decent work, but getting him to actually show up is like pulling teeth, I swear. (Mini-rant: Is there a rule somewhere that contractors everywhere have to perennially be running behind schedule and over budget? Of the many experiences with them that I and my acquaintances have had, I can think of exactly one that arrived on time, did the job, did it well, and was out the door within the timeframe they said they would be. I'm sure there are plenty of reliable, efficient contractors out there, but I'll be damned if I've ever met one. End of rant.) I told him to just not worry about it until after Christmas - the ceiling isn't awful-looking, and I want to get my decorations up already. Grump. Grump.

At least the day off won't go to waste - I have oodles of things to do today. Brian's home sick, but I don't mind that too much; he's pretty self-sufficient when he's ill, plus it means I can use the car to run errands and things. Plus he'll be around for decorating, even if he won't be as participatory as normal.

Also, I'm putting up outside lights this year! For the first time in my life (despite growing up in the suburbs) I'll have outdoor Christmas lights! Nothing super-fancy, just some icicle lights over the deck and a few strings of colored ones to outline the eaves with. Our house is so adorable, and you can see it from the bottom of the hill - it'll look just like a little gingerbread cottage. And for some reason, that prospect is making even several hours spent on a ladder seem like fun.

But first, time for some marathon writing. I've got over 9000 words to go in the next two days, but if I can reach my earlier 2000-words-an-hour rate, that's more than manageable. I think part of the reason that worked so well before was that I was developing a strong emotional arc between two of the characters, which made the beats for each scene fairly easy to map out. That part's mostly done with now, so I'll have to see if I can find another one to follow.

4000 words, then I can put up lights. That's my deal with myself. If I get really ambitious, I'll get another 2000-3000 in before putting up interior decorations, but that'll probably depend on how long the lights take.

So I'd better get going so I'm not putting up lights in the dark...

Finally broke 40K, only...*counts* three days late. Par for today is 45,000. But considering I had a good week of mood swings and non-productivity, that's not too shabby. And assuming I keep at it, it'll be easier than last year, when I did the entire last 10,000 words in one day.

Also, I managed to do 3,000+ words in just over an hour and a half this morning, which is about twice as fast as my usual "working steadily" rate. I'd say I'm just getting better at not self-censoring, except I'm actually sort of proud of the bits I've written this morning - I might post one of them as an excerpt once I get around to the editing part. (Of course, it's perfectly possible that I *am* getting better at the not-self-censoring, and I'm just a better writer than I think I am. But I'm sure I'll have plenty of crap to sort through in the editing process, too.)

But for now? It's time to decorate! Woo, Christmas!

It's been an odd week. Busy, what with work and Zumba and Thanksgiving shopping and such. I got ahead on my writing, then fell behind again. Also, mood-swing city. Spent about half a day practically flying, then another half a day slowly deflating into, if not quite the depths of despair, at least its antechamber. And then I got tired of my pity-party, especially as I didn't have any Jim Beam Black to keep me company.

So what did I do to break out of the depression? I went to Sierra Vista and ate steak, along with Brian (who'd just finished an incredibly long work-project involving working over the weekend). Then he obligingly ferried me all over town looking for a copy of Moulin Rouge, because despite having a mixed reaction to it the first (and only) time I saw it nearly a decade ago, the thought of a high-flying Parisian period/modern musical mashup fantasy seemed like exactly what I needed.*

Appropriately enough, while we watched the movie I finally got around to trying a bit of the bottle of absinthe that my friend Janae brought me back from France. While (after performing La Louche) it was perfectly pleasant to drink, I was somewhat disappointed that I didn't experience any of absinthe's much-vaunted mind-expanding effects. However, once I ran the back label of the bottle through FreeTranslation.com, I learned that this particular type had been neutered "in accordance with regulations", with the additional psychoactive chemicals that supposedly come from the botanicals removed. So I suppose I'll have to hope someone gets me a bottle of the real stuff for Christmas.

Tomorrow (supposedly) the contractors are coming to fix our ceiling - the swamp cooler sprung a leak a couple of months ago, and the landlord and property-management company seem to be have had a bit of a time finding someone reliable to come out here and fix it (which, in all fairness, hasn't been helped by Brian's and my travel schedules). So, since I'm going to be stuck at home all day, I figure I might as well see if I can catch up on my writing.

Wish me luck, folks...



*Updated reaction upon second, ten-years-later viewing: Much more enjoyable when you're [a] not in a jaded, cynical period of your life, [b] watching it on a proper home theater in high definition with surround sound, and [c] somewhat familiar with Baz Luhrmann's caffienated-weasel-on-cocaine editing style so you don't spend all your time going "What the fucking FUCK?" Also, "El Tango De Roxanne" is still possibly one of my favorite musical numbers ever.

8,024 words, for a grand total of 28,739. Not quite 10,000, but considering that I'm actually a whole day ahead for the first time in my NNWM career, I'm going to call it good.

Also? I love it when scenes you had no idea existed just flow naturally from the scenes that came before them. For story reasons, as well as word-count reasons.

Thanks to the aforementioned apathy day and possibly fighting off a bug of some sort (I got home from work/errands last night and all my energy went whoosh, see ya), I'm a few thousand words in the hole. However, I've got today and tomorrow off, and I'd like to build up a cushion for the upcoming holidays, so I'm setting a goal here: 10,000 words in two days. I know I can do it, too, 'cos I did 10,000 in one day last year. So it's just a question of self-discipline.

Live updates possibly to follow...

The weather is icky and grey and cold out. And I managed to crunch a filling into powder earlier, so another trip to the dentist is in order. I don't much feel like writing. I feel much more like curling up with some hot chocolate and having a sulk.

Just in case everyone was starting to think I was like this amazing super-writer person.

*pouts*

Writer's block yesterday. All of my characters were busy whinging about what was wrong with their world, rather than, y'know, doing anything about it. So I quit at 17,500 words (par for the day was 18,333), figuring I could catch up today.

The problem with playing catch-up, however, is that you have to do the current day's words as well as the previous day(s) that you missed. Stupid counter keeps on ticking over. So instead of sitting down and writing this morning like I'd meant, I made breakfast and did crafty stuff. But I knew putting things off wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I posted something whiny on the NaNo boards and got to work. Or tried to.

Finally, I got fed up with the scene, stuck a footnote in to either finish or gut it later, and skipped ahead to something more interesting. And now I've got my 20,000 words for the day.

Admittedly, it's not 100% ideal - I really need to develop my other two characters and their family relationships more, preferably in a way that *doesn't* involve them sitting around and whinging - but NNWM is supposed to be all about whatever inspires the wordcount, and today this did the trick for me. Yay for getting over the week-2 slump.

After three days of struggling along, I finally broke into the flow yesterday evening. I'm fairly proud of how this bit came out. Let's hope today I can continue it.

Feedback always welcome, positive or negative.

( Because it's long... )

Me: How many words have you written?

Brian: I'm not sure. Five or six hundred, I think.

Me: What program are you using? It should be able to tell you.

Brian: TextEdit.

Me: Huh. I'm not sure TextEdit has a word-count feature.

Brian: I wrote a script that counts words.

Me: ...Okay, I know I have no room to talk on the subject of procrastination, but that's a new one on me...