I've Hit The Bottow Prose-Wise So It's All Up From Here
I have yet to listen to the official NaNoWriMo Podcast that came out yesterday evening but I'm sure Chris Baty has something very uplifting to say and some catchy name for the week we're heading into today. But me, I like to call this "the week of really tough decisions."
Sure I agree with he who wrote the book (which, by the way, I've never read) that week two is the week you make the tough plot decisions - but this is the week where I find myself making tough life decisions.
For example, yesterday I had to make the decision at 11:15 p.m. if I wanted to continue writing and pass oracleofdoom's word count with 611 more words or if I wanted to get to sleep at a decent hour and have energy to write today.
I decided on the latter since oracleofdoom and I are not word warring or anything. I just like keeping up with her since we're pretty much on the same pace and have been all month. She's my writing buddy that's the other "slow and steady" writer (even better than me since she's only missed one day while I've missed two) as opposed to some of the fits-and-starts writers on my list like squirrelgirl22 and reliantfc3.
Yes, my actual word count war compatriot has decided to re-emerge from the abyss and write 10k in the last two days (and I only would have needed 280 words to pass her so it was a really difficult decision not to write those).
reliantfc3: 36,393 words
incendiarymind: 36,113 words
So, naturally when I read the post on her LiveJournal today that said she was fighting insomnia and was going to push for 40,000 words today, I freaked out. There is no way I'm going to get near that tonight unless I forego the West SideDrinking Writing Group.
2004 NaNoWriMo: 36,304 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 36,113 words
I could use the planning time for certain where I sit and drink and eat pizza but I'm not going to go if no one else is going to be there. I could just write the story and see what happens without planning.
Yesterday's writing, although productive, turned out some of the worst garbage I wrote this year.
Sometime I seriously look at my word count and say, "sure, if anyone was writing the way that I do, really sparce and just purely advancing the plot, they could have 36,000 too."
Some people reading this have read my novelling endeavors before and know that I usually have really rich characters acting in a vacuum. The scenery descriptions consist of "the tree rustled in the breeze behind the speaker's platform."
And that's only if the tree is important to the story. :)
While this serves me well and I hate overly descriptive scenes myself, I can only imagine those who stress over everything about the tree and write beautiful poetry about it in 1,500 words, while I've concluded the entire speech and am on to a confrontation under said tree (again, if I even bother mentioning the tree). I always picture these as the people who wrote 10,000 words and have since given up (or plan marathon writing sessions) but wrote a lot better prose in the process.
Yesterday this tendency of mine really pissed me off. So I wrote the nail bomb scene (actually I wrote and rewrote 400 words of the nailbomb scene completely because I didn't like where it was going) and I had one character who wasn't even minor to the story die - some random student volunteer at the Starwood campaign.
Many writers would relish the opportunity to write about a nailbomb exploding, spreading shrapnel all over an office where six people were working.
Me? I described the entire thing in exactly 761 words and that included a lot of dialog. The volunteers actually sound like pre-schoolers instead of University students and even pad my words.
The irony of the statement that he made was that it wasn't in the Traditionalist belt that Matthew Starwood’s interests were attacked on the night of September 28, it was in the heart of Detroit Central at his campaign office. Starwood was assisting some volunteers led by Liam with a set of mailings late on that night when the distinctive sound of a nail bomb, an explosion followed by the additional sounds of shrapnel tearing into everything around it, echoed through the premises followed by the squealing of tires but no one inside the office heard this second noise.
Due to the fact that the security gate that was necessary even in the nicest parts of Detroit still being up, the bomb crashed through the front window and rolled ten feet into the space before detonating. Intended only to shatter the window and spray tacks, jacks, and other small objects all over the Starwood office, instead the shrapnel found its way into huddled masses of soft tissue huddled behind the two desks in the back of the office.
"Is everyone alright?" Starwood screamed, "is everyone alright?"
The students removed their hands from their heads and looked up at the candidate, all at once. But one voice was missing.
Suddenly the realization hit the students who were still ambulatory that one of their number was not up and standing. A stream of blood trickled from beneath the desk as the candidate looked down and saw that one of his volunteers lay still with a nail sticking out of her neck, blood rushing out of her mouth. Another of the university students rushed over and took her pulse. There was nothing.
"Starwood," he screamed, "Melissa's..."
Starwood rushed over and repeated the student's action. Lightly slapping her cheeks, he looked up with a look that said the student was right.
"Somebody call an ambulance, right now," he screamed. Liam jumped into action without thinking and said, "but the police."
The candidate looked at him but not because he was giving away secrets but because he, at that moment, found him callous to a fault. "There are more important things than that right now."
Liam jumped at the phone and dialed emergency services. "There’s been a bombing, send an ambulance," he said to the operator at the other end. The gruff voice on the other end seemed to express shock and said, "are you putting me on?"
"Do I sound like I'm putting you on," Liam said angrily, "at the Starwood for Parliament Headquarters! A bombing."
"Is everyone alright?" the operator asked.
Liam was now slowly coming to terms with the initial shock of the situation. "No, everyone’s not alright, send an ambulance."
"Sir, I need you to calm down..." the voice began to say before Starwood snatched the phone away from Liam.
"This is Matthew Starwood," he said, "3000 North 14th Street. Please send assistance as soon as possible, medical and police."
The students had gathered around the prone form of Melissa whose pale hands were wrapped around her own neck as if she was attempting to pull the nail out herself when her strength gave out almost instantaneously. Liam walked over to the scene and looked down at the group and at Melissa. The nail seemed to have hit her directly in the windpipe as if it had laser guiding. Inches either way and she would have been standing with the rest of them.
A squad car pulled up alongside the ambulance in less than two minutes and Liam rushed to the front of the office along with Starwood. A paramedic rushed in and behind the desk. Two others quickly followed with a stretcher. The first whipped the stethoscope off of his neck and pressed its metal to Melissa's chest. There was nothing. The two others loaded her on the stretcher as they loaded her quickly in the ambulance. Its sirens wailed as it rushed away the few blocks to Detroit University’s hospital.
The attending paramedic who was left behind looked around at the other students. He took out his radio and said, "superficial wounds on the others." The radio cackled back, "rodger that." He walked around to the students one by one, calming them down and examining their wounds. On a couple of students he removed shards of metal from arms and chests. Liam looked down and notices that besides some minor cuts and scrapes, his flesh remained virtually unscathed.
Another ambulance roared up to take the remaining victims in to remove the shards of metal that were embedded beneath their skin.
So, anyone who's lagging in word count, you can write something like that if you won't hate yourself in the morning like I'm doing right now. Chapter 13, yeah, lucky chapter 13.
Sounds like something the 14-year old I proofread for wrote last year. :)
At least I have a nice speech to write where Matthew Starwood begs the John Harper Society to do something about the attack.
I keep forgetting to mention this, but I posted a poll over on nanowrimo.org about how seriously people are taking their novels. The poll is available at:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=359035&topic_id=23400&forum=203#forumpost359035
But you can also find it on the first page of the The Polling Booth.
I'll analyze the numbers later (and explain my thoughts on the methodology) when I have some time either later today or tomorrow (depending if I'm drunk and writing or sober and writing). For now I just wanted to put it out there so there's more raw data.
Sure I agree with he who wrote the book (which, by the way, I've never read) that week two is the week you make the tough plot decisions - but this is the week where I find myself making tough life decisions.
For example, yesterday I had to make the decision at 11:15 p.m. if I wanted to continue writing and pass oracleofdoom's word count with 611 more words or if I wanted to get to sleep at a decent hour and have energy to write today.
|
I decided on the latter since oracleofdoom and I are not word warring or anything. I just like keeping up with her since we're pretty much on the same pace and have been all month. She's my writing buddy that's the other "slow and steady" writer (even better than me since she's only missed one day while I've missed two) as opposed to some of the fits-and-starts writers on my list like squirrelgirl22 and reliantfc3.
Yes, my actual word count war compatriot has decided to re-emerge from the abyss and write 10k in the last two days (and I only would have needed 280 words to pass her so it was a really difficult decision not to write those).
reliantfc3: 36,393 words
incendiarymind: 36,113 words
So, naturally when I read the post on her LiveJournal today that said she was fighting insomnia and was going to push for 40,000 words today, I freaked out. There is no way I'm going to get near that tonight unless I forego the West Side
2004 NaNoWriMo: 36,304 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 36,113 words
I could use the planning time for certain where I sit and drink and eat pizza but I'm not going to go if no one else is going to be there. I could just write the story and see what happens without planning.
Yesterday's writing, although productive, turned out some of the worst garbage I wrote this year.
Sometime I seriously look at my word count and say, "sure, if anyone was writing the way that I do, really sparce and just purely advancing the plot, they could have 36,000 too."
Some people reading this have read my novelling endeavors before and know that I usually have really rich characters acting in a vacuum. The scenery descriptions consist of "the tree rustled in the breeze behind the speaker's platform."
And that's only if the tree is important to the story. :)
While this serves me well and I hate overly descriptive scenes myself, I can only imagine those who stress over everything about the tree and write beautiful poetry about it in 1,500 words, while I've concluded the entire speech and am on to a confrontation under said tree (again, if I even bother mentioning the tree). I always picture these as the people who wrote 10,000 words and have since given up (or plan marathon writing sessions) but wrote a lot better prose in the process.
Yesterday this tendency of mine really pissed me off. So I wrote the nail bomb scene (actually I wrote and rewrote 400 words of the nailbomb scene completely because I didn't like where it was going) and I had one character who wasn't even minor to the story die - some random student volunteer at the Starwood campaign.
Many writers would relish the opportunity to write about a nailbomb exploding, spreading shrapnel all over an office where six people were working.
Me? I described the entire thing in exactly 761 words and that included a lot of dialog. The volunteers actually sound like pre-schoolers instead of University students and even pad my words.
The irony of the statement that he made was that it wasn't in the Traditionalist belt that Matthew Starwood’s interests were attacked on the night of September 28, it was in the heart of Detroit Central at his campaign office. Starwood was assisting some volunteers led by Liam with a set of mailings late on that night when the distinctive sound of a nail bomb, an explosion followed by the additional sounds of shrapnel tearing into everything around it, echoed through the premises followed by the squealing of tires but no one inside the office heard this second noise.
Due to the fact that the security gate that was necessary even in the nicest parts of Detroit still being up, the bomb crashed through the front window and rolled ten feet into the space before detonating. Intended only to shatter the window and spray tacks, jacks, and other small objects all over the Starwood office, instead the shrapnel found its way into huddled masses of soft tissue huddled behind the two desks in the back of the office.
"Is everyone alright?" Starwood screamed, "is everyone alright?"
The students removed their hands from their heads and looked up at the candidate, all at once. But one voice was missing.
Suddenly the realization hit the students who were still ambulatory that one of their number was not up and standing. A stream of blood trickled from beneath the desk as the candidate looked down and saw that one of his volunteers lay still with a nail sticking out of her neck, blood rushing out of her mouth. Another of the university students rushed over and took her pulse. There was nothing.
"Starwood," he screamed, "Melissa's..."
Starwood rushed over and repeated the student's action. Lightly slapping her cheeks, he looked up with a look that said the student was right.
"Somebody call an ambulance, right now," he screamed. Liam jumped into action without thinking and said, "but the police."
The candidate looked at him but not because he was giving away secrets but because he, at that moment, found him callous to a fault. "There are more important things than that right now."
Liam jumped at the phone and dialed emergency services. "There’s been a bombing, send an ambulance," he said to the operator at the other end. The gruff voice on the other end seemed to express shock and said, "are you putting me on?"
"Do I sound like I'm putting you on," Liam said angrily, "at the Starwood for Parliament Headquarters! A bombing."
"Is everyone alright?" the operator asked.
Liam was now slowly coming to terms with the initial shock of the situation. "No, everyone’s not alright, send an ambulance."
"Sir, I need you to calm down..." the voice began to say before Starwood snatched the phone away from Liam.
"This is Matthew Starwood," he said, "3000 North 14th Street. Please send assistance as soon as possible, medical and police."
The students had gathered around the prone form of Melissa whose pale hands were wrapped around her own neck as if she was attempting to pull the nail out herself when her strength gave out almost instantaneously. Liam walked over to the scene and looked down at the group and at Melissa. The nail seemed to have hit her directly in the windpipe as if it had laser guiding. Inches either way and she would have been standing with the rest of them.
A squad car pulled up alongside the ambulance in less than two minutes and Liam rushed to the front of the office along with Starwood. A paramedic rushed in and behind the desk. Two others quickly followed with a stretcher. The first whipped the stethoscope off of his neck and pressed its metal to Melissa's chest. There was nothing. The two others loaded her on the stretcher as they loaded her quickly in the ambulance. Its sirens wailed as it rushed away the few blocks to Detroit University’s hospital.
The attending paramedic who was left behind looked around at the other students. He took out his radio and said, "superficial wounds on the others." The radio cackled back, "rodger that." He walked around to the students one by one, calming them down and examining their wounds. On a couple of students he removed shards of metal from arms and chests. Liam looked down and notices that besides some minor cuts and scrapes, his flesh remained virtually unscathed.
Another ambulance roared up to take the remaining victims in to remove the shards of metal that were embedded beneath their skin.
So, anyone who's lagging in word count, you can write something like that if you won't hate yourself in the morning like I'm doing right now. Chapter 13, yeah, lucky chapter 13.
Sounds like something the 14-year old I proofread for wrote last year. :)
At least I have a nice speech to write where Matthew Starwood begs the John Harper Society to do something about the attack.
I keep forgetting to mention this, but I posted a poll over on nanowrimo.org about how seriously people are taking their novels. The poll is available at:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=359035&topic_id=23400&forum=203#forumpost359035
But you can also find it on the first page of the The Polling Booth.
I'll analyze the numbers later (and explain my thoughts on the methodology) when I have some time either later today or tomorrow (depending if I'm drunk and writing or sober and writing). For now I just wanted to put it out there so there's more raw data.
posted by incendiarymind at 8:42 AM
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