A Very Happy NaNoWriMo Wrapup

In two minutes National Novel Writing Month draws to an end and checking out my friends list, congratulations to the following:

rosemilk (who wrote a positively astounding 111,888 words), squirrelgirl22 (61,767), infanttyrone (51,858), ivymere (50,526), reliantfc3 (50,022), oracleofdoom (50,009), and bandersnatch_02 (who was doing it on the sly, so much so that he didn't register his word count on the site, and last reported 50,003 - the last of which was "better").

Honorable mention to hollowpoint who fought the brilliant fight to the end and finished with a very respectable 40,270 words. I'm sure he's going to kick 50,000's ass next year!

I'm incredibly proud of all of you! Thank you for making November an enjoyable experience!

And of course I'll give myself a pat on the back for finishing with 53,229 words.

53,229 / 50,000 (106.5%)

Wow, 106.5. Sounds like the frequency on the FM dial that a really bad country station would be on. :) I guess it beats 88.5 or something which would have been good music but a sad word count percentage to finish at getting so close.

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It was good news all around in the little corner of NaNoWriMo that I'm the closest to. Team Chicago 2005 in our challenge with St. Louis ended up with 38 of our 47 team members completing their novels.

Yes, you read that right reliantfc3. That was 38 out of 47. :)

The final word count is still to be tallied by the MLs but I'm thinking that St. Louis' 23 winners aren't going to hold a candle to Chicago.

Overall, I finished 25th out of writers who list Chicago as their location. This includes some people from the suburbs (who listed Chicagoland as their location and the like) but I'm glad to finish on the first page again. Overall in Chicago proper, 130 writers of the 668 that are in the city (though that includes people who signed up in past year who didn't even participate this year) finished their 50,000 words.

I'm proud to be on the first page of such a prolific group for the second year in a row.

Go ChicagoWriMo! Overall Illinois::Chicago finished #8 in word count as a region!

Looks like the windy in our city also counts on the keyboards.

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The final sentence that I wrote in November 2005 was at about 3:30 p.m. this afternoon (I took the day off from work hoping to hit 60,000 but that just didn't happen). The final sentence of my November noveling was: "Don't worry, you'll get your fiancee back when this is all of this is over."

I think it's a pretty fitting final set of words even though I myself do not have a fiancee. So, the final two words I wrote for NaNoWriMo were is over. I like to count the final five words as it has a better ring to it, though, "all of this is over."

Not necessarily the end like they're theoretically supposed to be. But isn't "the end" derivative to the extreme anyhow? :)

I was a little bit worried stopping there since I figured that would see my word count and write 3,500 words this evening just to beat me. But, in the end it's good news there too as the final one v. one Chicago/St. Louis word war ended with the following results:

incendiarymind: 53,229 words
reliantfc3: 50,022 words

I hope we're both around for round #2 of the series next year!!!

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Tonight was my night of celebration. I went to Mama Desta's, an Ethiopian restaurant at Clark and Belmont (a pretty famous intersection here in Chicago) just south of Wrigleyville - of course that designation is a little misleading as both Clark and Belmont and Wrigley Field are both technically in the neighborhood of Lakeview and Wrigleyville is just a sub-neighborhood.

Ethiopian is my favorite cuisine on the planet (and tonight I finally decided after much consideration that Korean is my least favorite) so it was an absolutely wonderful treat.

But the night got even better as I went to see my favorite band of all time Dinosaur Jr. at Metro (which is in Wrigleyville proper). For those who remember my Lollapalooza rant, I was pretty upset at JayLouMurph for playing nothing off of "Green Mind" because Lou wasn't in the band at the time. Tonight they remedied that situation by playing "The Wagon."

The set was far from perfect but it was a good reward for finishing just the same.

I think I'll just have to top it for NaNoFiMo once I actually write "the end" as opposed to "all of this is over."

This Angry Letter Is Not To My Character

There's this evil rumor floating around that Chris Baty advised people in the last official NaNoWriMo podcast to stop writing on November 30 and not to continue into December or beyond.

There are a two schools of thought on this. The first is FUCK CHRIS BATY! And the second school is people who agree with him. In case you hadn't gotten the impression yet, I'm in the first camp. :)

See here's my counterargument to the argument that I haven't listened to yet (I am so far friggin' behind in podcasts). Baty apparently states that the support network won't be there in December and it will just get disheartening.

But maybe he stops checking the boards in December because they're still pretty active. They're less active but as someone who was writing last year until December 9, I can tell you that I was still floating around the "Character and Plot Realism Q&A" forums getting answers on things (and answering of course) all the way through mid-December and there were still a lot of other happenings. The boards were actually still getting some comments in September for goodness sakes (I checked it out once for craps and giggles, I wasn't still around).

Plus, in December, a lot of us crazier types do NaNoFiMo!

National Novel Finishing Month used to be nothing more than a thread in the forums but this year, pookel (who I have no idea where she finds as many things to post about on the NaNo forums as she does) has made it officially a separate month on par with NaNoEdMo in March with the site nanofimo.org.

The goal the site states in its FAQ is: "NaNoFiMo is a challenge to write at least 30,000 words on your unfinished novel draft and to reach a conclusion to the novel, between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31."

It doesn't have to be your NaNoWriMo novel that you finish during the month but it definitely dovetails into it well.

Plus, there is a threat on the nanowrimo.org forums called, "Never-ending Novel Club" to offer support.

So again, in conclusion, FUCK CHRIS BATY!

There's a little thing called momentum and if you stop writing at the end of November, you lose the whole thing. No one is as interested in seeing what happens to your characters right now as you are. If you stop for any reason, you're going to lose interest in your characters and won't want to see the story to conclusion.

Or worse, you'll lose the entire advantage of writing a novel in one month, remembering everything that's going on because you're immersed in it.

The human brain can, of course, retain facts over the course of years but no one can be expected to remember the little plot line intricacies that chances are you've come up with over the course of this month.

Even with careful note taking, you're not going to feel the story, just look at the words on the page to continue.

You know, Chris Baty does and says a lot of things right. He's got a lot of people through the month (and has since the beginning) but in this case he's dead wrong. The second that most people set their novels down on November 30, they're never going to pick them back up unless it's the first few days of December.

The support will still be there and, trust me, winning NaNoFiMo is twice as rewarding as winning NaNoWriMo. There are no two words of catharsis as good as "the end."

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It's really funny how life imitates art even when no one knows the art is happening. The events in Canada yesterday nearly exactly echo a subplot in my novel.

For those who don't follow the politics of our nearest neighbor, the Liberal Party headed by Paul Martin had two parties - the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois pull out of the governing coalition (the 135 seats that the Liberal Party controls was not enough to make up a governing majority in the 308 seat Parliament by itself) and the minor parties giving him the majority along with the official opposition Conservative Party banded together to force a vote of "no confidence" and call for new elections.

In my novel, the ruling Union Party (a centrist party sort of similar to the Liberal Party or New Labour or the Democratic Leadership Council) has their centre-right allies the Federalist Party leave the coalition, therefore losing their governing majority and forcing new Parliamentary elections.

The Liberal Coalition/Socialist potential voting bloc in the novel is looking to gain enough seats to take control of Parliament in my novel.

Now, in real life Canada, it's the right wing that's trying to gain a majority but other than that, the story's the same. In January, Canada's going to have new elections (everything they do makes more sense like one month campaigns) so the whole month of December is going to be spent on campaigning.

I'm going to be watching the Canadian campaign for two reasons. The first is because I'm a political junkie. And the second is because it will provide a lot of fodder for any potential rewrite.

Just putting this all in writing so no one can ever claim that my plot is derivitive. I had a plot of a dissolution of Parliament in my story before the situation in Canada exploded.

Though Chris Baty can still fuck off even if I do wait until January to truly craft my novel.

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2004 NaNoWriMo: 63,190 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 50,213 words

incendiarymind: 50,213 words
reliantfc3: 50,022 words

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I didn't get any additional word count yesterday because I got caught up on here for hours (Canadian election and all). I had even planned on watching the movie "What's Cooking?" as a reward for "finishing" and didn't even do that. Tonight I will finally reward myself for finishing by watching a movie or two.

Though I do plan on doing a little writing. Though now those words kind of count against December. Not that I care if I make 30,000, I just want to finish!

Best of luck to everyone who wants to travel December with me to the real promised land of a finished rough draft.

I Think I Deserve A Nice Drink After All Of That

There's a thread on nanowrimo.org's "Polling Booth" boards called "Who you gonna call?" and while the primary answer was "Ghostbusters," (to be fair it was one of the choices) I knew what that question meant to me. I realized that I really couldn't call anyone. The only other person who would care whose number is in my cell phone is squirrelgirl22.

But I did provide the following answer to the question:

"I'm not going to call anyone since no one on my phone much cares that I'm doing NaNoWriMo. I will e-mail about five people and post in my LiveJournal the second I finish!"

I am a little bit of a lier but this is the fate's honest truth.

At 9:22 this evening I wrote my 50,000th words - respect.





Who knew that I could also write some poetry in the paragraph that contained my 50,000th word. I do have to admit that I cheated a little. The sentence was originially going to read, "Liam walked across the floor, clean for the day as opposed to its usual sticky consistency at night and took off the cap that he was wearing in a show of deference and respect."

50,213 / 50,000 (100.4%)

So my 50,000th word was almost "and." I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to have "and," "the," or "said" as the winning word and since I did type out the sentence count "and" as my winning word if you want, but I'm counting "respect" because that's the 50,000th word that was saved going into the first edit. :)





There was one thing that I did immediately after I finished up a couple of extra paragraphs just to make sure I didn't lose too many words (as happened to squirrelgirl22). I posted a message on the Illinois::Chicago regional board in the thread that rosemilk started called "I FINISHED!" which read the following.

"Add me to the list in exactly twice as long as my writing buddy rosemilk. Who knew what would be when we got our picture taken together typing out the challenge to St. Louis? I couldn't have asked for more inspiration than everybody who posted in this forum and the entirety of Illinois::Chicago.

May everyone else join the posters in this forum in the next couple of days!"





And I'm really serious. I doubt if I didn't have the Illinois::Chicago challenge to Missouri::St. Louis going on, I probably wouldn't have finished. There were so many times that I wanted to pack it in this month but I didn't want to let down the other 46 Chicago writers who were my teammates against the hated (sort of) southerners.

The funny thing about that word war though was that me and my own personal St. Louis word challenger reliantfc3 ended up finishing almost the exact same time.

There were only about 45 minutes between the time that she and I reached 50,000 (she hit it at 10:10 p.m.). So while the war is still going on for two more days, I at least crossed the winner's line first.

incendiarymind: 50,213 words
reliantfc3: 50,022 words

She turned out to be the best writing buddy that I've ever had since she would not write for four days and then kick out 5,000 words. I always felt I had to get as far ahead of her as possible to stop her from jumping me when she would next start writing.

Not that I'm stopping at 50,000 (well, technically 50,213) since I don't want to be one of the many who reach 50,000, accomplish the standard goal and call it quits (especially those people who cross it mid-month and stop). The bar is meaningless to me personally if I don't try to use the full month of November to get as close to the real end of my novel as possible.





So tomorrow it's right back at it trying to pull about 3,000 words a night for the final two nights and see if I can't end up on the first 15 pages or so of final word counts (right now I'm on about the 40th). And I can't stop writing when I've got three friends who are still trying to finish. I won't name names of two of them to jinx it, but I do just want to say.

Come on oracleofdoom, you're next! I have faith in you!

Plus there's still one last goal, beating the November word count of last year's novel. Though 16,000 more words in two days is going to be damn near impossible (65,653 was last year's final word count).

2004 NaNoWriMo: 63,190 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 50,213 words

And in a final note, the complete set of NaNoWriMo victory screen shots are at http://home.ripway.com/2003-8/22463/nanowin/ if anyone wants to see the full winner's process to get more inspiration.

Good luck to all of my friends typing toward the 50,000 word count! Two days is a lot of time!

Developing Religion Over NaNoWriMo

Yesterday night with two beers from Gold Star in me (Brooklyn Sharon was in town this weekend) and fresh off watching the newest episode of "American Dad" where Steve Smith gets a novel published, I was inspired to write quite a bit yesterday night until 1:15 a.m. or so.

49,107 / 50,000 (98.2%)

I just love Seth MacFarlane since only he would run an episode on getting a novel published on the last weekend of NaNoWriMo. He's pretty atune to what's happening in the youth-based world and so I'm sure it wasn't accidental.

The best part of the episode was that Stan Smith had written over 200 novels that were never published. He used the excuse that he wasn't writing for the fame, he was just writing for the enjoyment of creating the story (of course his line of logic changed when Steve gets "Roger Is An Alien" published). And then the "camera" pans to a pile of rejection letters higher than the stack of manuscripts.

Since as I've said before I have no desire to actually publish this year's novel (besides the LuLu offer if it's out there) the episode and that scene really hit home. I can really picture myself one day having a stack of 30 NaNo novels all sitting in a room professionally bound by a print-on-demand services but never even edited.

Forget the rejection letters, I'm not even writing for that!

The weird thing about yesterday night's writing session was for the second year in a row, I ended up incorporating religion into the novel. Last year Emily ends up going to see a priest in Berlin and this year it gets even more religious.

Luke, it seems, when Liam confronts him in his room at a seedy motel in East Detroit (where he had fled for his life in fear of Charles Lexington) has taken up reading the bible. In particular, he confesses that he's become obsessed with the Judas passages.

If that's not tipping the suspicion scales on who the police informant is, I don't know what does - although it could just be a red herring. :)

Anyway, I found myself on bible study web sites (I guess it beats looking up the security procedures at Charles DeGaulle Airport like I did last year), in particular Judas (John 13:18-30) on bible.org.

Never figured I'd be on that site, especially during November. Well they say people get more religious at the end and I am nearing the end of this year's 50,000 words. :)

I just love that instead of having a character with a Jesus Complex, I'm developing one with a Judas Complex. Sure that literary trick has been used before but I'm getting quite a few words out of it. I'm not praying to get more, but it might seem that way.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 59,198 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 49,107 words

incendiarymind: 49,107 words
reliantfc3: 46,006 words (though she stated on her LiveJournal that she's over 49k today also and just hasn't updated her official count)

One last interesting point about my word count. I have the highest word count of anyone in Chicago that is not over 50,000. But there are quite a few people right around the same area who will probably join me in the "Class of November 28." reliantfc3 will probably also be one of these so it's a good day to finish.

Not Quite The Entry That I Planned On Writing

So much for using the last weekend of NaNoWriMo to write a lot of words. I did write 1,404 words on the car ride home from Detroit but other than that I've spent the day trying to set up my laptop. There were more than a few surprises.

All day yesterday for 24 hours, I left my laptop off after letting it power down. Customer support for Toshiba promised this would increase its battery life from the paulty 1 hour and 50 minutes that it seemed to average with a full charge. They promised my father it would be nearly three hours.

47,213 / 50,000 (94.4%)

Well, in the end it did increase battery life - but only by about 20 minutes.

So, I wrote as long as I could in the car and ended up with almost the daily word count. Yesterday night, I not only beat my goal but ended up with 45.8k finishing up Chapter Sixteen. And I was on such a role that I started Chapter Seventeen where the body count of the story increases to two. I so enjoyed the killing off on the main skinhead, even if I did it "off-camera."

The only problem is that as I slide into 50,000 - which I hope to do tomorrow at the Lincoln Park Write-In and maybe get a picture of my typing the 50,000th word since there will be other people around - is I've fallen back into method writing. I'm just working more things that happen in my life into the story than I think I did last year where I wrote chapters that take place in internet cafes in internet cafes.

For example, in the latest chapter, I have Liam crossing into East Detroit (which is Windsor in the alternate history) to track down Luke with Colm. Yeah, I didn't cross into Detroit from Windsor yesterday or anything. :) That and there's plenty of family things from Thanksgiving. Who's the deciding voice in committee to condemn Charles Lexington? His cousin. And Matthew Starwood gives a big campaign speech on a holiday. It's not Thanksgiving (as in the alternate history this isn't celebrated, especially in October but Spanish-American Friendship Day.

I guess it's not that bad since the stuff I dragged into last year's novel are things that only I knew about. But I'm now trying to figure out what happens in East Detroit and does it stay in East Detroit?

Last night, besides doing a lot of writing, I came up with a list of questions that still need to be answered before the end of the novel. The amount of loose ends that need tying up has actually multiplied since I did my mid-month appraisal of what was happening.

I figure after 50,000, I should probably start trying to wrap things up. It consisted of 10 plotlines that I need to pick back up. The most important of which is Samuel Charlton, Liam's childhood friend who's now a police officer who hasn't appeared in the novel since he was mentioned by Emmie in chapter nine. In theory, he's the one who ends up creating the situation leading to the climax so I think the next chapter - the one where I hit 50,000 most likely - is as good as any to bring him back in.

Though I'm not going to try to make Charlton the 50,000th word. That would be entirely too much of trying to incorporate things into the novel that were happening in real life. :)

incendiarymind: 47,213 words
reliantfc3: 46,006 words

2004 NaNoWriMo: 55,725 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 47,213 words

On This Day Last Year, Something Wonderful Happened

NOVI, MICHIGAN - At about this time last year I was celebrating my validation (or, well the ability to validate, I didn't actually validate on the 26th) of 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. I could, if I hadn't been dicking around all weekend probably have done the same today (though I would have waited until Monday so I could post the blue bar before I posted the purple one).

2004 NaNoWriMo: 52,315 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 44,044 words

As it stands, I'll just have to stare lovingly at the entry, "I'm Actually Thankful For At Least Getting A Chance To Reach 50,000 Words" (November 26, 2004) and hope I can write another little under 6,000 words in the next four days.

I know, I know that I should cry myself a river because there are people a lot further behind still trying to win.

44,044 / 50,000 (88.1%)

On that note, this year's infanttyrone award for never giving up goes hollowpoint who wrote 7,000 words today and is near the halfway point of 50,000 after being stalled at 6,400 words for half the month. My MC would be pissed that a Briton was having such a resurgance, but since I'm not Liam, huzzah to my Brighton LiveJournal friend!

I'm still going to attempt one more writing session tonight going into the wee hours of the morning. The goal is about 45,500 (which will still leave me behind reliantfc3 but it's worth a try.

reliantfc3: 46,006 words
incendiarymind: 44,044 words

The one really good thing about being home this weekend was that I was able to finally recover a copy of my 2004 NaNoWriMo report card. This whole month I've been comparing myself to it (as I remembered it) and though that I wasn't matching up very favorably to it. Wow, was I ever wrong. Here are some prime examples of my negativity in the first year I finished NaNoWriMo:

11/9/04: Morale (6) - The plot seems to be going too fast and I may run out of rising action too soon.

11/10/04: Morale (4) - The last few chapters seem thrown together. Need more information on Paris airport.

11/18/04: Morale (6) - Didn't get a chance to write on the first full day in New York, too busy working.

11/19/04: Morale (3) - The computer crashes so eight hours of doing nothing are wasted as I can't work on my novel offline.

11/20/04: Morale (2) - With yet another day passing, I'm worried about even making 50,000 with Thanksgiving coming up.

11/25/04: Morale (2) - Thanksgiving weekend plans to write have gone to crap. Going to have to really rush the ending.

11/26/04: Morale (4) - Starting to become resigned to the fact that I won't finish the story as I want it finished. Got off on a small rabbit trail which might or might not lead to Prague.

One day I might just publish the entire chart (which doesn't include the last few days of Novemeber 2004 since I didn't back it up after last year's Thanksgiving trip to Michigan) just for comedic value. If you want to see wild mood swings, there they were.

I seriously averaged a morale of five on a 10 point scale while writing over the amount of words required.

This year I'm averaging six and will barely crack the 50,000 mark. Though there's a little secret that I can't reveal about my writing time for fear that certain other people will use it to their advantage. :)

If I just finish this year, I think my morale will be higher than last year in November because my goals were different. Last year I actually wanted to finish the book in November (I did end up finishing in 30 days of writing) and this year I just want to finish. So I'm not setting my goals as high. That's alright, my writing level isn't as high either.

I'm letting my laptop recharge right now to really dig in on the way back to Chicago (I'm typing this on the computer in my dad's den) so maybe by the next time I write an entry I will be at 50,000. But chances are it will be more like 45,000 with how much I'm putting things off this year.

It's A Really Guilty Pleasures Friday This Day After Thanksgiving

NOVI, MICHIGAN - I waited out at Best Buy from 11:00 p.m. yesterday night to buy a new laptop. And I got it! #13 of 16!

Each store had at least 10 of the computers and the one on Haggerty Road in Novi has 16. Had my brother and I got there twenty minutes later, we would not have gotten them!

But victory is achieved and I've been playing with it all day in-between naps from being up for 24 hours straight! :)

I am never playing the Black Friday game again. I'm not sure that I'm appreciating the fact that I still can't entirely feel my toes. And the fact that my eyes hurt isn't necessarily appreciated.

But this laptop is entirely worth it since it feels like I've actually got my own computer at my parent's house. Not that it's helped my word count much since I'm not exactly thinking straight from a huge amount of brain freeze.

41,483 / 50,000 (83.0%)

I'm not exactly sure what I wrote in the last 1,000 or so words this evening. Through the haze of my mind from waiting out all night, I think I wrote a chapter about Luke and Liam having a confrontation over what Luke (who is the only sane, philosophical one left in the Cane and Candle group as opposed to the other thugs) knows about the Matthew Starwood campaign headquarters bombing.

Then I go on to discuss some other things that I won't print here since they give away a lot of the story.

But what's important is the whole chapter goes against the tone of the rest of the novel. First I have Luke explain the inner workings of the snakes gang out of the Pig and Coyote (which goes against everything I said a couple of years ago) and then I go into a narrator mode about things happening behind Liam's back. I really tried to avoid this but who knows, maybe it makes the book better!

2004 NaNoWriMo: 45,193 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 41,483 words

reliantfc3: 46,006 words
incendiarymind: 41,483 words

That is, if these words stay in. I think I'm about to re-write the entire chapter. I mean, I've only got 8,500 words left in five days so that's doable. If I don't rewrite what just happened, the story could very well die.

Cutting off an appendage to save the whole.

I just thank goodness that's not what happened due to my quest for this laptop. Tomorrow I'll wake up, realize it isn't all a dream and really enjoy it!

It Might Be More Comfortable Sleeping On A New Laptop

NOVI, MICHIGAN - I decided as I heard eggs cracking and turkeys being dropped and that sort of thing that next year I was sleeping in a hotel. Well, not even a hotel since who knows what kind of financial position I'll be in so maybe just some fleabag Detroit motel further down Grand River Avenue.

I got to sleep at about 1:30 a.m. yesterday after fighting how tired I was from the seven hour drive home (it's really supposed to only be four-and-a-half but snow got in the way for the second year in a row), watching "Lost," and generally wasting time. In the end, I stopped right after 40,000 was caught and summarily executed and it's where I still stand now.

40,082 / 50,000 (80.2%)

If there's one thing that I know it's that chances are I'll be trying NaNoWriMo again next year. And my mother's computer is just not conducive to anything (I think it dates back to the 1990s when I was living at home after college). But I hope to correct at least that situation tomorrow.

In all of my years, I've never fought with Black Friday crowds but I'm going to this year - I need a laptop! I'm getting a laptop!

Best Buy, and there's one only about two miles away from my parent's house in Malltown, U.S.A., has laptops for $379.99!

My parents kept pointing out a similar laptop in the Wal-Mart circular but I kept trying to tell them that if I step into a Wal-Mart my skin will fester and I will vomit blood. And that's just the hypertension, leaving out my allergic reaction to exploitation since those symptoms make it even more disgusting.

Anyhow, the Best Buy laptop is a Toshiba (it's an HP at Wal-Mart), 256 MB, 40 gig hard drive, DVD/CD RW. And, hopefully it will be mine because it's ordinarily $749.99.

So at least tonight I'll get to sleep out in my sister's car as opposed to on this stupid air mattress.

I figure I'll just stay up writing after Thanksgiving dinner is over and then go to Best Buy instead of going to sleep. There will be no more trying to hunch over this computer in a hunch sitting on a chair borrowed from the kitchen table.

Next year at Thanksgiving, it's laptop time. On the ride home to Chicago, it's laptop time (well for part of it at least).

Happy Fucking Thanksgiving everyone! May your home experience (if that's where you are) be better than mine always is!

2004 NaNoWriMo: 42,284 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 40,082 words

reliantfc3: 44,350 words
incendiarymind: 40,082 words

The Techniques I Learn From Blognoveling

Another day and another 2,000 words have passed without much more morale on my part. I like what I wrote for Matthew Starwood's speech before the John Harper Society and it's very short and to the point so here it is as an excerpt:

'This is where the courage of those of our cause is called into question,' Starwood began. 'For decades we have endured such as this from the British. Control through legal and extralegal means. It is not enough for them to control the system, they must try to intimidate us as well. However, I need tell no one in this room that in all probability this attack had nothing to do with the cause in this room. As such, I expect no support from this organization except of the moral kind.'

'However compatriots,' he continued, 'there is reason to believe on reliable sources that it may very well have been some connection to extremist right-wing groups. I know some of you are sympathizers with their cause. Despite our differences in politics on the outside, we are all here united in one common goal. I thank Ian for the leeway to broach this ordinarily taboo subject. I do not ask those in this room who support these groups that I find reprehensible to reconsider their views – each man must make his own decisions and each man is accountable only to himself or a higher power for these views. However, there is something more at stake here as we all know. If it is in our power to bring the perpetrators to justice without any further involvement of the apparatus of power we should seize this opportunity. I implore anyone with connections to these groups to use this connections to get as much information leading to the arrest of the assailants.'

'With that I thank you and I yield the floor.'"

With those words and some more on the media coverage of the Starwood Campaign Headquarters Bombing (a major device in my story is the spectrum of four Detroit newspapers belonging to four of the five major parties and how they cover various events), I did get back some of my urge to write - not all of it, but some of it.

37,882 / 50,000 (75.8%)

I hope people are enjoying the excepts and I apologize immensely for not posting the novel chapter by chapter as I go along. I feel I owe the people who actually want to read the novel an explanation. As I've stated before, I'm not one of those, "if I publish it as a blog, I can't publish it later."

Trust me, I'm at the point now where I know this novel is such a piece of crap that it's unpublishable anyway!

Right now, my writing inspiration is oscillating between just trying to get to 55,000 words or so (though this probably won't be enough to beat ) and completing the story so I can blog it chapter-by-chapter.

I plan on doing so in December, taking one chapter a day and proof reading it (not editing it, mind you just proof reading it) and then posting it. So be patient the three or four readers that I have from last year. :)

But be warned, I'm not sure if I would want to read my own novel this year (and last year this wasn't the case) so I don't know if any one of you will want to finish it.

---

One thing that I have found positive and productive this year is using the "Prison Break Methodology." It's a term that I coined but I'm sure there's some official literary term for it.

Basically it refers to the fact that I'm writing without knowledge of the ending because I don't know if I'll get to tell the whole story so I'm making sure to drop little breadcrumbs that can be used later to make gingerbread houses (how's that for a mixed metaphor, should be find gingerbread houses based on the fable, right?) or they could just be bread crumbs.

I chose "Prison Break" the Monday night show on Fox (which, I think I've mentioned before, I love) because it's the best example of dropping subtle hints as scenery which may or may not be used later if the show is picked up. Though I understand "Lost" does an incredible job using the same sort of tool.

I swear that sometimes I get the impression with "Prison Break" that they add things as they go along - but always using things revealed in the past as asides - once they know there will be more episodes in the future. Perhaps when one views the entire season, they'll be able to catch how discombobulating it is but right now, episode by episode it just seems like "new revelations based on passing things."

The confirmed rumor is that the actors on the show only receive the scripts a couple of weeks in advance so they can't reveal any secrets. The rumor I want to spread is that the writers actually pen the scripts about a week ahead of that choosing to use what they want from past episodes. But it's not dropped storylines, per se, it's just random things that turn out to be meaningful in the end.

For example, the only thing that seems to be truly foreshadowed for the breakout was what Michael Scofield was wearing when he reported to prison. Sure he's got a lot of information in his tattoos but how much of it will actually be used (considering it appears they break out next episode). Right now it's just cool body art but the writers can use any of it to mean something.

In a way, a lot of the asides on history in my story are just cool body art. I like writing this part of the story immensely but some of it will be used later and some of it won't - though most gets used immediately so the reader will understand the chapter without the heavy handed tactic of having one character recite the history to another that doesn't have the same knowledge.

I hate that literary tool! It annoys me when I read it so I don't use it. I love Dan Brown but I want to punch him in the face when he has an archaeologist, historian, or whoever, explain to a layman or laywoman what a piece of art or architecture, or whatever means.

No, I'm just going to tell the reader straight out in the narrator voice why things are they way they are. If characters are all sharing a common history, what's the point of having them explain it to each other besides adding dialog words? Dialog is for conflict and character development not description.

The snakes, for example, started out as an aside on the bars on Woodward Avenue and have become a major part of the story. Had they not, it was just a cool lead-in to the Cane and Candle comparing and contrasting it to some of the seedier bars on Woodward.

One example of planting possible clues that might not turn out to be is the former kitchen in the Matthew Starwood Campaign Headquarters (it's a converted pizzaria). There's a gas pipe in there that used to lead to the ovens. Now I could use it to plant a police wire or it could just be part of the description of the room - I think it all depends on how the story is going. Either way the reader knows its there and I'm not just pulling things out of the air mid-story.

In the next few chapters, the credit card bill from the Boars Head Restaurant (where Liam took Mia and Emmie due to its secrecy) is going to arrive at the manor of Liam Hedley I (Liam's aristocrat father) outside of Birmingham, United Kingdom. I had no idea how Liam's father (who is mentioned quite a bit) actually gets involved in the story going in but a small thing like using a credit card to pay for a meal turned into a device to do so. What they ate (which by the way I didn't describe) is unimportant but had I described that I could use that too - if necessary.

The key is to not make these too obvious. They need to be blended in, much like the body art on Michael Scofield.

And this was a tool I picked up from blogging the novel. So anyone who refuses to blog, you're really missing out on that!

When you're blogging a novel, you can't go back and add things later to make the story make sense - people have already read that entry and they're never going back. It really does keep the rabbit trail tangents to a minimum since you can only use what you have in the past.

Well at least I know I'm renewed until 50,000 so now I'll go and write some more asides that could just be interesting prose (or terrible prose if it ends up like yesterday) or could mean something if the story is renewed to its full - I don't even know. Last year I estimated 75,000 and it ended up 95,000. So this could be a long run even after I start blogging it in December.

reliantfc3: 40,183 words
incendiarymind: 37,882 words

2004 NaNoWriMo: 37,913 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 37,882 words

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.

36,113 / 50,000 (72.2%)

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 Drinking 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.

Writing A Body Count Into My Novel Due To Real World Hate

I wrote quite a bit going into the late night yesterday. Up until 1:15 a.m., I wrote 2,157 words. Most of it was finishing off Chapter 12 with some nice new revelations - like the Legislative Assistant's, Hannah Hillsbrough's husband is in the John Harper Society and she's about to hire a private investigator to follow him which is going to cause a body count.

33,999 / 50,000 (68.0%)

But the really good news is that I started Chapter 13 which is where the second act begins. And it begins with a bang - literally. After a brief discussion of a 4-day campaign junket to the Traditionalist belt of western Michigan (some things barely change for the story) someone throws a nail bomb into the Matthew Starwood campaign headquarters.

Hooray act two!

I haven't decided what the carnage inflicted is going to be. It was almost all nameless campaign workers in the office at the time - it was late at night and they were preparing a mailing. So I could, in theory, kill off a couple of them. To only send one or two to the hospital with minor injuries seems to be wussing out. To kill too many would mean succumbing to NaNoInsanity.

Either way, this is where the heart of the plot really starts. The next big line I'm going to incorporate is:

"If they think that because we're pacifists, that we don't recognize a declaration of war, they've got another thing coming."

There are going to be a few slit throats in the next few chapters as the humble world of Detroit's anti-British contingent slips into chaos with the snakes and the John Harper Society (and hence Liam and Callum) coming to blows.

2005 NaNoWriMo: 33,999 words
2004 NaNoWriMo: 32,953 words

incendiarymind: 33,999 words
reliantfc3: 26,120 words

It Looks Like Just A Novel, It Takes Just A Novel, But I Breaks Just Like A Little Story

I wish I could just sit down and pound out 5,000 words in one day like squirrelgirl22 did today but I'm just not able to this year. And my morale is up because I want to write really badly. But I swear I'm writing constipated because when I actually sit down to write I get really distracted. Yesterday night, for example, after I wrote a LiveJournal entry it was only about midnight so I thought I'd write a little more.

31,842 / 50,000 (63.7%)

And for about 45 minutes, I was really trying to come up with something. 444 words later I found myself on myspace.com yoinking a meme from nikhak and posting it in my blog over there.

It's a constant mental struggle right now to stay focused. The problem isn't that I have nothing to write, it's that I've been writing and putting off so many other things. For example, this morning, I could have skipped out on watching the Fulham/Middlesbrough match at The Globe but I went anyway - and the kicker is my friend Tom didn't even show up. I really only went because I wanted all the information on a road trip to London Fulham USA is planning to take at the end of January. I guess I should get on the boards and look up the details myself. But I feel as though I'm cheating on the nanowrimo.org boards doing that. :)

I actually watched a movie, something that I haven't done in quite some time. Tonight's selection was "Sling Blade." During the month of November I try not to watch good movies because as has been said elsewhere, they are soul suckers those good movies. Even if you keep in mind that the screenplays were re-written dozens of times before the finished product appeared on the screen the thoughts of "why couldn't I write that?" crosses your mind.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 32,953 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 31,842 words

incendiarymind: 31,842 words
reliantfc3: 26,120 words

Back From The Writing Wilderness With More NaNo Nakedness

Today's writing re-established two things in "Stars, Bars, and the Crown." The first is that supporting character Mia definitely wears the pants in her relationship with main character Liam (she leaves him consistently speechless with her quick wit and great body). The second rediscovery is that I write more words when Mia's not wearing any pants at all.

31,408 / 50,000 (62.8%)

So after spending the day around Chicago with my younger brother and his new girlfriend, I finally sat down to write after a quick nap. Yesterday's writing time was spent seeing Lanny's band at Hyde Park Records when my sister convinced me that I was being anti-social to stay home and write on a Saturday night when this event was happening. It didn't take much convincing to get me down to the south side since I had no idea what I was going to write next anyhow.

Now, nearly 2,000 words later tonight, I was glad that I took a break from the story since it was actually a lot less stressful to spend yesterday night watching a band. And tonight's scene was probably one that I wouldn't have written yesterday. I had vaguely planned to have Liam spend some time in bed talking to Mia but having her rush him out the door while talking to him in the shower (he was in the bathroom with her but not in the shower because I'm still trying to keep this novel PG-13) worked so much better. It definitely shows the frustration he's seeing in all aspects of the relationship as she's finding working for Matthew Starwood more important than talking to him (or, you know, other things).

Plus writing innuendo is just so much fun that the words pour out.

Two lines that I wrote today that were especially fun were the following:

(Liam calling the campaign office to say he's running late and getting the administrative assistant Charlotte Jefferson)

"Yes, this is Liam Hedley," Liam said, "myself and Mia Aritabul are running slightly late this morning."

"Big night yesterday you two? Get married already and then you’ll be on time every morning." Liam caught Charlotte’s innuendo but decided not to answer it. "Well, just get here as soon as you can, Matthew is running around like a child on too much sugar this morning with worry."

(Mia is getting out of the shower and Liam, well, reacts as one might expect physiologically)

"Liam honey," Mia said, "you know that I’m in a hurry. She glanced down at the bulge in his boxer shorts. Patting Liam on the belly with her left hand Mia said, "down boy," and swiped the towel off the rod quickly with her right hand. Wrapping it around herself, she said to Liam, "tonight it’s just you and me and your little friend alright?"

"Little?" Liam said almost in a whimper.

"Sorry," Mia giggled, "your gigantic friend. Has he thought of joining up with one of the snake gangs, they could use the muscle I’m sure."

That's not just word padding, I swear. It's important to the story. :)

Yes, NaNoinsanity is definitley setting in on this keyboard. I was commenting back and forth with oracleofdoom who commented on her journal that her NaNo was turning rather steamy. I responded that "I was tempted to write a lesbian sex scene tonight. But, seriously, I think this happens to everybody every year. It's either sex scenes, horrid comedy, or a scene where hundreds die. It all depends on the mood of the writer but that's known as NaNoInsanity. Seriously, it has a name and everything!"

Actually it was worse than that because I seriously had three male characters strip as part of the initiation for the John Harper Society while Ian checks them for wires (at least that's the idea but I made Ian eye them a little bit too curiously so there might be a storyline right there). And that was entirely unexpected.

And all this happened back on the 14th. It just gets worse from here on in until November 30 if I remember correctly from last year. I need to fall into the "hundreds die" mentality because really there's not much thriller in my novel right now - someone's gotta die soon! It's turning into literary fiction/romance again. Next year I am making the main female character in my novel, be it protagonist or supporting character immensely unlikeable. Maybe I'll even make a female antagonist who's super ugly and not funny or intelligent.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 32,953 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 31,408 words

incendiarymind: 31,408 words
reliantfc3: 26,120 words

Chris Baty warned in the last Official NaNoWriMo Podcast that the 20,000s are the quicksand that engulfs writers never to be seen again. And when he wrote it early last week I laughed because last year I zoomed through them without even thinking in the chaotic speed chase that was my rising action.

This year I did nearly get stuck. Had I finished with 29,444 words I wouldn't have been surprised since I don't know if I'm had writer's block as bad as I did ever (well except for 2003 when I stalled halfway through Chapter Two but I was nowhere near 20,000 at that point).

Tomorrow promises to be a horrible day for writing as I'm going to watch the Fulham/Middlesbrough match at The Globe Pub and then I have to do laundry. I'm not sure I'll get in any words. But I will not get stuck in the early 30,000s like I got caught in the late 20,000s. Even if Mia has to sit naked in a room for the rest of the story as Liam goes on about his life and occasionally flashes back to past Mia naked experiences.

Or, I'll just write a 20,000 word ode to Mia. Now that would be NaNoInsanity.

There's A Place In The World For The Angry Not-Young Writer

I was reading through the boards on nanowrimo.org today and there's a topic on "So What Is Your Favorite Band?" and imagine my shock and dismay when who should show up multiple times but Jimmy Eat World.

I was just feeling in a contrarian mood so I started my own list of the most overrated bands of all time. Sure I could think of hundreds of average bands that get no end of love but I narrowed the list down to the following:

Jimmy Eat World

The White Stripes

Modest Mouse

Spoon

John Spencer Blues Explosion

Dashboard Confessional (but I do love Further Seems Forever)

Sepultura

The Darkness

Scissor Sisters

Massive Attack

Brian Jonestown Massacre

ABBA

Badly Drawn Boy

Dave Matthews Band

And, of course, instead of writing anything tonight, I've spent the time defending my choices. :)

But I stick by every single one of them. One person challenged me to listen to "Clarity" and "you can still honestly tell me that you didn't enjoy it, and that it wasn't amazing and quality music, then I guess you're just a pretencious hipster snob who loves Xiu Xiu and obscure experimental noise stuff. Which, I guess, could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it."

I fucking love (speaking of which I wonder what my favorite little hipster dude is up to) the interweb! I get this crap all the time on this form of communication. Because obviously if I don't like mediocre pop punk, the natural thing for me to enjoy is obscure experimental bands that no one's ever heard of and to flaunt them. I miss the 1990s so bad.

But I did listen to it again and I actually enjoyed track three somewhat but by the time I got to track five, I was so bored I had to rip off my headphones. It just sounds like everything else in its genre and there are bands that do it so much better (and I don't care if Jimmy Eat World predates most of their soundalike bands now)!

And that's what I mean by overrated. It doesn't mean bad, people, it just means that people think they're better, more groundbreaking, more talented than they actually are!

I could actually post today's progress and have it be a decent length blog entry. See I made the mistake of posting my excerpt. To do so, I went back to Chapter Three of my novel and read through the description of the creation of the Enemies of the Commonwealth Act. And it was so rife with grammatical errors (one sentence just stops in the middle). Not that this discouraged me so much as took up all of my free time going through and correcting all of the mistakes I knew I could.

So, I won't present them to you, but I'm kind of proud of the first part of my 372 words today.

29,444 / 50,000 (58.9%)

Yes, 372 words today. I think that may be my lowest output of the month.

For those who have been following the various storylines and my word count outputs on them, it's probably pretty obvious which one I'm dabbling in right now - the John Harper Society. See, I'm on Chapter 11. It's the chapter that I like to call "the bankrupt chapter" in each novel attempt that I write. For some reason it's a huge sticking point for me. In this particular Chapter 11, I tried to at least make it liveable as Liam attends the meeting of the John Harper Society where he's finally officially inducted.

The big ceremony was going to be a mock scalping but I wussed out since I though, "how's he going to explain a giant gash in his forehead and how would the John Harper Society stay underground if the new members are walking around with this war wound."

That internal monologue was almost as long as my writing today. :)

So instead they get gashed across the right cheek by the butt end of a knife shaped like an eagle. Not very dramatic but a little more symbolic. The right cheek to symbolize conservatism and the eagle is pretty obvious.

Anyway, what the chapter ended up being (I actually started it yesterday) was an exercise in method writing. I tried to avoid this technique this year. But, I was growing sick of the John Harper Society and how nothing was happening in that storyline so I had Liam get sick of the John Harper Society and how nothing was happening in the meetings (he begins to wonder if they're just keepers of arcane knowledge). He goes to confront the leader and is stopped by his recruiter. The recruiter goes to see the leader and they decide to officially induct him then and there.

At least there are some redeeming qualities to the chapter. For one, Liam takes charge and so he's not a wishy-washy characters. And, two, at least now the next time I mention the Society, Liam will actually be involved in some of their more seedy activities.

Of course that may be in December since I have to come up with a conspiracy plot before the assassination plot so Liam can prove his worth to the society. It can't be anything too thuggish like the snakes would be involved in but it can't be too wussy like the tagging and agit-propaganda the Cane and Candle group was involved in. Maybe he'll be involved in a nice bank robbery or something.

And I am not doing method writing for that! :)

Finally, the word wars:

incendiarymind: 29,444 words
reliantfc3: 26,120 words

2004 NaNoWriMo: 32,953 words (in New York City at this time last year so this should be obliterated soon)
2005 NaNoWriMo: 29,444 words

All Cold And No Sleep Makes Michael A Cranky Boy

A miracle has occured. Either that or cats are falling from the sky to match the rarity of this even. I actually caught and passed 's word count during a two hour writing session yesterday evening from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. (right before I went to sleep).

incendiarymind: 26,758 words
reliantfc3: 26,120 words

The scene that put me over the top was Liam confronting Callum, his former right hand man and now antagonist at the car dealership he works at. It seems as though Callum has become a "snake" (as the racist skins in the alternate history call themsevles due to the bars they frequent flying "don't tread on me" flags in the windows) without Liam's moderating influence and the entire Cane and Candle group has followed suit.

So it gave me the chance to use a line I've been waiting to use for a couple of days: "There’s just one thing that I want to tell you," Liam said, "I expected better of you than to take political lessons from a bonehead. If there’s one thing that a skinhead can never teach you, it’s that there’s more to politics than issues of race."

It wasn't quite how I wanted it to come out in the original formulation but it's what fit with the scene.

26,758 / 50,000 (53.5%)

There's only one problem with letting the characters take over the scene and guide it the way they wanted. Callum was supposed to come into the fold of the John Harper Society later in the book because Liam lets him in (the invitation is extended due to his procurement skills). Liam practically took his Callum's head off for calling Mia a "coolie" and a "mongrel" (Mia is Indian as I've said before). So at some point really soon these two are going to have to make up.

The other problem the scene creates is that Liam screeds against the violent actions the Cane and Candle crew is about to underrtake with the local snakes. Now how does this fit in with Liam eventually being the trigger man (though a gun's not going to be used) in the assassination attempt?

The Harperites are going to have to do some real convincing to get Liam to turn to violent action against the powers that be. Though I think some things that happen in the election are going to really turn him off to peaceful solutions.

At least now I'm excited to be writing again since there are some big problems to solve and some storylines awaiting. I'm so excited that I may actually carry the story through into NaNoFiMo. Hades, maybe in the end I'll get past the 93,000+ words I did last December.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 30,827 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 26,758 words

Skip To The Stuff About New York, It's Good

The good part about waiting until the halfway point of NaNoWriMo to hold the first meeting of the West Side Drinking Writing Group is that only the serious participants are still around. The bad part was all the serious participants are busy, you know, writing.

I arrived at Quencher's at 6:20 p.m. with no idea if anyone would show up but assuming that no one would. And, I need to go with my gut since no one did. Either that or I really relate to the main character in my novel, Liam, because his group meets without him too (though he gave an informal goodbye to you Cane and Candle crew "off screen"). There were three people meeting in the back room discussing something but I saw no notebooks or laptops so it could have been pretty much anything.

Just in case anyone did decide to show up, I sat by the door. I saw no one come in and look confused so I felt pretty confident leaving at 7:30 p.m. and going to Walgreen's to buy Hawaiian Punch and Kool Aid Blasts for this 80s themed party we're having at work tomorrow (and smileydevil it will please you to no end to know that it was someone born in 1981 who came up with the idea - "borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s" and all that).

So now I'm back at home and ready to write again. It was actually a pretty productive evening as I got a nice $2 PBR in me and some $4 pizza so I'm pretty relaxed. And I topped the 25,000 target already today at work so anything else is just double your word count to get final gravy.

25,021 / 50,000 (50.0%)

That and I made an outline of what's happened in the novel so far. I recommend this to everyone though I'm not sure how to analyze it.

I came up with seven subplots that are active in the novel right now. I think that might be a few too many but they're in there now.

At least I should have at least enough to get to 50,000 if I just end the rising action now (which would be quite a bit premature) and wrap up all the loose ends. While my exercise ended up yielding unwieldy results, doing this really lets you know where you stand. If you can come up with concise plot summaries for everything that you've written so far, chances are you're doing things as close to "right" as NaNoWriMo gets. If you only come up with one, chances are you're writing a story and not a novel.

Sorry, but it's the truth. :)

Of course it's NaNoWriMo so if you're just writing a 50,000 word story then you're still writing 50,000 words.

I actually listened to the Official NaNoWriMo Podcast on the first day it was available today and I feel bad for those who are behind the pace because they're probably saying right now, "wait, I don't have a jetpack." But it was a great podcast in general if for no other reason than infanttyrone was a featured voice telling his incredible story of marathon writing from last year.

That, and it mentions NaSoAlMo (National Solo Album Month), the goal of which is to record a solo album in 30 days that's at least as long as The Ramones eponymous release (which the site calls the best short album that anyone has ever heard - paraphrasing a little).

If you're anything like me, you're surrounded my musicians as opposed to other speed novelists and this is something to keep them busy in November so they don't question why you would write a novel in 30 days.

A more useful link I came across today, however, is Overheard In New York, a link worth checking out even if you're not writing a NaNo because it's a fascinating collection of real conversations heard on the street of New York City.

If dialog is an enemy, this site will definitely help you vanquish the foe. If not, the snippets of people interacting is just friggin' hilarious! This is my personal favorite:

"July 25, 2003
Nice guys can relate

A hipster girl, walking down Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, talking on her cell phone:

"I didn't realize what a good boyfriend Matt was.... yeah... he's too nice, too together, too in touch with his emotions... his only problem is that he doesn't smoke pot.'"

There are plenty of juicy morsels there for those who hate Williamsburg, which is apparently everyone I came in contact with in New York City including those who live in Manhattan or New Jersey.

If nothing else, this proves no matter how crappy you think you character's verbal interactions are, chances are somebody, somewhere has said something twenty times more implausible. It's a real pick me up on a lot of levels.

Now here are some personal letdowns:

2004 NaNoWriMo: 30,827 words (went to see The Pixies on this night last year so I should close the gap a little)
2005 NaNoWriMo: 25,021 words

reliantfc3: 26,120 words
incendiarymind: 25,021 words

That Was A Awkward Distraction From Writing Political Fiction

First things first. Congratulations to rosemilk for being the first Chicago NaNoWriMoer over 50,000 words (and congratulation to my blog reader busy91 for being the first finisher in New York City)!

This is the second year in a row that someone who I know has been the first Chicago writer to finish with squirrelgirl22 being last years Chicago marathon winner. I didn't know squirrelgirl22 at the time but it's good to keep the title in "the family" (the group of us that was sitting at the same table at last year's TGIO party).

24,263 / 50,000 (48.5%)

In this year's NaNoWriMo, squirrelgirl22 and I are on almost the exact same pace. She has 24,219 words and I have 24,263. Perhaps it should be we who challenged each other since it seems pretty even and since we're both on Team Chicago 2005 it could only help the region. I think, but I'm not sure, that tomorrow is cut day for the Chicago/St. Louis Word War or maybe it's a week from tomorrow.

I maybe lied to squirrelgirl22 a little bit today but not intentionally when I told her tomorrow was the day she (or I, but definitely not rosemilk) won't be on the team anymore.

Looking at St. Louis, it's seriously looking like our ML is going to have to cut quite a few Chicagoans since the Loo had a few of their contestants not even leave the starting gates.

Chicago in general is writing up a storm. Currently the region of Illinois::Chicago is 7th overall with 1,595,335 words written (this in not Team Chicago but the overall count of everyone affiliated). Sure we're nowhere near Minnesota::Twin Cities and their 2,999,224 or second place Maryland with their 2,806,176 or even third place California::East Bay with 2,031,998 but we are pushing 6th place Germany and Austria who has 1,609,273 (I swear rosemilk made up the difference herself today).

We already took Manhattan (New York::New York City is 20th with just over a million words written), and next we take Berlin!

That seriously could be our theme song. Someone actually sung it at the kickoff party thinking the original was R.E.M.'s version when of course it was Leonard Cohen! :)

The crazy thing is Illinois::Naperville (their own region) is one ranking behind New York City in 21st with 908,651. Combine the suburb the size of the biggest cities in many states with those of us in the city and near ring suburbs and we shoot up all the way into the top five (then again, there are very few split regions that couldn't make similar claims i.e. Michigan::Detroit and Michigan::Ann Arbor).

---

Maybe next year it will be my turn to be the Chicago speed writer extraordinaire, but I highly doubt it since I swear I stretch this thing out to hit 50,000 right around Thanksgiving each year so as not to prematurely celebrate and fall asleep.

Speaking of innuendo, tonight's chapter was pretty interesting to write as it involved the first bit of sexual tension I've put into this year's novel. Last year, I tried to prove I wasn't writing some kind of novel for the kids by putting in a lap dance and an attempted rape (both went along with the story, I swear, I wasn't just writing them for their own sake).

This year's novel is devoid of sex but I swear the lesbian overtones this year in the chapter I just wrote is stronger than anything between Emily and Sandra in Paris last year. Come on, all the guys who read that had to be thinking, "any two women who are fighting that much are just about to make out" (even if it's totally untrue and just what guys want to happen, that's seriously how guys think sometimes).

Emmie, who is the carry-over to this new novel (she was Emily in my 2004 NaNoWriMo novel) just like Sandra was Cassandra from "Innocence Of Bliss" carried into "Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream?", is actually the one responsible for the tension (whereas she was kind of prudish last year). Well, alright, Liam is responsible since he dated Emily before he dated and is now engaged to Mia but that's besides the point.

To set up the premise of the scene I'm about to excerpt, the Cane and Candle, a anti-British bar on the Detroit University campus has just been harassed by the police yet again. Liam and his group used to meet there but were driven out and then disbanded (or at least Liam thought) the last time the bobbies (you know what word I almost accidentally write when I type that out) came snooping but they left Emmie (who goes by Emily in formal situations) behind to be eyes and ears. Callum, Liam's right hand man, has decided to reconvene there (without Liam) and Emily is there as they hightail it out. She called Liam the night before to let him know what was going down but right as he's running to the bar (he was MCing the Starwood campaign debate party) the police pull up. He and Mia decide to call Emily into a fancy restaurant (which is sworn to secrecy due to mafia, political backroom dealing, and other things that go on there) and...

"Liam and Mia had been finishing their salads when Emmie strolled through the door, looking as though she had been running late. This was usually the case for Emily but Liam's mind raced as to what Emmie had been doing during the time she was supposed to be at the Boars Head. Before she could even fully adjust her purse on the chair, Liam turned to Mia and said, 'I think you and Emily have some business to discuss in the ladies room.'

Mia looked aghast and said, 'you want me to search her or something?'

Liam was again humorless when he said, 'Mia, we can't be too sure under the circumstances, don’t you think?'

'This is ridiculous,' Mia said, still angry at Liam for the very suggestion that Emily could be involved, 'this is Emily we're talking about, we've known her for years and you’ve never had any reason to suspect her of anything before. Besides, where is she supposed to hide anything in that?'

Mia eyed the dress that Emily was wearing, a sequined number straight off the runways of London (though a few years old) in which her chest was only supported by two pieces of fabric in a v-pattern merging just north of her navel. 'It must be cold in that,' Mia said sarcastically as she continued, 'being late September and all.'

'It's alright Mia,' Emily said, 'let's go use the little girl's room.'

'You can take the girl out of the southwest side, but not the southwest side out of the girl,' Emily said trying to be more catty than joking. 'Liam' she said leaning over to him, 'why don't you just search her next time, it's not like there are any surprises for you underneath that dress, what there is of it.'

Liam watched as Mia and her dress with him neckline and backline walked away with her arm around Emily shoulder pretending to be old friends. In a way, Emily and Mia were old friends despite their very different backgrounds. The three associates had been in a sophomore level psychology undergraduate class together. At the time Liam and Emily were the item and Mia just a dark haired, dark-eyed girl who had been impressed with the raw power of Liam standing up to professors on points which he could not have been more of an expert than the lecturer. Mia had not meant to seduce Liam away from Emily but it had happened gradually. As could be expected, Liam and Emily hadn’t spoken for about six month and then gradually they became friends again. Mia always worried in the back of her mind that Emily was always trying to win Liam back, despite the fact of who now wore the ring. On the surface, the two women worked together well, but sometimes Liam would wonder when the tension would bubble to the surface and he would be stuck in the middle.

The two women walked back to the table a few minutes both wearing a new layer of lipstick, a brown skin tone on Mia and red that matched Emily’s hair. 'She's clean,' Mia said, 'and if she wasn’t at least I now know what you saw in our friend Emily here.'

Liam tried to maintain a straight-faced demeanor but he couldn’t help but crack a smile at Mia's innuendo. 'Down to serious business,' Liam said trying to keep his giggling companions in order, 'we're drawing attention where attention doesn’t need to be drawn.' He flashed a look at a set of businessmen at the next table sure they weren’t trying to listen in for any secrets that might be spilled but more to stare at Emily. 'Tell me exactly what happened yesterday night.'

...

The three made small talk for the rest of the afternoon until Emily announced that she had a class before her shift at the bar and she wasn't about to show up in this dress. Emily took this opportunity to get one more jab in saying, 'won't it help you pick up some of those bespeckled future therapists? They know Freud very well, so I’ve been told, as well as Kinsey.'

Emily leaned in and Liam was momentarily afraid she was going to punch Mia in the gut right in the middle of the Boars Head. Instead Mia planted a kiss on Emily right cheek and Emily reciprocated on the left side of Mia's face. Grabbing her purse, Emily left out the door to continued stares from the businessmen, this time at her behind.

...

'Do you think she's telling the truth?' he asked Mia who had been quiet through the entire meal to enable herself to fully observe.

'I don't think she was lying,' Mia said, 'she was too comfortable during lunch and not in a hurry at all to leave. But I do think that she might know a little more about Callum's plan than what she's letting on. There seemed to be some pauses where she could have given more information than what she did.'

'Well,' Liam said, 'that's slightly understandable because if she's still at the bar and Callum's now in charge, she's got to be as loyal to Callum as she was to us. So maybe we should clarify to her just who she's getting information for.'

'Great," Mia said laughing and rolling her eyes, "next time you’ll have me stick a fifty pound note in her thong, right?'

'She was wearing a thong?' Liam thought but didn’t say it out loud."

And breathe. Alright maybe I'm just being a guy who would never write in the erotic genre but I swear that's a threesome waiting to happen. It won't because I'm writing Historical Fiction (or something similar) so there will be no hot sex scene (written by some other Chicago writer who actually deals in erotica, involving Emily, Liam, and Mia).

But, damn it was hard to not have Liam say something inappropriate and entirely out of character (though he does make a crack about Mia falling for his charms in bed in the first chapter).

Since the scene went on a while after that, I forgot what innunendo-lined jokes I wanted Liam to crack. I'm sure they were similar to what Mia ended up saying in the end (because she's much more open about sexuality that the upper crusty Liam). It's a pity I didn't want to take the story up to a R from a PG-13 this year because it could have been a very fun 4,000 words or so to write (in addition to a few more words this chapter).

2004 NaNoWriMo: 30,827 words (and oddly enough I had just finished a "R" rated scene)
2005 NaNoWriMo: 24,263 words

reliantfc3: 25,028 words (I swear that can't be correct anymore)
incendiarymind: 24,263 words

A Really Lazy Sunday Evening Report On Sports And NaNoWriMo

November 13 is certainly an interesting day in my NaNoWriMo career. It was the day last year that I finally came to terms with the fact that I was writing a romance novel with the LiveJournal entry, "Someone Call For Some Cheesy Cover Art - I'm Writing A Romance Novel" (November 13, 2004).

2004 NaNoWriMo: 26,123 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 21,714 words

But looking back at last year, I'm glad personally that I'm not in the kind of pain that I was at this point in 2004. The last four months of 2004 still seem like they took place in slow motion as I look back. But I also feel more personally attached to that manuscript due to this. There are a few events and my commentary on them happening around me right now that I'm somewhat incorporating into this book but in general I'm doing what I set out to do and avoiding bringing anything personal (besides my thoughts on politics, of course) into this NaNo Novel.

21,714 / 50,000 (43.4%)

I'm not sure which is the better way to go about it. The novel isn't moving me much so I don't know how it's supposed to move the reader. Than again, is historical fiction really supposed to move the reader to tears like "Why Sleep When I Only Dream?" did?

I shouldn't really be comparing the two novels since they're entirely different genres. All I know is that last year's novel flowed off my fingers because I had to get the feelings out. This year feels tedious at times even though I'm interested in the story.

This morning was spent doing laundry and fleshing out the characters of Mia and Callum (they even have the last names of Aritabul and Cranbrook respectively). I think maybe once Liam and Mia start having issues besides being competitive and jealous, there might be some more pathos in the book. Their lives both get torn apart just like Scott and Emily's in last year's novel. Who knows, maybe by the end I'll be writing another romance novel. :)

Today's actual writing was the bare minimum I needed to stay on pace, about 1,000 words. 991 is the official count. Today reminded me why I don't write drunk. I got home from The Globe at about 6:00 p.m. but every time I would start to walk to my computer to write, I would end up wanting to watch cartoons instead.

Tomorrow's going to have to be a big writing day because Tuesday I'll be drunk again after the first meeting of the (Chicago) West Side Drinking Group at Quencher's. That may be the first thing I ask the other writers, "how do you actually accomplish NaNoing when you're not sober."

Maybe that's the universal question that I'll ask in next year's novel.

reliantfc3: 25,028 words
incendiarymind: 21,714 words

Double Your Word Count, Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

The great thing about NaNoWriMo is that doubling your word count more than doubles the pleasure and feeling of accomplishment of the endeavor. Today (well yesterday) I wrote 3,781 words in six hours. That pace absolutely sucks but the end result is I'm topping 20,000 words when all is said and done.

20,723 / 50,000 (41.4%)

The thing is that I didn't even really concentrate much on writing today. Nearly my entire early afternoon session was spent chatting with nikhak about her adventures with footcer players yesterday night. Tomorrow afternoon she may similarly distract me if we go to The Globe to watch the MLS Cup final. Footcer was, in general, a distraction today as I didn't start writing until 2:30 p.m. as I spent the morning watching the United States/Scotland match and then the Australia/Uruguay match in the background of nikhak and writing.

So much for thinking footcer wouldn't distract me because there were no MLS or EPL matches today.

Apparently I'm getting into the mindset of my main characters as nikhak actually thought I was a Republican. So today's evening writing session was spent writing about the Federalist Party in my alternate historical timeline and having the Socialist Matthew Starwood knocking them in a televised debate.

What I love about this year's NaNoWriMo novel is that I can do that and it actually fits in with the story. The novel that I edited last December and January (and what an adventure was for those who were around at the time) contained an anti-George Bush scene in the middle of a superhero road adventure (the kind of thing that only a 15-year old writing a NaNo can kick out) and it was out of place. But I can screed as much as I want since my novel is political.

Historical fiction is my genre and I can't believe I wrote outside of it last year. Though next year I may just write political satire. There have been plenty of opportunities to fall off into the funny tip this year but I vowed that I wasn't going to discombobulate the reader like I did last year sticking funny scenes in the middle of a novel about depression.

This year's novel is serious politics, no room for humor. Though that being said by the end of November I may be forced to write silly just to get through as so many NaNoers do.

Been listening to a lot of Black 47 to get back into the really political mood. Liam, my MC, has seemingly lost his way politically. The way I presented him in the first few chapter, he was much less of a conservative pragmatist and much more of a ranter. The political voice of the novel has really switched to Matthew Starwood (who is, of course much closer to my real politics). Liam is too busy trying to avoid the police, being jealous of Mia's increasing involvement with Starwood as an aide-de-camp, and working menial jobs for Matthew Starwood to have his own politics anymore.

I think it's about time he has another big monologue on politics, but this time trying to gain the floor and steer the direction at the John Harper Society.

I think even this will be involving Matthew Starwood and how the group should support him more financially. Liam was officially inducted into the inner circle in some of today's writing (I think I also need to have a creepy ceremony involving goat's blood or something to really set the mood of the secret society as it reaches levels closer to the inner circle) so he's now in more in a position to do so.

That and I think I need to bring his conspiracy theory nature to the surface. Though in the society created for the novel, there's no need to be conspiratorial. Maybe this link will come in some handy. "On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study" (yoinked chaptal and samca).

Don't know how that will help, really, but I just thought it was a great link as are these (and these are actually NaNoWriMo related):

www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18340&forum=203&poll_id=279 - a poll of possible plot elements for those having writing block

www.languageisavirus.com/ - text generator for coming up with poetry, songs, etc. for use in a novel

I yoinked both of those links from other people. Still not cruising the message boards as much as I'd like. I was too busy writing or chatting or something today. But it's all worth it as not only am I back on pace for 50,000 but I also passed squirrelgirl22's word count. Though I'm sure once weekend festivities pass, that will no longer be the case.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 21,157 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 20,723 words

reliantfc3: 25,028 words
incendiarymind: 20,723 words

Feeling Rather Like Writing Politics Today But Only Fictional Politics

Yesterday night I came home from work with two desires, to write and to sleep. The desire to sleep won out and I didn't wake up and start work on my novel until 8:15 p.m. Even that was in fits and starts as I spent more time chatting with people than I did actually writing. I did participate in one word war where I wrote a little under 400 words in 15 minutes (way above my usual pace) but in all, only 1949 words yesterday. Which I guess isn't bad for 2.5 hours of writing (actually pretty good) but I was hoping for a few more.

16,942 / 50,000 (33.9%)

On the train on the way home from work yesterday, I solved my political party problem. I came up with a left to right spectrum of five parties and coalitions. Then, yesterday night during my writing time I actually had to come up with how many seats each had before the election that's about to take place in my novel. One of the main characters (though he doesn't get his own POV) is Matthew Starwood who's a Socialist Party candidate for Parliament.

The scenario of the alternate history United States as it stands right now in the novel is:

The ruling coalition is made up of the Union Party (yes that is a play on the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland) a centrist (how they get elected) but pro-England pary and the Federalist Party who's the descendents of the original Federalist Party but very closely resemble the moderates in the modern Republican Party in this reality. The two parties together control 197 seats.

The far right Traditionalist Party (basically akin to the National Front) has 31 seats at the outset of the story. They have just left the coalition over a split on the war in Transjordan so the ruling coalition no longer has the above 200 seats they need to govern (hence the new elections taking place).

The opposition party of record is the Liberal Coalition. The central Liberal Party was formed out of the ashes of the Democratic-Republicans (who were disgraced after being forced to surrender to England in 1815 and disbanded). They are in coalition with smaller parties like the Greens and the Aboriginal Rights Party for 133 seats. The Liberal Party is 125 seats but smaller parties must have it in their platform that they will align with the Liberal Coalition if they get members elected. This party's central mission is to oppose the Enemies of the Commonwealth Act (very similar but more far reaching than the Patriot Act in real life) and to oppose the war in Transjordan.

The Socialist Party is outside of the Liberal Coalition due to the fact that they have 34 seats of their own election. They have announced prior to the election that they will vote with the Liberal Coalition should they win enough seats combined to make up a majority in the next Parliament. They are pretty much what their name implies.

There are, if I did the math correct, 197 in the ruling coalition, 167 in the opposition coalition, and 36 outside the coalitions (the Traditionalists plus five independents who don't want to align with an ideology.

With public opinion heavily divided about the Enemies of the Commonwealth Act and the war in Transjordan, a potential left coalition stands to gain more than the necessary 16 seats to become the ruling coalition. The Detroit Central consituency, where the book takes place is one of the swing seats where a Socialist, that being Matthew Starwood, is in a tight race with the Union Party candidate (who has no name yet). Starwood is a member of the John Harper Society (despite the others being die-hard capitalists by-and-large) and Liam goes to work for him through a combination of admiration for his standing in the Society and pressure from Mia.

Yeah, I'd say I was quite productive on the political climate of the novel yesterday evening. ;)

I also followed through with my pledge to define characters more. Matthew Starwood is basically Bernie Sanders but leading a double life where he plays the part of a John Harper Society member by being a lot less disheveled and colder in demeanor. Though the Society knows what he's really like and he never will achieve leadership status the Harperites are throwing as much support behind him as they can without arousing suspicion of why business leaders would be supporting a Socialist.

One surprise did arise as I was writing yesterday. It turns out that Mia is developing quite a crush on the professorly (he's actually a professor of anthropology) Matthew Starwood. This will probably create tension between Liam and Mia further down the road.

I'm about to develop Mia today as a seductress without really trying (she's cute, cute, cute, if I didn't mention it before). Yeah, you'd think I'd have given the protagonist's love interest more of a personality (beside being the other half of Liam's thinking and not a little bit bossy and "I told you so") before I hit the 20,000 mark but it's NaNoWriMo so I'm not splitting hairs.

I just have to be careful not to get away from the central John Harper Society plot as this election plot is taking far more of my interest. :)

And finally, here are the contests:

2004 NaNoWriMo: 19,532 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 16,942 words

reliantfc3: 25,028 words
incendiarymind: 16,942 words

Report From The Punk Rock AARP Meeting

When I got home from the Bad Religion/Pennywise/Sick Of It All/Murphy's Law concert yesterday night, I did the smart thing. Even though I was at a show with 20-year olds (and even a few kids who weren't born yet the first time I went to a Bad Religion show), I acted my age and went to sleep.

So the only writing that I got done yesterday was 581 words at lunch. Though this 1/3rd of a daily writing goal did put me about 15,000.

15,093 / 50,000 (30.2%)

Tonight, however, begins the first real weekend I've had to write so I'm not getting demoralized. Oddly enough, this actually feels like the very beginning of the whole NaNoWriMo process for me. Since I was using all of my writing time in New York City to either write or get drunk, I haven't even doing anything on the NaNoWriMo forums except for Illinos::Chicago which I have been a lot more involved in than last year (another one of my NaNolutions).

On the official NaNoWriMo podcast for the week (which I finally got around to listening to today) it was mentioned (by Chris Baty himself I think) that while there are a lot of community aspects to the month, in the end it all comes down to you and your novel.

Well me and my novel are quite well acquainted but I really miss the aspect of hanging out on the forums (and especially in the chat room) that I had last year.

The entire reason that I participate in NaNoWriMo at this point (after all I proved before I ever participated in my first NaNo in 2003 that I could write prolifically and quickly) is that this is the one time of year that amateur, amateurish, and even published authors from all over the country can converse with each other about writing issues. It's like an online convention with a lot of homework. :)

I feel a little like I've missed out on half the fun in the first ten days of November not reading the forums religiously like I did last year.

And no, I'm not trying to distract others (especially St. Louis types) from their word count goals by guiding them away from their own writing, I swear. ;)

---

reliantfc3: 25,028 words (she matched my 4,000 words yesterday to retake her 10,000 word "head start")
incendiarymind: 15,093 words

2004 NaNoWriMo: 17,492 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 15,093 words

---

So I'm almost at the 1/3 point in my novel writing for November (though nowhere near 1/3 of the story) or at least I will be by the end of tonight, hopefully. And I feel like something is missing though I can't quite put my finger on it.

My guess is that I don't really know my characters yet. Another thing mentioned in the official podcast (by the way, the first voice you hear on the "second week wall" interviews is the Illinois::Chicago ML snowowl) was that this is the week where you really discover your characters. Well the week is halfway done and I can only describe a couple of important characters like Liam's right hand man Callum and his fiancee Mia in vague terms.

I did some character plotting before November started but three of the four characters I carefully mapped out haven't even appeared yet. I know I'll get into the actual assassination plot before November ends but three of the six co-conspirators have yet to even be introduced and the only one who is playing a significant role so far that I gave a personality in October is Colm ("Recruit").

So my two goals this weekend can be summed up in three words (though I hope to write 6,000 or so):

Characterization

Proper nouns (as I mentioned yesterday I need to come up with political parties, newspapers, and the like for my alternate history)

This is something I would have done in New York City had I not had the laptop. While I'm glad I got a lot of words in, I think the third and fourth weeks would be easier if my characters actually had some substance at this point.

Yesterday I Was Stuck In Queens With Nothing To Do But Write

A funny thing happened with my NaNoWriMo word count yesterday - I actually passed my 2004 word count for what may be the last time this year. I'm not sure why I didn't write anything on November 9, 2004 (and there's no clue in the entry from last year on LiveJournal) but the lead story today is...

2005 NaNoWriMo: 14,512 words
2004 NaNoWriMo: 14,505 words

Also, this makes me kind of giddy. This is the closest I've been to reliantfc3's word count since the first couple of days of NaNoWriMo.

reliantfc3: 21,333 words
incendiarymind: 14,512 words

Another couple of days like yesterday and this might even be a contest. In four separate writing sessions, I tacked 4,135 words (putting me only 488 words behind the projected necessary word count) onto "Stars, Bars, and the Crown" though I'm still not sure how far I advanced the plot in that five-and-a-half hours of writing.

The interesting thing about yesterday's writing experience wasn't how long or what I wrote but that I wrote in two different states, New York and New Jersey.

Now the reasons why I wrote in two states was that there was a huge storm cell over New York City (one the seemed to signal the coming of the apocalypse). Although talking about huge storm cells over New York's airports seem redundant since they're the rule rather than the exception. So my flight back to beautiful, but much colder than New York City, Chicago was delayed for over three hours from 8:09 p.m. to approximately 11:25 p.m. Though after the plane boarded at 10:45 p.m., I stopped paying attention to how long we sat at the gate before we were cleared for takeoff.

I should have really been writing down some dialog that I heard at LaGuardia but the one classic line that I remember was from the Air Tran gate next door (ATA didn't even bother updating our status), "we have first class upgrades on this flight to Atlanta for only $35 more. It includes free drinks, extra large peanuts, and unlimited affection from the flight attendants." Someone screamed out, "what kind of affection."

Yeah that almost made my time stuck in Queens liveable. :)

14,512 / 50,000 (29.0%)

Thankfully, the delay at the gate allowed me to plug in an recharge my laptop to write for an additional hour-and-a-half on the airplane. Had we not landed after midnight in Chicago, I might have tried to write there too.

Yesterday's word progress was slowed down by two things, however. The first was that I was working and at certain points in the day when administering a national seminar for the association I work for (as I was doing in Newark) that you have to do certain things. So I was constantly checking the clock and found myself inside the classroom a lot of the time.

The second was that I reached a point in the novel where there are a lot of names that need to be given. One of the hardest things was coming up with names for the local newspapers in my alternate Detroit. Coming up with the Detroit Worker for the Socialist Party paper was easy but coming up with the four other party papers names (in this alternate United States papers are affiliated with particular political parties).

The sad thing is I'm having trouble coming up with who the political parties are. You'd expect that to be the easy part for me. :)

This year it's not adjectives that are my bane, it's proper nouns.

Greetings From The Land Of 10,000 Crying Boys

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - I didn't write a single word today since I spent the day navigating how to get into New Jersey and then working while I was here. However yesterday night between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. while my friend smileydevil was on the phone with her ex-boyfriend in Chicago, I managed to get in 1,355 words breaking the 10,000 plateau (the first big hurdle).

10,377 / 50,000 (20.8%)

Smileydevil is also a writer so she was very understanding of the fact that I would be anti-social with the laptop. We actually discussed NaNoWriMo as we stayed up past 2:00 a.m. again. The only reason she hasn't done it herself is that someone who she knows who did something evil is really involved in it. It has to be a Chicago type but I didn't bother asking who to try to look them up.

We discussed writing in general and movies that were well written. I told her about how I couldn't guess the ending of "The Sixth Sense" or "Fight Club" and how I was worried about not being able to hide the identity of the government informant (though being tired I said, "government informer" which put the Snow song in her head and when she mentioned that it did put that terrible song in mine). She told me that he only advice to me was to not try too hard or else it would end up being obvious.

The trick that I'm using is that I myself still don't know which of the group of five friends of Liam's is the informer. They all have their reasons to be coerced by the police into being a snitch and I'll just choose which of the reasons sounds the most moderate. I know it's not going to be the one with the most reason to turn.

In reality, I'm thinking who the informant is isn't as important as how Liam confronts them. That's the conflict in the story. Still I'd like to make it a little suspenseful to the reader as it goes along.

On the way to the train this morning, smileydevil and I were discussing dialog (and how I couldn't be an asshole guy even if I tried). I tried to convince her that I could be really evil mentally and used the example that I would have a character in the novel, when confronted with a situation the two of us were actually confronted with, someone trying to force their baby on us in passing with a smile, say, "that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen, I'm scarred for life."

She told me that I wouldn't actually say that and I realized that no one would actually say that. Then and there in Brooklyn I decided that I would use no over the top dialog because she and I both agreed that the only way to get dialog wrong is if it's not realistic.

I think I owe her a big acknowledgement when (if) all is said and done.

And now, the contests:

2004 NaNoWriMo: 12,859 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 10,377 words

reliantfc3: 21,333 words
incendiarymind: 10,377 words

Team Chicago 2005: 578,756 words (47 of the fastest writers I know)
Team St. Louis 2005: 477,693 words

By the way, if anyone reading this is in California::Los Angeles, pat yourself on the back. Your region is #1 on NaNoWriMo overall with 776,653 words as of this morning. I'm glad Chicago didn't challenge them since they seem to be writing maniacs!

Having Fun In New York City Without Breaking Out The Laptop

NEW YORK CITY (MANHATTAN), NEW YORK - I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring or even tonight. But New York City has been positively a blast so far. So much that I've only written about 1,000 words since the last entry. I did get in 888 this morning while hanging out at my friend Sharon's.

9,022 / 50,000 (18.0%)

I'm still not in the meat of the plot yet but at the point I'm at now, Liam has almost met the John Harper Society. My goal for Wednesday is to at least write the story through that point. But maybe that will even happen tomorrow since I think I'm not going to have something happen behind his back happen until after he goes to a John Harper Society meeting on the same night.

Not much else to say since I'm at an internet cafe but here are the counts that I always try to post.

2004 NaNoWriMo: 10,508 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 9,022 words

reliantfc3: 19,061 words
incendiarymind: 9,022 words

The smallest writing session of my entire NaNoWriMo career actually happened yesterday when between 3:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., I wrote 68 words. That's how much fun I'm having in New York City and I wouldn't trade that in for thousands more words.

Since I'm really only about a day behind.

No Writing In Central Park Stories Yet

NEW YORK CITY (BROOKLYN), NEW YORK - Not much to report on the novel front. I didn't get any chance to type away once I got to New York City which means that I didn't participate in NaDruWriNi. I was plenty drunk from seeing Black 47, of course, but the opportunity to get in front of my laptop and plug away never really presented itself.

I had the laptop out a couple of times while talking to my friend who I'm staying with but I'm at a point now in the story that I needed to come up with some new situations completely. I could have typed away on old situations but my brain was too cloudy to come up with names, locations, and the like. Which as every NaNoWriMo writer knows is the biggest pain in the ass of being under the time crunch.

7,588 / 50,000 (15.2%)

However, there was fiendishly paced writing on the plane yesterday. I put on my iPod (thankfully blocking out the middle aged stupid couple who were babbling away about something or other) and kicked out 792 words in the hour we were at cruising altitude. Adding this to the 1,158 words I wrote from 12:15 a.m. to 1:45 a.m. and yesterday's word count was 1,950. Not exactly ahead of pace but for a day where I could have gotten 0 (and probably should have), I'll take it.

Today is where I fall behind last year's word count as the sixth of November 2004 saw me kick out three chapters and 2,970 words (which was actually a few less than last year's fifth).

So this may be the last time this word comparison makes me happy (going back to this exact minute last year and not the end of the sixth):

NaNoWriMo 2004: 4,471 words
NaNoWriMo 2005: 7,588 words

And in the other contest:

reliantfc3: 19,061 words
incendiarymind: 7,588 words

And I'm not catching up today.

One more thing about Black 47. Their set was absolutely perfect for the tone I'm trying to set for the revolutionary characters in the novel. That band has always had a perfect way to be overtly political without being so out-in-the-open about those politics that anyone takes them as a threat of any sort.

They do it by singing about the heroes and using their stories (Michael Collins, James Connoly, etc.) and by attacking things like the British press coverage of their band instead of the British presence in Northern Ireland.

If I hadn't made it one of my NaNolutions to avoid using any music in the story (no characters going to concerts, no "listen to this awesome mp3", no singing along with street buskers - which one character did in last year's story), I would create a similar band to Black 47 (but talking about general American history as opposed to Irish and Irish-American history) and have them be the house band at the John Harper Society meeting space.

But I won't because I'm trying to avoid the same elements I've put in every novel I've ever stated!

That and I'm just trying to note write another 6,000 word musicology essay in the middle of the novel. It breaks up the story, you know? :)

Trying To Get My Various Plans In Order

November fourth is a special day in my NaNoWriMo career. It was the day that last year after getting home from Los Angeles and then feeling depressed about the election results (giving 36 hours to mourn for my country), I actually started "Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream?"

The LiveJournal story of my triumphant re-entry into the NaNoWriMo world (my first entry in 2003 went absolutely nowhere) is in the entry "Now That I've Actually Finally Started NANOWRIMO, I Don't Want To Stop" (November 5, 2004).

So as of today I can actually compare last year's word count to this one. Sheesh, I'm so competitive this year, I'm even competitive with myself. :)

NaNoWriMo 2004: 1,041 words
NaNoWriMo 2005: 5,641 words

Oh nice. Another numeric oddity! Exactly 4,600 more words at this point than last year! 46 is double 23. And 23 is the mystical number of the Illuminati. Alright, I'm going to stop that before they slap a tin foil hat on my head.

Anyhow, I feel a little as though my word count is deceiving me (if Microsoft Word is malfunctioning today it would make some sense considering the day I've been having). Although I've written almost 6,000 words, I feel like nothing has happened. Today was National Back Up Your Novel Day (NaBaUpYoNoDa) and I seriously felt like backing up my novel - back to the beginning.

5,641 / 50,000 (11.3%)

There's been a lot established in the first 6k to be certain and I think the plot is moving along better than last years in a lot of ways (the first 5k or so of that felt like travel anecdotes) but it feels like there's a lot of fluff in this one that doesn't need to be there. It's not as taught as last year's. The problem is, I have no idea where the plot is going. Last year, I knew it had to eventually have MCs Scott and Emily end up in Berlin so I moved them a little closer to when and where they were ready to meet up (basically when they had been through things that switched their personalities).

This year, everything feels so stationary. No one is leaving Detroit (well at one point Liam will visit his father in Birmingham, United Kingdom and the assassination plot culminates in Victoria, Maryland) any time soon in the story. So all of the characterization is having to take place in basically the same locations. I have no settings to play off of.

To use today's writing as an example, of the 1,050 words that I wrote, 765 are a soliloquy by Liam on why throwing a brick through a window is an act of vandalism and spraypainting slogans on the same window isn't.

765 words was an entire train ride last year! Everything moved along so quick, there was no time to get boring! It's going to take a serious political science and history junkie to enjoy my final output. I feel like I've reverted to my ill-fated 127,000 word non-NaNo character development study and metaphyical claptrap bin (I seriously spent 3,000 words explaining horoscopes and why they may or may not be accurate) from 2002, "The Innocence Of Bliss." The only difference is that this time it's NaNoWriMo.

This time the goal is actually to advance the plot. I could probably have written the whole 50,000 words on the first two chapters by just writing out the entire speeches the main character gives. :) I'm back to competing with Ayn Rand (though that's not really fair because I'm still alive) for novels that are more political tretises than actual stories!

I'm not trying to pad my word count, honestly. There's a great essay on Word Count Show-Offs on the blog NaNoWriMo Works. Related to this entry, I heard a great quote, maybe on the forums, I've lost track:

"If you concentrate on the word count you forget the page, if you concentrate on the page, you forget the story."

And I admit, I'm guilty of concentrating on the word count as of late. I think once I get ahead of 50,000 pace instead of behind, it won't mean as much. I hope that's the case.

That being said, to close, I just wanted to mention that Chicago has its 50 entry combatants for the St. Louis Word War! St. Louis is still in the high 30s so some people are not going to make the head-to-head portion (where the number of people are exactly even and selected by the teams on merit). If all else fails, I just want to be one of the writers still left mid-month to compete in that.

And, of course, my daily update on the battle with . It's still not looking good. Maybe she'll run out of story while I'm solliquing away. :)

reliantfc3: 16,526 words
incendiarymind: 5,641 words

Lying About History Turns Into Magic Words

Today's NaNoWriMoing was dedicated to one thing - justifying my existence in the whole experience in more than one way. With my limited word count, I was hardly setting a good example for anyone else reading this. I wasn't even justifying my talking up the Chicago/St. Louis 2005 Word War in my signature on the site.

But there was good news on so many fronts today that I'm actually somewhat proud to be posting tonight. The best news of the day is that the Chicago/St. Louis 2005 Word War is now officially on as both MLs (or all three technically) posted the challenge on the respective Regional Lounge threads.

Chicagoans who want to sign up for the Chicago side of the war (which we will call "the good guys," as much as it pains me to borrow terminology from the White Sox broadcasters, otherwise known as the worst baseball radio broadcasters on Earth) the topic is available at http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14909&forum=22.

I'm not typing in the St. Louis link because aiding and abetting the enemy is something that strikes close to home with my novel topic. :)

So far we've got 17 out of 50 participants for the Chicago team signed up. And I'm proud to say that our roster that's equivalent to the New York Yankees (though we're not nearly well paid enough for our endeavors) includes both rosemilk and squirrelgirl22 who are the murderer's row of my friends list both approaching 8,000 words already. :)

Now, not to be negative but so far St. Louis' word count of the people they have signed up looks a little anemic. reliantfc3's region has done a great job of drawing in their top people, but we've drawn nicely from the middle. And we slow-and-steady win the race types are the ones that are going to finish, right? :)

For my part, after signing up I've actually written 1,755 words. This was my goal today, sort of. I knew I needed to get on the first page of Chicago writers and at the time I finished writing at 7:30 p.m. this evening, I had accomplished that feat. I'm since dropped back down to 55th but that's just going to urge me on more.

I am now justified in being on the team since I would be in a natural, non-self selecting top 50.

So, now I feel justified in screaming the slogan that I invented for NaNoWriMo 2005's Chicago team:

Chicago/St. Louis Word War 2005 - COME ON CHICAGO! Register, Write Early, and Write Often!

4,392 / 50,000 (8.8%)

Perhaps when I finish this entry I'm going to go for an even 5,000 (putting me back on the magical 1,667 words per day).

Though it's not going to help in the personal word war with reliantfc3. The standing of which are currently:

reliantfc3: 13,146
incendiarymind: 4,392

Still a cakewalk for St. Louis but at least I've gotten out of the starting blocks. We'll call it a stumbling start. But I am an excellent closer. We'll see what happens when I write 15,000 words over Thanksgiving weekend again while I shut myself off from my family. Let's see her do that. :p

---

Today's total word count was actually 2,104 since I squeezed in 349 words at lunch at work also. This is a lot different of a strategy than I adopted last year where I would only write in big chapter blocks. This was mostly due to the fact that I was blogging every chapter as I wrote it. My average chapter length was about 1,500 words and everything seemed rushed.

Another of my NaNolutions this year (one day I'll have to write them all down) was to make my chapters as full as possible. And, chapter one accomplished this at 3,330 words - nearly 700 words longer than last year's longest chapter.

But in this fleshing out the situation that each chapter involved (instead of having it feel like a vignette) is that it felt like I was taking forever to finish chapter one. Now I've set the bar pretty high for the upcoming chapters. I keep thinking ahead to the ideas I have for later chapters and wonder if there's really enough depth to them to keep it going.

Though while I was walking home from the train today, I realized that I hadn't been doing the one thing I set out to do - write an alternate history fiction novel!

Sure I had some snappy dialog in the present but I realized I needed to take myself out of third person limited, get into a narrator role and actually present some interesting alternate history and justify the fact that I categorize my novel as historical fiction. Thus my second justification of the day.

And at the start of chapter two (the first 305 words), I present the first of this change in perspective - the creation of Detroit as it looks in the novel.

"Detroit was divided in two by one of the few streets in the city that had not changed names after the War of 1812, Woodward Avenue. Being a primary battleground in the war, the British though it for their own good to change the names of any thoroughfare in town which might remind the Americans of the War of 1776 or the historical figures that had inhabited the area between the "grand wars."

The British, however did decide to keep the plan set aside after the Fire of 1805 to build the wheel-and-spoke city design intact, even though the outlying buildings of the city around Fort Detroit were razed in a fierce battle in 1814 that finally ended the Michigan Territory’s run in the United States after the British had captured the territory with their attack on Mackinaw Island on July 17, 1812 and the Americans had briefly taken it back the next battle season.

See-sawing back-and-forth throughout the entire war, the British finally decided to establish a garrison there only rivaled by that in Montreal. Throughout the 1800s, the city was built up around twin settlements on both sides of the narrow Detroit River. Both defended by the fort on the west bank of the river and both depending on it for their livelihood.

In 1885, when Canada requested the United Kingdom give them a port of the Detroit River, in order to avoid an inner-commonwealth dispute the British divvied the east bank of Detroit from the west and East Detroit became part of the Canadian portion of the North American commonwealth, as it had been before hostilities began earlier in the century. The mayor of “West Detroit” was given permission by the crown to drop the geographical notation and the name Detroit was retained on the United States side of the new border."

This, however, is where I hit a slight stumbling block. I need to come up with a map of what Detroit looks like in the alternate history. All of the French named street can stay the same and I'm keeping Woodward Avenue, Grand River Avenue, and Gratiot Avenue (and many smaller streets). But Jefferson Street has got to go - the British would never allow the name of the third American President to be a major street in Detroit.

What I really need is a real map of what downtown Detroit looked like in 1815. I found a few maps and some interesting links on Detroit history including:

http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/exhibits/1812/detroit.htm - a timeline of military engagements around Detroit
teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/fi/0000006c.htm - the articles of surrender for Detroit from 1812
www.historydetroit.com/maps.asp - downtown Detroit maps through the years

But even the third link doesn't have a full size map with all of the street names. I could say that when I go home for Thanksgiving I'll pick up one at the Detroit Historical Society (on Woodward Avenue no less) but by then it will be too late.

If anyone from Detroit can find me the full sized wall map of the third link above I will pay you cost, shipping, and labor - of your choosing - it's worth the cost of keeping me sane!

---

Finally it looks like things are looking up on the writing front in general! I was able to justify getting a laptop by checking my e-mail on a regular basis (wi-fi cafes then become part of the job) while I'm on the road.

So I will now be able to do neat like write a chapter in Central Park (although it is a little cold for that considering how long my chapters are this year) or write parts of a NaNoWriMo in four different states (Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York).

But frankly I'm just happy to be able to write at all without having to pay for an internet cafe and annoying my friends by coming to New York City and being anti-social.

November three is a magic number for certain! Or at least it's good for my NaNoWriMo morale!

Secrets Hidden In The Pages

Nothing new on the word count front, but there is something that I forgot to mention yesterday evening.

Yesterday in getting to the current word count, I went through some pretty important words in the life of my story. Word 1776 ended up being "the" (how exciting is that!) but the more important words in my novel actually have a cryptic meaning - almost entirely by accident.

Words 1812-1815 (the years of the War of 1812 when my alternate history takes it shape) are "Liam did not turn."

The fact that I'm writing a novel about trying to find a government mole in an underground organization makes those words just too fitting! It's too perfect in an Illuminati or Bible Code sort of way! Hopefully that doesn't give away too much but I pretty much say from page one that Liam isn't the spy.

I seriously did not plan it beyond knowing that the all important words 1812-1815 were coming up shortly. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm big into numeric significance so I find this amazing!

In other news, "I am the walrus." :)

Seriously, if the novel ever gets published (and that's a big if of course) and you hear rumors about "hidden messages" in "Stars, Bars, and the Crown," they're all true. But I'm not intentionally putting them in there!

One other thing of fancy metaphysical numbers mumbo-jumbo. According to the Excel spreadsheet at the current pace I'm going, I have 99 hours left to write. 99 hours but at work now ain't one.

The Last Public LJ Entry Devoted Completely To NaNoWriMo I Promise

I think that I'm taking my added time this year for NaNoWriMo a little bit too lightly. Last year I didn't start until the fourth so part of me seems to say, "you completed 65,653 words last year only writing 21 days in November so why can't you do it again this year?"

That part of me really needs to shut up because I'd like to maintain a little more of my sanity this year.

Today was a mixed bag of results for "Stars, Bars, and the Crown" as I completed 1,647 words -only 19 less than the pace that, in theory, all NaNoWriMo writers have to hit per day to complete 50,000 - but combined with yesterday that still leaves me almost 1100 behind where I should be (especially if I only plan to write 25 days or so).

2,288 / 50,000 (4.6%)

Still I'll take it because I made really good progress in other areas. For one thing, Liam now has a last name. I decided to rip it straight off from a city in England to really give him the air of a child of aristocracy. Liam Hedley II is now the official name of my MC.

I also established that his father is Sir Liam Hedley I. I was going to make him just a powerful businessman but I think to knight him makes the tension that will exist between father and son and the suspicion that having a father in such hallowed places will create between Liam and the John Harper Society will be worth the extra ceremony and pomp.

Thirdly, I created the female supporting character (who, based on my past novels will end up stealing the show) who is the love of Liam's life (not to mention fiancee), Mia. Mia has no last name yet but she's crucial to Liam in the fact that she's great at reading crowds and knowing what it's safe for Liam to say. And she's got the best two lines in the novel so far,

"We’re supposed to be in this together right? They don’t let you have visitations when both of you are incarcerated in political prison."

and

"Maybe because I love walking the fine line between the front page of ‘the papers’ and the front page of a dossier with ‘Enemies of the Commonweath’ in bold print on the cover."

Yes, I have again fallen in total love with my own main female character creation. Damn me being allowed to have them say exactly what they're supposed to say at exactly the right time.

If only we all had that power in real life. :)

Finally, the university the novel takes place at (at least as far as the beginning action before it shifts to Victoria) has a name - and the novel has a location in general. It's Detroit University (not to be confused with the Catholic, real life University of Detroit). Liam's role there, besides being a graduate student in history, is the Chairperson of Detroit University Students United Against War In Transjordan.

I kind of figured the novel would end up taking place in Detroit (even though I put off officially setting it there). Mainly because it's a good way to keep me from having it take place in Chicago - one of my fallback traps in each NaNoWriMo I've started (even last year's that took place in Europe had the main characters as two people who met at UIC).

Detroit is perfect because it was a flashpoint in the War of 1812. It would also be somewhat isolated from where the British would really be looking out for a potential revolutionary action to occur - it would more likely take place in New York City or Boston. But it would also not be so backwater that nothing would happen there. It would probably be the dominant city in the western end of the alternate history United States.

Chicago runs the risk in my timeline of being part of Indian Territory since Blackhawk pretty much came in and kicked the behind of the American troops in the Illinois Territory and the British, had they forced a surrender would probably want to reward him. Of course the British screwed the Indians in the real War of 1812 almost as much as the Americans, but this is alternate history. ;)

---

The challenge between Chicago and St. Louis has picked up steam on its second day. Though, sadly, the steam seems to be more on the St. Louis side (but hey, the sorry Blackhawks beat the sorrier Blues 6-5 today so at least we have something to be proud of). I thought that perhaps the Word War would draw more people in. And it did but on the St. Louis side - in the form of the_cyr.

Well, what's good for St. Louis is good for NaNoWriMo as a whole I guess.

Though I made the mistake of challenging reliantfc3 to a one-on-one word war. She has 10,000 words and I have 2,000 (and she's probably writing right now while I play with LJ). Hello United Kingdom, meet your Argentina. Sure we're both going to be world (word?) powers in the end but I surrender the Faulkland Islands to you now.

Up to the second standings:

reliantfc3 (shouldn't you be spending all your time doing St. Louis ML things?): 10,175
incendiarymind: 2,288

Tomorrow I'll actually avoid the chat rooms, message boards, and alerting my roommate that there was a centipede on the wall of my bedroom and having him drag the cat in to eat it (which seriously took 20 minutes of shenanigans) - it was just that kind of distraction day - and set my word count goal at 6,000.

Now that I've done some of the hard work of fleshing out characters a little more, that should be like butter. Of course, by that time reliantfc will probably be at 21,000 or something.

And Kanye Writes Much Better Than Nelly Too

So, it's official. Illinois::Chicago is now officially engaged in a word war with Missouri::St. Louis! Reliantfc3 has accepted my and rosemilk's challenge on the boards and the old rivals will now be furiously battling for central midwest supremacy!



Rosemilk and I plot the evil level to send to our I-55 rivals


Now if that's not enough to drag a couple more people from my friends list into the NaNo world, I don't know what is. :)

Thank you to infanttyrone for reminding me that I needed to talk to our ML about it and to rosemilk for having both my back (to talk it up for the amazing idea that it is) and a laptop computer so we could initiate the challenge right at the party.



The computer message that threw down the gauntlet - thuwhack


For a time the challenge didn't look good. We had just gotten the Municipal Liaison to agree to challenging New York City when we logged on and found that they had been challenged by Boston earlier in the day and had accepted. Sheesh, geographical and baseball rivals, whatever, we're talking second city pride. Well, they don't know what they're missing.

So JJ, Chicago's ML put out the call of who else Chicago could challenge. And instantly I realized that some of the other potential rivals the windy city could have paled in comparison to St. Louis. Somehow, however, there was an opposing faction who was really fighting for Atlanta. And a third that wanted Minneapolis, both of which made no sense but I think the people wanting them had migrated to Chicago from the city.



The proclamation is read out loud to the party and applause ensued


Atlanta was gaining momentum and we almost had it come to a vote before JJ made an executive decision and chose St. Louis. At that point, the smack talk began. The final message that rosemilk posted on the Missouri::St. Louis board read the following:

"YO bitches!

I'm writing from the Chicago kick-off party, and as a city we've decided to take you small town hicks to town. Or the real city if you should prefer. This, my St. Louis friends, is an official challenge from the municipality of Illinois :: Chicago to a word count war of ultimate destiny.

Have your ML contact our ML snowowl to set up the details, unless you're all pussies. The gauntlet has been thrown! *THUWHACK*

And don't even think about challenging Kansas City or Little Rock. You're ours. We'll take you all if we have to. You're going down.

Love and kisses,

Chitown

P.S. And we'll outdrink you too!"

Believe it or not, even after the overwhelming support one Chicago person got really upset and stood up. "Why are we picking on St. Louis? Can somebody tell me why we're choosing St. Louis? Why don't we challenge a city from the south?" And when a group of us explained to her that St. Louis was our natural geographic rival of generally similar size (because who really counts Milwaukee if St. Louis is around) she stormed out of the party. Her response was that we should chose a city with a great writing tradition to really prove something. Yikes.

The kickoff party for the Chicago region was huge tonight. We ended up filling up the entire private party room at Goose Island Brewery taking in what must have been 40 people. And while this slowed down the wait staff to no end (someone actually had to leave to go back to work before her quesadillas arrived), the party was crazy.

I wish I remember some of the discussions because they were good. ;)

641 / 50,000 (1.3%)

Though as is the usual, we ended up talking about writing when not talking about porn (and no one defended it as filmed erotica surprisingly) or dirty Halloween costumes.



Sue, our downtown writing group coordinator and life of the parties


And that's why we'll beat St. Louis. There aren't any writing holds barred in Chicago. Plus we've got one of the most active regions on nanowrimo.org. But, to be fair, we have a little help. We have the host of WrimoRadio as one of our affiliated members. He was at the kickoff party taping pre-interviews for next week's show. I again decided to stay off the program but you will be able to hear rosemilk if you download it.



The host of WrimoRadio, our resident celebrity in the Illinois::Chicago region


That and we have got our crap together this year. We'll take on all challengers if need be. Of course, while I'm typing away here, I should be getting to my word count. Some leader of the challenge I am with my slacking off in my own word count. Tomorrow will be a huge day word-wise I hope.

With the challenge to St. Louis, I definitely will want to write through New York City even if we're not directly challenging them.

Stars, Bars, and the Crown - PROLOGUE

The prologue to "Stars, Bars, and the Crown," my novel for 2005 is now available to read at http://www.livejournal.com/users/incendiarystory/14908.html.

641 / 50,000 (1.3%)

This word count includes the first paragraph of chapter one but the link does not (for those keeping score at home).

The Entirely NaNo November First Entry

It is definitely November 1. One can easily tell by looking at the bloodshot nature of my eyes due to both the makeup I was wearing yesterday (no pictures) and the late night that I had to start out NaNoWriMo. I have no idea how people stayed up late enough to write over 1,500 words since after a little over 400, I was ready to pass out.

434 / 50,000 (0.9%)

I had planned to actually watch a movie yesterday night to kill the last few hours of anticipation before the start of November. But instead I ended up spending from about 9:30 p.m. on sitting in the NaNoWriMo chat room and watching as the east coast people began at 11:00 central time.

NaNoWriMo Eve actually closely resembles the Y2K countdown of a few years back.

As each new time zone begins, the message boards heat up with a fresh group of writers posting "I've started" messages. I made the joke in the chat room that the main NaNo site should have web feeds of a group of writers in each time zone kicking off.

But the reason that October 31 each year resembles December 31, 1999 is that the writers seem to be speaking of some sort of impending disaster. While everybody goes into NaNoWriMo expecting to win (except for the people who hang out on the "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die" boards of nanowrimo.org from October 1 on), in the back of everyone's minds are the road blocks that will inevitably pop up.

So to be the huge cheerleader which I'm really not, I wanted to post this link to some research that was done for last year. The full findings are available at "The #1 reason people fail NaNo" thread on the Reaching 50,000 topic of the forums.

Good luck trying to find it without using my link. That forum, like the others has gone insane and will stay so until people start dropping out around the 10th. :) Hey, what are us bloggers for? Save your brain for writing.

Anyhow, the stats are as follows (and I'm not sure if a similar study has been done for 2004):

Of those who started NaNoWriMo in 2003, 31% won.

Of those who reached 10,000 words in 2003, 56% won.

Of those who reached 20,000 words in 2003, 74% won.

Of those who reached 30,000 words in 2003, 87% won.

Of those who reached 40,000 words in 2003, 95% won.

Pretty encouraging.

So, the key is to just get those first 10,000 words as quickly as possible without discouraging yourself by writing such crap that you want to throw your computer out a window.

Once you're in, you're in for the long haul but don't procrastinate. Trust me. As it gets further into the month, the energy and enthusiasm levels does begin to waiver a bit. It takes a village to make a NaNo through encouragement and even word wars.

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Speaking of word wars, I'm pretty jealous that Texas::Houston has a challenge going on with Texas::Austin to see who can produce more prose. I'm trying to plant the idea in the Illinois::Chicago moderator's head for us to start up a word war with New York::New York City (or Michigan::Detroit or Illinois::Elsewhere). They seem ripe for the pickings since there are separate boards for the outer boroughs so I'm guessing the NYC forum is mainly for Manhattan so their numerical superiority isn't that great.

Perhaps I can twist the Chicago ML's arm tonight at the kickoff party.

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Finally, here's a cool little application that I use to track my novel writing progress. I've looked at a few but the Darkscapes Nano 2005 Report Card is definitely my favorite (I also used their report card in 2004).

It contains so many useful features like tracking your actual progress against your personal goals, tracking how many words you're averaging per hour, and a little section for notes.

Two little NaNoWriMo icons way up!

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I'm not going to post my first chapter yet since it's not finished, but here is my first paragraph. It's no "night trains were the worst," but I think it's acceptable. Acceptable for writing it at 12:00 a.m. on November 1 anyhow.

"Liam felt his breath hot against the layer of electrical tape that covered his mouth. But beyond that he felt every pulse as he surveyed the basement that had become his prison. He looked to his right and saw the members of the John Harper Society."

Happy noveling everyone.