That Late Month Depression Is Hitting Early

I'm really trying to stay positive here but my analysis for Team Chicago says that we are absolutely f*c*ed for the same reason as we lose these Word Wars all the time. We start out this brilliant display of enthusiasm and then the bottom drops out - literally.

We stand nine people behind New York City in the place where the Word War is going to be won or lost, people at 20,000. The only reason we're still ahead is that we have 10 wonderful people who are over 50,000 words already compared to New York City's six and Toronto's five.

But even here there's a dark cloud to ruin the silver lining. We have three writers who are finished with their novels. This is an amazing, wonderful thing, and I wish I could actually be one of them. The problem is that they're not going to be adding anything more to their word count. And that's fine for them but it's not the greatest thing ever for the team.

I think we still have about 42 writers who are still trying to get to 50k so we can still pull this out but our lead over New York City has been sliced to 35,000 words out of 1.57 million (we have 1.57 million, they hacve 1.53 million plus some change).

I mean that's as close as the Florida election in 2000. And we all know what one county screwup did to that one.

Myself, I'm not really helping matters since I didn't hit my goal today of 38,000. I stand at 36,716. I should be able to make it if I do one more writing session but I'm waiting for a phone call from a friend who needs to stay "downtown" (she's a suburbanite if you didn't catch the terminology) before she leaves for Michigan tomorrow.

I didn't even finish watching "Zodiac" today.

I'm just depressed all around at the present second because of real world issues totally apart from the word war.

It's just up until this point in the month, the word war really has been the one thing that's been a constant stream of good news in my life. Hopefully it will be again since we still have a lot of Chicagoans still writing.

I just think our lead is about to become extinct and we'll have to hear it from New York City for an entire year.

I think maybe the entire Chicago team is cynical. Which is a good thing in real life but compared to the cheerleading convention that is Team Toronto or the brooding determination of Team New York City, it's not a recipe for success.

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Oh yes, my actual story. It's in a spin cycle right now as I don't know exactly how to play out the set piece of the party.

I really want Tabitha to overdose on drugs but I can't seem to get to that point. I think it might be better if Kate does it and Andy saves her. He's at the party with another woman right now (and is trying to make Kate jealous) and I think it would be best for the story if this happens.

Except right now I have it so that Kate is about to confront Andy on the dance floor in front of this other woman. Problem is the P.O.V. is not in the right place for there to be any confrontation that the Little Green Envelope can overhear. He's at the DJ booth (the narrator) and they're on the dance floor.

I have set up the piece alright, I guess. But I don't know where this is going to next.

And if that's the case, I don't think I'm going to hit 70k. I know what people on the team are going through right now. I just don't know how to make it better for them so they can get the words that we need to win.

And it sucks. Too bad I'm not writing the book about depression this year.

FUCK!