With 3.5 Hours To Spare, A Small Miracle

I've never been a fan of people who stop right at 50,000 words. Especially if they're on the Word War team. But that was, hypocritically, me this year.

I did write until the end of the chapter where I reached 50,000 at 8:33 p.m. This was 50,125.

The final writing session was from 4:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. so I figured that I deserved a break. And I still hadn't eaten dinner yet. So I stopped.

I kept meaning to pick the novel back up because now I'm really in the meaty part where the plot is just flowing out of my fingers (though I've reached a spot where the final confrontation should happen and I don't know how it should).

And when I sat back down, finally, at 11:15 (after watching the end of the Bears game and writing a review on Yelp of the Mexican place I went to with my parent yesterday), I started typing away. But then I just ran out of time.

Final word count: 50,576.

My lowest word count ever. My latest finish time ever. Well, neither are true if you count 2003 when I gave up. But of the now five years I have won, that's exactly the case.

But with what I went through this Novemeber, some people are congratulating me for finishing at all. Even my old nemesis (and probably best NaNo friend from outside of Chicago) Toronto's ML Deb (greensong).

I'm amazed she finished. And she accomplished something even more unbelievable than me. I wrote a little over 10,000 words the last two days. She wrote 23,500.

All of my NaNo buddies ended up finishing strong this year (except for the few who didn't procrastinate). Kim (rosemilk) wrote 20,000 words today alone.

Now that would have just about killed me.

So I go into 2009 with a fresh lease on my NaNo streak. And next year I'll be more involved again as I'll have a working laptop. Barring any unforseen things. Though I may be in a different region than Chicago. I might be in Washington D.C. or Northern Virginia.

I may do NaNoFiMo to polish off the last few chapters. But I think I've said that every year since that debuted (it's that month's 5th anniversary this year). I'll see how I feel after taking the 1st and 2nd off.

It would be nice just to say, "the end" for once.

This time, however, I do promise one thing. December entries in Retentivewrimo. Or at least one. That's something I've been horrible about.

Hopefully Tomorrow Night Will Not End Up In Regret

I am now officially stressed out. I hoped to be at about 46,000 when I left the Detroit area to go back to Chicago. I should get home in plenty of time to have almost ten hours available to me but I still feel like I'm pushing the limits.

Still, after this last writing session of the day, I stand at 44,051 words. Now a little under 6,000 words could be easily doable if I thought I had that much left in my story. I'm really pushing my two goals for this year a little too close together.

I think I could finish my novel in just about 3,000 words, but I have at least twice that until I reach the required word count.

I just introduced the last element into the story. It will take the main character back to Washington D.C. to rescue Jenae and it will create conflict with Amy (the physician's assisnt who the main character is now together with - a lot happens when you write 5,000 words in one day).

I know this will all end up with Cal taking another drive to drop Jenae back home in West Virginia with the baby. And, well, he would pass through Columbus (where Amy is from) if he drives back to Chicago.

There is plenty I probably could work in if I had more time but I don't.

Only time will tell (and a little over 24 hours of that) what my warped, tired mind comes up with to try to solve this dilemma. But it will not involve any cheating. No dream sequences, none of that. I pride myself in never having used these.

Though I've never been so close to the edge before.

I would say why I'm so close to the edge, but I feel like I don't have time to. Cliff Notes is that yesterday I went to see "Milk" at the Main Street Art Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan with the girl who almost ruined NaNo 2007. Then today I went downtown to Detroit with my sister before going out with dinner in southwest Detroit with my entire family.

If I didn't think I could pull off 6,000 words tomorrow (my record is over 8,000) I would probably regret going to Detroit today. But as it stands I think I would regret not seeing Detroit this Thanksgiving weekend more.

The Uncomforts Of Home Prevent My Writing

I've never been a huge fan of the Eastern Time Zone.

Sure I grew up in it and all that but for some reason Central Time seems to be a place where I can write a lot more. Things just end earlier there (and by things, I mean things like football games and television shows, which is about all I have to do in Michigan).

The last two days of writing have been pretty pathetic no matter where I've been.

What I'm thankful for on this Thanksgiving is that I wrote until 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday night getting up to 35,257 words. I thought I would have some time to write before my sister and I drove home to my parent's house but that just didn't happen.

I was out running errands and such until the very moment I had to pick up her dog and retrieve her from work.

Then today I woke up early and spent the entire day on the phone with my dad trying to do tech support for my laptop that keeps shutting itself down. I'm getting recovery disks to get the system back to scratch (since they're pretty sure it's a software problem) the second week in December. That's not going to help for NaNo.

What also doesn't help is that I have to use my mother's computer with a kitchen chair (and I thought the folding chair I used at home before making a laptop like setup on my bed was bad) that is not very conducive to marathoning comfort. My sister's dog requires a very large bed, apparently so my dad's office, where I usually sleep on a foldout couch, is taken.

I'm sleeping in my brother's room as he's in North Carolina. Lucky bastard. It snowed here in Michigan.

Anyway, end result is I now stand at 36,574 (just over 1,000 words after I wrote a tiny amount at work yesterday just to say that I did). This means in the last three days of the month I have to write 13,426 words. Which is possible but it's going to be really rough.

Looks like I might not do a lot in Detroit after all. Though we may go back to Chicago early. If this is the case, Sunday could be a madhouse sprint of sprints from the comfort and inspiration of my own bed.

At least I'm going to sleep pretty early today so I can wake up and buy some dirt cheap memory tomorrow morning. Though I am not sleeping out tonight. Thank goodness for small favors.

Finally Writing In Small Blocks But With No Theme

Since I'll be in the Detroit metropolitan area tomorrow though Friday, I saw my weekly movie at the Logan Theater today. It was "Role Models." That movie was suprisingly good. It wasn't necessarily the smartest movie out right now but it had a nice ethos. It was centered around music as so many movies are, with Kiss and Wings references holding the film together.

And I realized that's what this year's novel is lacking that I've had in the past. But it's way too late for that now. I'm now 2/3rds of the way to the end point and there's no string like that to be had. Oh well, it's not like NaNos are definitely supposed to be about themes anyway.

I wrote 2,313 words today (313 is actually the area code for the city of Detroit so it's sort of oddly fitting but unintentional) in two writing sessions. One of them was a 30 minute block before I left for the movie. I guess it's a combination of not wanting to fail and actually having something to write about that squeezed me into a small block like that.

It's the kind of thing I've done on a regular basis in past years.

I have just introduced the love interest into the story in the form of a nurse at a clinic in Staunton. So this sets up the conflict.

I have tried to avoid the plot of this movie I once saw where a fake psychologist wraps a town around his finger before it all comes crashing down due to a woman and I'm still trying to avoid that. I have to figure out how to do that.

But I have a long car ride back to Michigan with my sister and her dog to do that tomororow.

Off to write again. I only have about 1,500 words until I finally catch the tail end of the active other members of the word war team. And tomorrow will, hopefully, be peaceful at work so I can stay up a bit late. I don't think I'll get to 35,500 to accomplish this but I'm going to try and get close.

This Fantasy Writing Thing Is Just As Nerve Wracking

Last year when I was word war captain for Chicago, NaNoWriMo was almost like a second job. I would spend my evenings working through the various issues (I don't want to rehash them since they're all in black and white, or whatever color this blog shows up as, in older entries).

This year I tried to avoid that.

This year I couldn't really afford that since I'm really busy at my real job. There is not even a chance to take a day off at my real job (I'm thankful for Thanksgiving Friday this year for sure). I don't even have time to write on my lunch breaks since those are shorter than usual.

I really wish that I did and I know I'm going to regret squeezing in another writing session tonight, but my first writing session was nothing short of pathetic. I didn't start writing until 10:00 since I work up at 8:00 p.m. Today I wrote a review of Philly's Best on Yelp and so I felt I should eat there again tonight.

The owner had actually read my review and commented on a joke line that I put in about rolling my eyes about a substitution. It actually happened but it was more my fault. I took the line out. While I was eating my wonderful hoagie (I gave the place four stars so he wasn't too upset), I realized "My Own Worst Enemy" was on.

Seeking some inspiration from that well written show, I watched the entire thing.

I thought I had gotten blown out in fantasy football this week since I was 31 points behind with Lance Moore and Greg Jennings to go tonight. I opened up stat tracker early in the third quarter and, holy wow, I saw the two of them together had put up 30 points with a lot of time left.

So I turned on Monday Night Football. And I watched as Greg Jennings put up just enough yardage to give me what could be a five point win. I verified the stats independently on ESPN because I couldn't believe my eyes. I still won't until tomorrow morning. I still expect it to be a glitch and instead of being 9-3-0 and in 2nd place in my league, I'll be 8-4-0 and in 4th.

Now I was writing while all of this was happening but I was, as is understandable to anyone who's ever played fantasy football, a bit distracted.

Really long story now short, I only wrote 1,325 words tonight and stand at 31,669. This almost keeps me at around 3,000 words a day to continue on but I feel like I'm taking too many chances. I don't know how busy Thanksgiving weekend will actually be.

I won't believe, similarly to fantasy football, that I reached 50,000 until I'm at about 52,000. That won't happen tonight, obviously, but I still want to push on to 33,000. I'm at the point now where the main character is trying on his new identity for the first time applying for a job at a video store. So maybe I'll just finish this scene.

I forsee being very tired at work tomorrow though.

A Small Town Brings Big Words

I missed my end of weekend goal of 33,000 by quite a bit. I mean there were 3s and 0s in my ending weekend word count of 30,334 but not quite in the right places.

Though I am astounded I was able to squeeze out4,173 words today.

Things didn't look good toward getting anywhere near that this morning when I went out to brunch with a high school friend of mine that was in town at this fantastic creperie in Lincoln Park.

I was supposed to go into work immediately after but I came home exhausted and slept instead until about 4:15. I wrote a review on Yelp and then, finally at 5:00 started back into "Drive."

I wrote for 75 minutes getting to around 27,500. This could have been where I had called it quits on past Sundays. But, thankfully "Animation Domination" was cancelled on Fox so I wrote right on through until about 10:30 p.m.

I don't know what the next two days will bring but at least I'm at a place in the story now where I can write.

I'm right at the beginning of the 23rd chapter (that mystical number). I worked through the end of Washington D.C. (it ended badly) and now have the main character in Staunton, Virginia. It's a city I drove through on the road trip that inspired "Drive" (though I was never suicidal, for me it was just a vacation and had every intention of going back to Chicago) that I thought, "I could live in this place if I had to choose any small town in America."

It really is a nice semi-liberal college town right in the middle of Virginia's bible belt. It went slightly for Bush in 2004 (by about 2%) but I can almost guarantee Obama carried it this time around. And it has a thiriving art scene almost like an artist collective in the west.

I had the main character check into a transient hotel there (still a bit short on money) while he looks for a job. The description of the rules there took up quite a few words.

I know tomorrow I'll have something to write about the job search and I know this is where something important happens that makes him make a tough decision, but I don't know what yet. It probably involves a girl. All my novels do. Stupid dude lit.

Anyhow, off to sleep so I try to push for that 33,000 tomorrow that I didn't get tonight.

Oh, one more thing, I caught and passed my 27th place New Zealand counterpart in the Word War tonight. By 300 words. It feels good to at least be able to say that, even if disaster does strike and I don't finish.

Not Quite Up To My Goals For Today Or Awake

Staying up really late to try to write yesterday didn't work out quite like I wanted to. I wrote 826 words between 1:00 and 2:15 a.m. But I didn't end up getting to sleep until 3:00 a.m.

Today I was so exhausted that it took almost three hours to get to 25,000. Only two of them was I writing but it was still a trudge.

As a reward I went up to this Turkish pizza place a couple of neighborhoods north of me. This was about 3:00 p.m. When I got home I took a nap and woke up at around 6:45. I wrote a little again from 7:30 until 8:45 and haven't written since.

I'm now at 26,171 words which is about 2,000 words behind where I wanted to be but I still got in 3,433 words.

Tomorrow I need to beat that so it's time to go to sleep tonight. Though tomorrow I have to go into work in the morning so who knows what I'll accomplish in the afternoon. Probably nothing.

And I'm almost at the point where I have nothing more to write about. I was hoping to get to the end of Washington D.C. tonight and figure out what happens next. But I have no clue what that is. I think it's probably in small town Virginia but something has to happen there that's the climax.

Who knows what that's going to be. And I'm running out of time to figure it out.

Any Unlucky Number Just Keeps Showing Up

November is always bad for me for so many reasons it seems. Although this might go down as one of the worst Novembers on record.

Life just constantly gets in the way of maximizing my NaNo potential.

Tonight I stayed in again after what happened last Friday and actually plugged out my story up until the point where the drama really sets in for the Washington D.C. scenes. I wrote almost 2,000 word in just over two hours (I'll call it 2:15) and now stand at 22,738. This didn't quite reach my goal of 23,000 but I was really distracted.

Though also inspired.

A real life friend of mine was selected as Review of the Day today on Yelp Chicago (I'm almost proud as I was the first person to compliment her on this review which has now been called "the funniest of the year") and so I wrote a review of Red Apple that I had been meaning to write for a while. It's the best receieved view I've gotten where there were no other Yelpers present (which always bulks up the score).

Well that's not entirely true. The review I wrote of the hospital last Friday now stands at 13 useful, 8 funny, and 8 cool feedbacks. It's creeping me out a bit that unlucky 13 is how many people found it useful but I guess it's fitting considering the circumstances.

Anyway, this positive feedback on my non-fiction writing led to a surge in my fiction writing confidence. I didn't write any high art today but it was good for a push.

The problem is that Yelp will prove more of a distraction than anything else when I go home to Detroit for Thanksgiving. I know I'm going to want to get out of the house and review places around Detroit (especially since Yelp Detroit is trying to get off the ground and needs all the reviews it can get). Plus I got a call from the girl who partially ruined last November who will also be in Detroit at the time and one of the days, I think we're going to see a Bollywood film at this place in my hometown that we had talked about seeing back when we were better friends.

This is definitely a reason to write like the wind this weekend. But I also want to go to a couple of places that I want to review in Chicago first (a New York style pizza joint is one while it's still relevant to my recent trip). I think I'll go to this place as a reward for reaching 25,000.

Hopefully I can get that done before lunchtime tomorrow.

I will begin to write again after this entry is done since I have one more goal to reach tonight. I'm a little over 500 words behind this girl I know (whose real name I can't remember), atlantistale, on the word war team. I want to pass her before I go to sleep. She hasn't written since the 13th (again that number, yikes) so she's probably busy preparing for a play like last November.

So I think it's only fitting that the scene I'm about to start is Jenae, one of the main character's hosts, preparing for a play.

Tomorrow I hope to catch the first remaining active writer above me, fyshy (who was one of the two people I met at the pre-NaNo trip to the Freedom Museum) who is currently at 27,893. I might be able to do that. If I don't get too distracted.

Too Exhausted To Even Make This Post

So much for the word vein I hit yesterday.

I started to write today at about 8:45 after skipping out on a set of plans that I had tonight. This was after taking a very long nap. And yet I was too exhausted to even move my fingers over the keyboard.

20,747 is where I now stand after attempting to write from 8:45 until 11:15. I don't even know if I can count that as a writing session.

I should have just called the night lost and stayed at my former word count.

The ironic thing is, is that I know I'm about to start on some very serious conflict in the book and that should contain a lot of words. I think I was almost afraid to get there is the problem. I am feeling so uninspiredly tired that I don't think I'll squeeze all of the words out of the next few scenes that I could if I just start them well rested and ready to write.

And not feeling like I'm going to fall asleep on the keyboard.

At least I've got a head start on where the story will be going this weekend. The goal for tomorrow night is now 24,000 since I'm almost at 21,000 now.

The goal for the end of the weekend is 33,000. It's a lofty goal but if I lock myself in my apartment all day both days, and I think I'm too exhausted to do otherwise, it's attainable.

I Actually Made My Goal By 60 Seconds

By the skin of my teeth, I made my goal of 20,000 words before midnight.

20,006.

It shouldn't have been quite so close but Google Documents, which I've been using to store everything decided to eat the last 150 or so words I wrote early this morning. And of course the words I typed to replace them tonight didn't seem nearly as good to me.

But I wrote them.

And I could write more tonight but staying up and doing these midnight to 1:00 a.m. writing sessions is making me ill. I went to see the doctor today to make sure I was healing correctly and had no neurological damage from the assault on Friday. He asked if I was feeling dizzy and if I had blurred vision. I told him that I wasn't sure because I wasn't getting any sleep.

Tomorrow might be a day of no writing at all since I have plans after work but at least my word count now exceeds the day of the month for the first time this year.

The goal for Friday is 23,000 if I don't write tomorrow. That would mean a pace of 3,000 words per day to close out the month which is entirely possible given Thanksgiving. It's going to be an awful slog but if I can get 1,500 words out of getting a fake driver's license, I can do this.

I'm actually a bit proud of my scene tonight although I pulled a lot of information out of the air about what kinds of documents need to be forged. But there was no time to go and ask the question on the forums or anything.

And it's not really important since I know this story will never see the light of day. It's more a challenge now. Though I am getting some ideas out of the story so we'll see if I can use them in future years.

That's a lot to thing about right now so I'll leave that for when I'm more awake.

Settling Down Into Words In The Story's Washington D.C.

So this is a good problem to have, I guess.

For the first time in November, but pretty late in the month considering this is 30,000 word day, I actually find myself wanting to write my novel and not stop to do other things. Well, that's not entirely true but at least I find words appearing on the page at a faster rate so that's a start.

I might just make 20,000 by the 20th. Except I still have plans on the evening of the 20th that might prevent this barring a writing frenzy tomorrow.

Tonight I actually had standing Tuesday plans that I cancelled in order to write. Of course I ended up sleeping until 8:00 p.m. after burning the midnight oil yesterday and only getting to 15,245 in 75 minutes (a whopping 206 words, one of my least productive writing sessions ever as far as WPM went). But once I woke up in a little over 90 minutes tonight, I now stand at 17,440.

Or, you know, back to half of what I should be at.

The way I did it? Well, smut I guess. But not in the word count padding way that some people do it. I didn't write a sex scene or anything (I don't know if I've ever written one per se in my six years of NaNoWriMo) but I think I just created some sexual tension in my story.

Turns out the guy, Cal (an old college friend), who the main character is staying with has a really hot wife. The first night he's staying with him in Arlington, Virginia he catches her, she doesn't know it, walking half naked through the hall to go an feed the baby.

I don't know where this will lead, exactly, though I think it may be why he gets kicked out of the condominium and is forced to go on the road again, but at least there were some words in it and a piece of plot.

Though those pieces are less rare right about now. I know what's going to happen next as far as "Washington D.C." goes (the suburbs at least).

Now I just need to free up more time to actually write it. I've almost caught the tail end of the rest of the word war team (I've passed two people who have seemingly given up).

Alright, back to writing (at least as soon as the clock strikes midnight). I'm going to try to get to 18,500 before I go to sleep tonight. That will make the 20,000 that I aim for tomorrow very doable. Kind of like this character's wife. :)

And There Goes Another Week

I actually met a goal for once in 2008. It's a small miracle! From midnight to 1:15 a.m., I wrote 1058 words and now stand at 15,039 which places me second to last on the word war team instead of last.

This moving slightly up the list has inspired me to write and to try to catch the tail end of the people who have been actively trying to write all month. Or those that wrote early and then gave up.

Of course while I was raring to write, I got a phone call from my sister today reminding me that Sisters of Mercy were playing tonight at House of Blues and we had tickets. I ended up going home from work and going to sleep until 7:45 when I needed to be there at 8:30.

I didn't even eat dinner except for some fries at the show, let alone write.

This is sort of depressing since tonight was the one night this week I thought I could get some serious writing in. Tomorrow and Thursday I have plans and Wednesday I have to see my weekly movie.

I may not get a chance to seriously write again until Friday which is already past the two-thirds mark of the month. I hoped to be well past 20,000 by then but I'm not sure if that's even feasible.

I'm going to write tonight for a bit and see what happens. I probably won't get in more than a thousand. It's sad since I know exactly where my story is going now for about next few chapters. Or at least the next one.

The main character is going to meet up with an old college friend in Washington D.C. who has known his time on the wrong side of the law. Shenanigans ensue. If I knew what those shenanigans were, it would be great.

The Grinder Was Not Inspirational

Another somewhat wasted day on the novel front. Instead of being productive and writing all day today like I had planned, instead I watched fantasy football scores and played all day on Yelp.

I did manage to complete the scene where the police interrogate the main character about the mugging (asking why he was in what he didn't even realize was a bad part of town). This scene seemed to eat up a lot of words but in reality it only brought me to 13,981.

So I'm maintaining my streak, I see of being exactly half way to where I need to be. My goal for the day was 15,000 so I didn't end up too far off. In fact, despite how bad this might be for me at work tomorrow, I'm going to push for it in a 45 minute sprint after I finish typing this entry.

I seem to have won at fantasy football (something I worried about when my defense (the New York Jets) only put up 8 points on Thursday so the Monday night game is meaningless to me.

Right now the story is in Philadelphia so I went to the Philadelphia themed restaurant across the street from my apartment for lunch. I got a grinder seeing if that would get me excited to write about Philadelphia.

It didn't, so I'm going to get the main character, now down to the $100 he stashed in his car out of the last ATM transaction he made, out of Pennsylvania a.s.a.p.

I think him getting robbed of all of his credit cards and the like is going to be good for the story. I think losing his "identity" is going to mean doing things like getting a fake driver's license and finding a job with it.

I'm definitely leaving things that I've personally done behind and venturing out into a new world.

Will this new world have enough for the final 35,000 words in two weeks? That I'm not really sure of.

Inspiration Comes From Strange Places

Inspiration certainly comes from some weird places, that's for sure.

Last night as I was walking down Fullerton like I had a thousand times before toward the liquor store to get some milk, eggs, and butter, a group of kids attacked me. They were trying to mug me (at least the police seem to think so) and one of the kids hit me with a lock inside of a sock a couple of times. I'm not much worse for wear except for a cut above my left eye and a lump on the back of my head that has now shrunk down to normal size.

They weren't able to get my wallet or inflict more damage because I managed to duck into the liquor store in a cold run before they could.

I'm fine today. And I actually wrote it into my novel.

It was a bit difficult to write even though I changed the details. But what I'm really inspired to write about comes next.

Thusfar in the novel, the main character has avoided trouble and it wasn't making for a very exciting story. But trouble will eventually find you, especially if you set yourself up for it like he has by setting himself off on the road and leaving his identity behind. I want to write about the violation that is felt when your safety is suddenly called into question.

And now there's a reason for him to actually struggle.

But only half the month to do it.

I had planned on going to a lot of write-ins the second half of the month but just as quickly as my laptop was fixed, it's broken again. It runs perfectly for some time and then, suddenly, out of the blue 15-20 minutes after it's turned on, it turns itself off.

I definitely need a new laptop at Thanksgiving which is something I was hoping to avoid this time around. So it's back to the desktop.

Though I have changed my bedroom setup around so I'm now almost writing as I would were my desktop a laptop. Though with a detachable mouse.

I still only managed to write a little over a thousand words today and now stand at 12,795. I got to 11,392 in a final word sprint at the Brooklyn write-in and hadn't written since. I was just too busy with my program in NYC and then hanging out with my New York friends afterwards.

But now I'm back in Chicago so it's back to writing again.

At least I hope so since I rejoined the word war team as six openings happened (and I was #32 in the original group of signeees to begin with so with 33 spots I didn't feel too bad). So it's back to not letting other people down again. Which leads to quite a bit of inspiration as well.

A Big Apple's Worth Of Inspiration

I'm writing this entry from Atlas Cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

There's a New York: New York City regional write-in here tonight and since I'm in New York City for work, I decided to crash the party. Well, not really crash since their ML knew that I was coming. And we're not competing against them this year so we're all on the same "team".

Though none of them seem to be struggling nearly as much as I am.

The irony of my writing with these New York City people is that I've yet to attend a Chicago write-in in 2008. And last year I resolved to do that this year at the end of 2007.

If anyone is reading this (I've done a great job of publicizing Retentivewrimo this year) and has the opportunity, I highly recommend going to a write-in with another region. It's so odd how similar they are to our own.

Even the faces could be the same as those in Chicago.

Though they did make me feel a bit slow. We had a sprint (they don't call them word wars here, damn we're competitive in Chicago, but they do keep score) and I only wrote 498 words in 20 minutes.

Now I've never been the fastest in the world at these things (whatever they're called) but I usually do better than that. This year's story still isn't inspiring me in any way, shape or form.

But I have broken the 10,000 mark finally. 10,715. Still around a 30,000 word pace as opposed to 50,000.

The current scene I'm writing is the MC (who still has no name) nearly getting into a fight with a redneck in front of the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania. I think I'm going to hades for writing this chapter in New York City.

For my next trick, when I'm home in Detroit for Thanksgiving, I'll write about the auto industry collapsing. Though there are no Detroit write-ins while I'm there.

Starting To Drive On "Drive"

I woke up early this morning before dropping my parents off to take the Megabus back to Michigan (talk about a change of position with growing up) and wrote 1,141 words in about 45 minutes. I didn't end up writing the strip club scene.

Instead I wrote about half of the scene with the main character (who still doesn't have a name) calling home to convince his ex-girlfriend to sell the stuff in his apartment.

What I wrote this morning isn't as important, however, as where I'm writing this evening.

I took both of my laptops into Circuit City today. The older one I have just given up on and am just having them do a data recovery. This will be about $100 but is worth it to get back my photos and, I realize now, Microsoft Word.

The newer laptop turned out not to be incredibly broken or incredibly broken depending on how you look at it. The on key is completely disfunctional (the Geek Squad employee at Best Buy managed to push the computer on but then couldn't turn it off). Thankfully since it's a HP Pavilion built as much for watching movies as it is for anything else, it can be booted from the DVD player functionality.

After rebooting the computer completely to get rid of the blue screen of death that was there when the computer did boot up, I am now back active in the world of laptop users. Without Microsoft Word on the computer and using Google Documents but lying down while writing is the greatest feeling in the world.

I now stand at 8,127 words which ranks me 33rd on the Chicago word war team. But now I can actually write in New York City. And on the airplane. And I actually have a desire to write again. So my morale is definitely up.

Moving On In The Story Finally

While my story is still wandering pretty aimlessly, due to a marathon writing session from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m., I now stand at 6,986 words.

This is still 6,647 words behind but it feels like a pretty significant number.

This evening I wrote some reflections of the main character on why someone would want to be in small town America after I basically change around the facts a bit in a stop I actually made in Fairmount, Indiana in April on my way to driving to Washington, D.C.

Fairmount is James Dean's hometime and there's a hero worship to him there. I wrote in the mindset of the main character how he's almost envious that one person can have such an impact.

In the Historical Museum in Fairmount is also all the senior class photos from Fairmount's less famous graduates. And he realizes that in a small town, everyone has an impact on everyone else. And he wants to be a part of this.

I then have him drive on to Muncie, Indiana where he's currently sitting in a hotel room after setting some things straight (i.e. quitting his job). He's standing in front of a mirror getting ready to get in touch with his ex-girlfriend to sell all of the things out of the apartment he used to have.

Then I'm going to have him go to a strip club.

Sure it might not fit into the story. But I need to have something to get me interested in writing again and smut might do just that. Or at least pad the word count.

My Story Is Dying Like My Laptop Is Dead

I now sit with two absolutely dead laptops.

I went to Circuit City this evening to buy a new power chord for the laptop I've been using most recently. I plugged it in and nothing seemed to happen. Eventually I got frustrated and turned the laptop on its side. Amazingly the computer came on. As soon as I would face it back down, however, the battery light would go off and just as suddenly the computer would shut itself off.

Now no matter which was I face the computer, there is nothing.

This is the same thing that's been wrong with my better laptop since June. Two laptops that won't even start to boot up even if they've got working batteries.

On Sunday I'm going to take the better laptop into Best Buy and have them fix it. I guess I have the money since I spent $100 on the power cord either way.

This isn't going to help much since I leave for New York City on Tuesday and I'm sure they won't have the computer done until the weekend following (half way through the month).

Tomorrow I'm going with my parents to the Shedd Aquarium before going to dinner with them.

So it looks like I'm stuck on 4,435 words for now after writing on and off between 9:00 and 10:45. I don't even know how much I wrote during this time since I was fighting with the laptop for most of it. I have how much I was at after a writing session yesterday night after I wrote the entry. But it seems like right around 800 words.

And I still don't have a plot besides a guy driving. Right now I've got him in James Dean's hometown in Indiana. Except he's not a rebel without a cause, he's just stuck in a novel without a plot.

I just feel like once I actually get to write the way I want to, things are going to work out.

But by that point, it might be too late in the month.

Things Are Just Not Working Out

This is not going well.

On the 3rd, I just couldn't be bothered to write. The 4th I was drinking with people in Ukrainian Village and Wicker Park to celebrate Barack Obama's win.

You'd think this would be inspiring but after living on the adrenaline of watching the Democrats sweep through state after state and staying up until 2:45 a.m. or so, I was exhausted on the 5th. Amazingly I made it into work for a half day. After coming home, I planned to write (and run to Circuit City to get a new battery for my laptop), but ended up sleeping until it was time to meet my parents who were in town.

Today I went to see my weekly movie early and came home to write.

Miraculously I squeezed in about 1000 words to leave me at 2,256. Still far behind where I should be since this is 10,000 day.

Tomorrow I really need to get that laptop battery or I am not going to finish, let alone make the cut for the word war team.

I still haven't come up with anything to write about. I still know the story and today I'm writing sort of random observations about Indiana that I drew from my road trip earlier this year but it is really boring me.

What I really need to do is spend tomorrow figuring out what I want to happen. If I'm not writing in November I don't even know what else I'd do with the month. Maybe sleep or something. We'll have to see.

It All Comes Full Circle Back To 2004

One thing that I often forget in discussing my ultimate success in 2004 is how much peril was contained in that winning experience.

There were times that I thought I would never finish 50,000 words, let alone the novel (and I did end the month with barely over the minimum - 56,000). There were nights typing away on a hotel television screen computer in New York City. There was a day in an internet cafe off Times Square. There were about seven computers involved in total.

In short, I didn't have a laptop.

Well, today I discovered that I don't have a laptop for this year either. In June, right after I moved into a new apartment, the computer that I got Thanksgiving of 2006 ended up becoming useless. Luckily the one from 2005 was fixed and I've been using that one. But the battery has been acting up just like the first time it was my primary computer.

Yesterday the battery went dead.

I really can't afford a new battery right now. Not even close. So I'm back to typing on the very desk top computer that I used in 2004. This year really has come full circle.

Or I should say that I've been avoiding typing on said computer.

After going into work in the morning to catch up on a few things, I had all day to write like the wind. Especially since my primary distraction of posting photos to flickr wasn't going to work either since all of my photos are on that laptop.

I ended up writing around 1,000 words today starting at 10:45 p.m.

I now stand at 1,631 or just under a day behind. Not a great haul for the first weekend but at least I wrote both days.

Tomorrow I will get on this whole writing thing. Only top 25-35 writers at the end of week one get to be on the word war team. Of course being on the team is going to be a lot tougher sans laptop until the next paycheck.

But, hey, in New York City I'll get to relive one of the most interesting experiences I ever had. Writing in an internet cafe off Times Square.

Starting Off Really Slowly And Relaxed

Since this is the 10th anniversary of NaNoWriMo, I should be more excited about it than ever before.

But I think the way it's turning out, I'm less involved this year both personally and in the region that I have been since the first year.

I did write 622 words after attending the Yelp Halloween party drunk off my behind at midnight while sitting in the ChiWriMo chat room but since then I haven't written anything at all.

I left off at a point where I want to write more but I just don't have the energy thusfar.

This was the first year in a while that I missed the kickoff party. I spent the morning on Yelp talking about Halloween and then actually got in my car to go to the party before I discovered that Chicago Avenue was closed. So I turned around and went home.

I plan on going to the TGIO Party and going to write ins and such (barring my laptop breaking) but so far this chilling is working out better for me. I'll probably have more energy for the inevitable end push.