Nanowrimo - Day Twenty Nine (Validated!)

I've just finished writing for today and submitted my novel to the Nanowrimo word counter.  I've done it!  I've written 50,272 words in the month of November.  I haven't been posting on my progress because by the time I was done writing there, I didn't have the energy to come over to the blog and recount my experience.  I wrote an "ending" for the novel, which helped bring this feeling of closure to the process.  I will reflect further on my experience in the coming days, but for now I think I'm going to go have a beer and celebrate.  To those of you who have followed my journey through this process, thanks for listening in or giving encouragement through the comments or through private email/conversations.  It's helped a lot.

Word Count for the last two days: 6,408
Total Word Count: 50,272
Sample Sentence/Sentences (a little sappy out of context and TOTALLY unpolished, but it captures part of the sentiment of how John and Willy end up at the end of the novel) :

                It saddened Willy to think there was a possibility John would never add another fly to this fly box.  He fretted over his safety for a moment and tried to breathe past the anxiety this war prompted in him.  It didn’t work.  He closed the fly box and put everything away in the tackle box.  He’d never use those flies.  He’d never allow himself to touch this tackle box, but he’d carry it with him every time he went out to the Molalla Hills in the Jeep.  In this way, he’d be carrying John with him.  He’d be saving him a place by where the water tumbled past a bend in the river, and each time he caught a fish out there without him, he’d say a little prayer that would bring his friend home.

Nanowrimo - Day Twenty Six (Closing In)

It's 6:45 in the morning and I've already been up for two hours writing.  I went to bed early last night and I woke up at 4:15 to use the restroom.  Once I returned to bed, I couldn't get the novel out of my head.  I knew the day was going to be full with a Christmas tree run and the Civil War game, so I thought it best that I go ahead and get an early start on the book. 

I'm closing in on a deeper understanding of how all of this is working.  I have a real idea of what is going to happen within these pages.  It's a funny thing though.  When I sit down and really try and direct the novel, the writing feels uninspired, but when I simply channel the characters and allow things to unfold in front of me without so much authorial intent, the writing flows much better.  I had a mixture of styles today.  The first chapter I sat down to write came quickly and easily.  The character dictated the action of the chapter.  The last chapter I wrote today (which remains incomplete) feels too stilted and controlled to really be effective. 

While I feel like I know the ending of the book, I can't control the way my characters get there.  I'm working on "later" chapters now, trying to bring this National Novel Writing Month experiment to a close by "closing the novel," but I'm not sure any ending I could write right now would actually, in the end, serve as the true close.  There is too much early work yet to be done, and, if I don't control my characters, they could derail the trajectory with any given action. 

It was nice to get up and work in the early hours of the morning.  I knew Tracy and Shea were sleeping upstairs and that the rest of my day would be free to spend with them.  This compounds my feeling of satisfaction at getting the work done.  I have tabled the need to write for the rest of the day and now I can participate in my life without distraction.  A good start to the day.

Word Count: 3,475
Total Word Count: 43,864 (Only 6.136 more words to my end goal!)
Sample Sentence/Sentences:

                He wondered where John had gone and what was happening to him.  He pushed himself up to a crouch and the tightness around his balls threatened to tear if he stood fully upright, so he sat there with his hands on his knees taking deep breaths and visualizing the hot redness dissipating into the rest of his body.  His cock and balls were the center of his attention, which wasn’t far from how it was on any other day.

                This thought brought a fresh round of giggles shaking through the rest of his body, but each wave caused the throb in his genitals to bark at him.  He took his left hand from his knee and gently cupped himself.  Holding himself like this, he was able to finally stand upright, although the move still felt like someone was literally tearing his flesh.

Nanowrimo - Day Twenty Four (Energy)

On the tail end of the last blog post, I was overcome with a flow of energy in the writing process that quickly manifested itself in 10 new pages.  The words practically poured out of me.  The scene I created wrote itself.  It is the confrontational moment between Willy and John and it is WEIRD!!! 

The one who is supposed to do the ass kicking can't make his mind up to do it, and the repentant one forces his hand in a public place.  Willy, the guilty one, never throws a punch but proceeds to relish in the ass kicking he receives.  He is ecstatic and joyful at his physical beatdown.  John is horrified at the violence he inflicts and knows it is only done in order to save face.  He doesn't want to look bad in front of others.

None of this was planned.  The whole chapter began as a verbal confrontation and all of sudden there were punches thrown, blood, and this animalistic brutality I wasn't expecting.  I love it when the writing surprises me.  I'm hoping the next couple of days hold the same amount of energy.

In the meantime, it is off to help the wife with our part of Thanksgiving dinner.  Happy Holidays all!!!

Word Count for the afternoon: 3,378
Total Word Count: 40,389
Sample Sentence/Sentences:

                Someone from the crowd called, “Hit him.”

                It was echoed again from somewhere behind him and soon the crowd joined Willy in his taunts.  John panicked and, when he found himself trapped against the encircling crowd with Willy bearing down on him, he swung.

                Willy walked right into it.  John’s fist connected with Willy’s cheekbone and there was a terrible thudding sound that resonated up John’s forearm and into his shoulder.  John expected Willy to fall back, to recoil from the punch, but his resolve was only emboldened by that first punch.  When he turned his face back to John, there was a glistening emptiness in his gaze that frightened John further.  Willy charged back in his direction and John took another swing.  He didn’t know if he was beating Willy up or defending himself.  He couldn’t tell what Willy would do if he actually got his hands on him.  So far Willy hadn’t taken a swing, but that look in his eye offered no guarantee.  He connected a straight shot to Willy’s nose and the squelching sound caused a shudder to race down John’s spine.  Willy fell to one knee and the blood fell immediately.  It blasted over his lip and splattered to the concrete in front of him. 

                A gasp went up from the crowd, but John didn’t have time to acknowledge them.  Willy was immediately on his feet and charging again.  “Knock it off, Willy,” John managed to say as he sidestepped his charging friend.  The site of his reddened, bloody face was a thing of horror.  The look in Willy’s eyes had deepened into a fearless, unthinking thing.  It sought pain and it was going to find it. 

Nanowrimo - Day Twenty Four (Revelations)

I've been working all morning on the novel, pushing deeper into the fourth main, and as of yet unexplored, character.  This process has given me a sudden revelation about what it is I'm struggling with.  I'd created four characters, two men and two women who are distinctly different from one another, when I realized a certain duality of identities that unites them.  As I wrote Misty, the second female character, I realized that she stood in bold contrast to Katie in a significant way.

Misty is the whore.  Katie is the virgin.  These aren't labels that have to do with their sexuality, but, rather, have to do with their self-conceptions, their identities.  This made me reflect on the men I've created.  There is a similar dichotomy to John and Willy.  Willy is the sissy, and John is the silent stoic.  While the whore and the virgin, or the Madonna, have been explored in academic arenas, I don't have a simple dichotomy for the male side of the spectrum.  I came up with "sissy" and "silent stoic," but I don't find these terms altogether representative of what it is I'm after.  In a way, it doesn't matter if I have the exact terms pegged down. I've come to realize that these concepts are going to be played out directly in the pages of this book. 

This realization is not an insubstantial one.  It means I have a better idea of my characters, of themes and concepts that will be played out, and a greater sense of the conflicts that each of my characters will face.  I now have a better understanding of the forces that will conspire against each of these characters and how the journey of the novel will unfold.

This is exciting.  Now, while all of this material will not appear directly in the content of the book, I feel like I have a stronger sense of what the novel is trying to express.  I don't say I have a greater control of the novel, but I maybe have a glimpse inside the DNA of the story.  I can see parts of its larger structure and I might be able to better identify when passages of the book are expressing that DNA or need to hit the cutting room floor. 

Huzzah to process.  Huzzah to unconscious revelation.  Huzzah to putting my butt in the seat and making myself available to this kind of stuff. 

Back to the writing.  I still have to catch up on my word count.

Word Count for the morning: 1,670
Total Word Count: 37,011
Sample Sentence/Sentences: (You need to know that Misty got beaten up by Willy in a moment of sexual frustration.  He deadened one of her teeth in the process.)

                Having woken up from her nap on the seventh day, she stood in front of the mirror and watched her graying tooth.  While it didn’t visibly progress as she watched it, she fantasized that she could see the shadow spread throughout the tooth from some central point inside.  She saw the shadow spread from the tooth and into her gums, shading the pink into a grotesque blackness that made her shudder.  Yet, she could not look away.  She held herself in the frame of the mirror and saw the shadow spread from her gums to her tongue, felt the shadow slide like a syrupy thickness down her throat and into her stomach. 

                Something in her stomach aggravated the darkness and sent it into a new flurry of activity.  It caused a bloated hollowness that seemed to seep through her stomach’s lining and radiate outwards until the whole of her body was infected with darkness.  When she imagined herself fully converted to a creature of shadow, permeated down to a cellular level, she made a choking sound that broke suddenly into sobs.  She hadn’t cried since the day it happened, but this fantasy showed her that she was touchable.  She was vulnerable, something she would have insisted wasn’t true only a week ago.  She finally tore her gaze from the mirror and sat down on the cold tile of the bathroom.  She pulled her legs up to her chest, buried her face into her knees and weathered the storm of her own grief over her lost beauty. 

Nanowrimo - Day Twenty One (Caught Up!!!)

I didn't know if I was going to be able to catch up today, but I have been able to hammer out a couple of things that are starting to build energy. 

The organization Nanowrimo sends out little inspirational emails every couple of days to try and keep the energy going.  One of the things they said in the last email was that it is more fulfilling to skip ahead toward the end of the novel in an attempt to complete some of the "ending" before the month is over.  They say this provides more of a sense of closure on the month and that it is easy to go back and fill in the pieces rather than having an incomplete whole to work with once the month is over.

I decided to take their advice and I did some quick outlining and scene sketching in an effort to capture what it is I think I'm after for the ending.  I then skipped forward in time quite a bit and started writing some of the fallout from the events I'd detailed in the earlier parts of the month.  They were right!  It's done wonders in terms of producing energy for the material.  While all the connections are a little loose and there will obviously need to be major revamping in order to get everything to fall into place, the process is producing words.

I've gotten one full scene done today (which gave total insight into a character) and I've begun the beginning of another chapter that I think will give another one of my main characters a greater sense of purpose for the story.  These individual chapters are all starting to draw strange connections to each other and to feel like smaller parts in a larger whole.  It's exciting.

Another thing that is exciting is that I have yet to write a chapter that doesn't take a turn on me.  I begin with an idea in mind as to what my characters should be doing, but they ALWAYS wind up deciding to do something different that is weird and exciting and better than what I'd originally planned for them.  All of these detours and offshoots are starting to work together though in some strangely unconscious kind of way.  It's been a good writing day.

Word Count (Part 2): 2,483
Earlier Word Count: 2,103
Total Word Count for the Day: 4,586
Total Word Count for the Month: 35,313
Sample Sentence/Sentences:

                She got into her car, aimed her car out of the drive, and pulled out onto the road.  As she drove, she felt she was at least covering some of the distance, even if she didn’t, in the end, have a destination to drive to.

Nanowrimo - Day Twenty One (Playing Catch up)

So the weekend found me totally neglecting the novel.  I didn't write on Saturday or Sunday and now I find myself sucking tailpipe on the word count.  I'm working on not allowing my anxiety to get the best of me, but only allowing it to invite me back to the seat where I can write poorly.  That's the thing that is, in the end, allowing me to come back and hammer out a bunch of words.  I can write poorly.  I'm not overthinking anything, but dancing a lonely tango with my laptop.

I came home from work and immediately set out to play catch up.  I need to get back to grading papers tonight, but I was able to get 2,103 words in before the family came home.  I will work on getting back to it tonight too.  Wish me luck.  The next couple of days are going to feel like a sprint. 

Word Count: 2,103
Total Word Count: 32,830
Sample Sentence/Sentences:

                Katie looked around the country kitchen and saw jars of homemade preserves, fruit, and beans in the glass-faced cupboards.  She stood just inside the door of the kitchen and the woman went into action the moment her husband disappeared.  It was like a dance these two were doing.  The husband seemed to anticipate the wife’s needs and, once she appeared, disappeared in order for her to take over the elaborate choreography.