Soup

I made it to 15,500 words on my nano book as of last night. Today at lunch May was having lunch too with a king and the maybe-pirate. For some reason, I decided that the meal was made up of three courses, each of them soup. I spent a paragraph describing the soups.

Today is gloomy and looks like rain. Maybe I'll make soup (just one kind) tonight and stare out at the melancholy rain and write.

Also, I just remembered with great joy that I have an unopened box of chocolate covered cherries at home.

Other people's enthusiasm

I got home from an exhausting day at work to find Mom waiting for me in the side yard. She looked so smug that I thought she'd done something crazy--bought that moldy house on Dogwood Road, maybe, or bought tickets to the Nutcracker even though she knows I loathe ballet. It just turned out that she'd passed the 25,000 word mark on her nano book while I was at work. I bought her a used copy of No Plot, No Problem on Thursday and it's revitalized her book. She talks about it all the time, in between asking me how my wordcount is going.

Not so good, actually. I've been sitting in front of the computer all evening, trying to dredge up enough enthusiasm for my own nano book to do more than type a few lines between tower defense games. I've managed to inch past the 12,000 word mark, but it is not going well. I'm bored bored boredboredbored with this story. I want to go back to Bell-Men.

I just have 38,000 words to write. I can do that on my head. Maybe if I remind myself how sweet it will be when I surpass Mom's wordcount and BEAT HER TO THE FINISH LINE.

1,061 words an hour

I have an hour for my lunch, and today (as I usually do) I pulled out my sandwich, chips, and spiral notebook to write while I ate. I figured I'd written maybe 500 words, but when I typed it up, I'd written 1,061 words. Nice! I didn't even realize I could write longhand that fast.

Of course it's rotten, wretched, horrible writing, and I suspect the next scenes are going to include a bounty hunter with a tame werewolf or something equally illogical, but it's engaging me reasonably well. I do intend to wrap it up right at 50,000 words when I get there instead of making this a full-length novel.

Mostly, I want to get back to my Bell-Men rewrites. Even when I'm actively writing The Dragon Whisperer, I catch myself thinking of the next scene I want to include in Bell-Men. That's where my interest really lies. Much as I'm enjoying hanging out with May and the maybe-pirate Petersen, I want to return to Cam and her troubles even more.

Too much math

I play the online game Kingdom of Loathing, and today I ran afoul of the Dwarven Factory Complex Puzzle. I've spent the last hour figuring out the code for which rune stands for which word--I got that part without too much trouble--and then struggling with converting the digit runes to real numbers and then from base-7 digits to base-10. *weeps hysterically* I can't do it. I simply can't do it.

Finally I gave up, because my eyes were glazing over and I was wasting time I could be using to type up today's handwritten NaNo pages. I don't like giving up on this sort of thing, but I know when I'm beaten. I'll try again after NaNo when I have more free time. So anyway, after I gave up I checked my email, and my editor at Ancient Tomes needs me to fill in a W-9 before she can figure my royalties for Jack of All Trades. I printed off the form and started to fill it out.

*weeps hysterically some more* I think the Dwarven Factory Complex Puzzle is actually easier than figuring out if I am an Individual/Sole Proprietor or an Exempt Payee. The Dwarven Factory Complex Puzzle fried my brain, but the IRS's W-9 form has fried my soul.

Writey write write

I dug in and wrote today, even though it's Tuesday and Tuesdays are my long days at work. I wrote longhand, so of course I had to type it all up when I got home. Considering that I had a lot of really important stuff to do when I got home, like play video games, I didn't get started typing until about an hour ago.

I typed over 2,000 words before I quit just now because I have to get to bed. And I didn't even finish typing up everything I wrote! I think I'll do okay in Nano this year after all.

The story is rocketing along. I really like the character of May. She's very different from any character I've ever written--tough, confident, practical, and stubborn--and she and her maybe-pirate boss snark at each other constantly, which is a lot of fun to write. The writing may not be first-rate, but I'm having fun.

No Name May

I've written 2,500 words on my new NaNo book. Sorry, Tiger, you've been kicked out of the NaNo club. Enter The Dragon Whisperer, which has managed to engage my interest. I may not have to give up in frustration after all!

I am having fun, oddly enough. Yesterday Mom and I took a two-mile walk down by the river and discussed our NaNo projects. We came up with enough of a plot for me to get started, and we both agreed that we needed to approach our projects without such grim determination.

My starting idea was: a woman who used to be famous for communicating with animals and making them do her bidding had to retire from the business when her ghost friend--whose ability she was using--vanished. Now she's been called out of retirement with an offer she can't refuse.

Within 500 words, I'd given the woman an interesting job in a shipping office. She's pretty sure her boss is a pirate. I immediately started to change the idea, morphing it into something that would allow the maybe-pirate to be involved. As of now, the maybe-pirate was injured when his ship ran aground during a storm, and he told the harbor authorities that the woman is his wife and she's just now gotten him home and is about to find out what he's up to. Fun!

On the other hand, you will notice that I have not named the poor woman. Her current name is _, which is not a name at all but a placeholder. I think she goes by May but it's short for something longer. This is the first time I've written this much into a book without knowing the main character's name. At least it's in first person, because otherwise the page would be sprinkled with underscores.

Only two months left in 2009!

Here is is, November 1, and I've written 800 words on my Nano book. I stayed up to midnight last night to start (since I was watching Ghost Hunters anyway). Those 800 words were like pulling teeth. I hate the story, I hate the setting, I hate everything about it. I suspect I'm going to pitch it and just start writing for fun. I never write for fun anymore; even my fun projects, like Bell-Men, are meant for publication. That's what Nano is for, after all: write and write and write, and have fun doing it even though at times it's hard. I think I'll just do this year's Nano book stream of consciousness style and see how it works.

For one thing, last night I dreamed I was stuck in a house that had me trapped. It was a magical house and I was its slave, keeping the magic going even though it meant I couldn't sleep or eat. I didn't mind, because I loved the house and I wanted it to be in good condition. I woke up feeling a little creeped out, because it's not a big jump to see that the house in my dream can easily stand for my writing career. I don't have to work 24/7. I can slack off and enjoy myself without trying to produce something I can necessarily sell.

Anyway, since we're sliding down the last hill toward 2010, I think I'll revisit my goals for 2009:

land an agent
sell a novel
sell a novel to a major publisher (i.e. one which will get my books on shelves)
sell at least four short stories
sell a story to a SFWA pro market
write at least six short stories (flash doesn't count)
write at least two novels
finish writing White Rose

Yes, BT, I know I can't control a lot of this. :) Still, I've done rather well in spite of my setting my goals way too high. I have sold a novel to Double Dragon--not a major publisher, but not a major novel either. I've sold far more than four short stories and written five (not counting flash). I've written two novels, Blood and Taxes and Bell-Men. I've already decided to jettison the last goal, since White Rose is pretty bad. If I'm going to write a bad novel, I should write it during Nano.

Since publishing grinds along so slowly, I think I can safely say I won't sell a novel to a major publisher in 2009. I'll push that goal, and the agent goal, to 2010. And I do have one story out to a SFWA pro market; we'll see how it does. I should hear just before the end of the year.

And now to The Baby Name Wizard, to pick out the name of my new Nano protagonist!