Clips

So, about a week ago this guy from the Denver Post wrote me an e-mail about NaNo. I answered his questions and he wrote this article.

And then I showed it to some friends at the Greeley Trib and they did a story also.

Kind of strange how these things work...

Anyway, woke up this morning ... and without needing to (since I finished the NaNo month), I actually wrote... another 2,000 words. I will eventually get this book finished... then I'll sent out pitch letters to agents for my last book, "Wrath"... then I'll finish making the final edits to Wrath and start editing "Black Sheep." All of that should take me until next November when I actually write again!

Done!

When I planned to stop writing this morning, I was 200 words shy of 50K.
Couldn't let that happen. So I finished it off! Now I'm a winner.
Of course, the novel isn't done. Probably take another month or so to do that (not quite on the same hectic pace). But I'll do it.

Home stretch

Despite a near triptaphan (sp?) overdose (coupled with an excessively high pumpkin pie count), I was able to keep up on my writing over the holidays. I'm now at 46,021. That's just a smidge under the pace, but should be no problem to do especially since there's nothing good on TV this week until Wednesday (LOST!!!).

The novel is going really well. I like my protagonist family. I think the bad guy is pretty real, but still pretty spooky. The tense scenes make me tense. The scary scenes scare me. This is really the first time that's happened. It's really fun.

Because I'm nearing the end of this grand adventure, I want to document all the other things I was able to accomplish this month on top of writing a 50K-plus word novel:

• Put up all the inside and outside decorations for the holidays (and removed the ones from Halloween!)
• Attended every one of Alex's basketball practices and games.
• Unloaded the dishwasher almost every day
• Did the lion's share of the laundry
• Visited with friends and relatives over Thanksgiving break
• Saw a few movies
• Watched most of the TV shows I normally watch (on tape!)
• Helped get my kids up-to-date on all the past Star Wars movies
• Played racquetball every week (twice a week most of the time with an extra session with Dan!)
• Had two poker nights (really, really late nights!)
• Did a Guy's Write Nite with Alex
• Met a couple times with my fellow NaNo folks in Greeley
• Got to play with Alex and Andy a lot!
• Helped get the house cleaned up and presentable (not as easy as it sounds, trust me!)
• And worked a full-time job

Next year when I think I'm too busy to do NaNo, I just want to be able to read this again.

The Wall

Runners call it The Wall. I think. I have no real idea. I try to avoid running whenever possible.
But my understanding is that The Wall is that thing you hit when your body tells you to just shut down. Real runners break through The Wall and keep going.
Why all this background in running? Well, I think I hit the writer's version of The Wall this morning. I only got 1,000 words and each one was a struggle. My body was none too pleased about waking up another morning at 4:30 a.m. (almost as much as Tracy who keeps getting the brunt of my alarm clock).
So, I'm now slightly below pace at 34,514 words after a disappointing weekend for writing (but pretty good other than that). And I have hit The Wall.
But like those strange runners in the world, I need to break through it. Seems to me this happens every year for NaNo. It does suck, though. But I just have to force myself to keep writing. Even if it's just 1,000 words at a time. Eventually I'll break out. Better happen soon, though. The end of November is looming!

Twilight zone

So, I was writing a scene for NaNo this morning (I'm at 28,003 for anyone who might care) and it involved the dad of my family fixing himself a sandwich in the kitchen. He turns on the radio and "Living on a Prayer" comes on by Bon Jovi and it is later followed by CCR's "Fortunate Son."
I don't know why I picked those two songs. They just came to me.
Later, I was driving into work and I turned on the radio just in time to hear the DJ say, "That was Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' and before that was 'Fortunate Son' by Creedance Clearwater Revival."
Freaky, huh?
In a related matter, I'm headed to the store later to buy lottery tickets.

50 percent

Well, I passed the halfway mark this morning. I'm at 26, 048.
The good news is that my novel isn't halfway done. That's actually a first. In the past I've had to milk my story for extra words as I neared the end. Last year, the final version was about 65,000 which is still a little short for a "real" marketable novel.
I have a feeling this one will be in the 75,000 to 100,000 word total at the end. But it's really good. This morning I actually scared myself with something I came up with. It's kinda fun writing in a quiet basement all by yourself. Nice and creepy.
Also, last night, I had a dream that this book was No. 2 on the bestseller list (I'm sure it was the DaVinci Code in front of mine!). We had lots of money and I was doing talk shows. It almost sucked to wake up, except that I woke up to go write.

The Force is with me

After amassing a word count of absolutely ZERO on Saturday, I kicked hiney on Sunday and this morning. Now I'm back slightly ahead of the pace at 24,104.

The surprising part for me was that I did all of my writing after a marathon movie session with my kids.

Here's how it started:
I took the boys to Burger King after Alex's basketball game Saturday. They each got a Star Wars toy featuring the Stormtoopers. That made them ask me what a Stormtrooper was.
So, I said we would watch the original Star Wars on Sunday. We did that Sunday morning and they were hooked. That led to the next two movies (don't worry we did get outside to play, also!). But when your kids ask you about Star Wars, it's worth putting other stuff off to show them, right?

That's what I thought. And I was rewarded with a hugely productive writing session that pushed my word count into orbit (OK, so it wasn't to the 25K I wanted, but it was still good).

May the Force Be With You.

Keeping it in the family

My word count sucks today... I'm at 18,135.
But I have a pretty good excuse. Last night Alex's school had a really interesting program called Guys Write Nite where all the boys in the class brought their dads into the class from 6-8 p.m. and all we did was write together. Alex's teacher is doing some sort of thesis or something on boys and dads and writing. But it was really fun. Alex was so into it. He knew I've been doing a bunch of writing (especially lately) and he liked being a part of that.
We wrote some fun stories about our road trip to California a year ago and then we made up a story about a boy named Chicken-Butt (Alex's favorite word). In the end, we had about 1,400 words -- that don't count toward NaNo.
Of course, that was only two hours, right? So, what's my REAL excuse?
Well, I did have to write my regular bi-weekly column for the newspapers. That was 650 words -- all of which had to be good enough to be publishable (not quite the standard I hold for my NaNo novel, where I spent about 300 words talking about how my family had bought a new hot water heater (and, no, it has nothing to do with the story ... I think).)
Still that wasn't all my time. How about ER live, Survivor on tape last night and then The Apprentice on tape this morning. How sad and pathetic is that, huh? Well, at least I got 1K-plus done this morning. But now I'm behind the pace again.
This weekend will be the time. In fact, I'll lay down the gauntlet right here... I will have 25K by Monday!
You read it here first!

Pluggin away

My little progress meter isn't working right now. The guy who hosts it got overwhelmed with bandwidth and couldn't keep it going.

So, my count now is 14,310. I'm only slightly under the pace I need. I need one great evening writing session to put me back in the black.

The story is actually progressing well. It is really fun to see how the characters progress. I am also limiting myself with the number of characters. I have my family of four and my one bad guy. That's it. It's really fun to develop them a lot more than trying to do too much with too many others.

10K

I'm still behind the pace, but I passed the first milestone this morning as I hit 10,000 words. The story is going really well. Probably too well. My internal editor is not letting me write the crap that normally propels me. It keeps saying, "You're just going to have to fix it later, so make it good now." Pro is at least it's slightly better than crap. Con is that I'm dragging. I'm thinking of blindfolding my internal editor and beheading him on live TV just for fun!

I'm pretty tickled about hitting 10K actually. I haven't really given up on other stuff to do it. Had a late-night poker game Friday, watched Alex's first basketball game Saturday, went to two movies with Tracy and some friends Saturday night and I actually made my first pie (gluten-free!!!) on Sunday.

With all of that, 10K sounds pretty good.

Slow cruise

I realize I have probably bored anyone who may be reading this with all my references to NaNo lately, but this thing practically consumes me in November, so that's what I'm thinking about.
I'm at 4,384 words on Day 3. It's not bad. I'm slightly below the pace I need to finish and I'm more than a little concerned about the weekends (4:30 a.m. is fine on a weekday, but not sure about Saturday ... especially this Saturday because I have friends coming over for poker on Friday!).
Anyway, the story is going well. I've abandoned my original plan of making this a sequel to my last book with the same detective. I really enjoyed the thought of someone living in someone's house without them knowing about it. So, I decided to scrap the police and have it be a bad guy vs. good guy thing in the house.
The creepy part is that the family in my book lives in a house that's laid out like my real house (so much for imagination, huh?!?). So, now I keep looking in all these hidden crevices and it's kinda freakin' me out a little.
Guess that's good, right? If I scare myself, it's gotta get other people, right?

Started

So, last night we hosted 18 family and friends for our annual Halloween party. Our house (formerly clean, I swear) is a disaster. We cleaned up enough last night so we could still walk around. Tonight I have racquetball. Wednesday is basketball practice for Alex. Thursday is racquetball with Dan and Friday we're hosting a poker party for my friends so the house has to be back in some semblance of order.
On top of all of that (oh, yeah, and work!) I started my quest this morning at 4:30 a.m. to write 50,000 words in one month. I got 1,400 words. It's a slow start (mainly because it took me awhile to come up with my bad guy's name ... Anthony Speck!) but I knew the first little bit would be tough because I had to set up the main scene. Now I get to have some fun!
Hard to believe I actually can't wait for my alarm to go off at 4:30 a.m.!?!?!