I WON!!! Woohooo!!!

Stayed up ALL night on Sunday, wrote 12,000 words, and went to sleep at 9:30 in the morning Monday as the proud completer of a 50,050 word novel. Still have enough editing to take out a rhino, but I think I can make it through. And for some horrific reason unbenownst to man or myself, I have not yet posted up the link to my profile so that the world can revel in the magnificence of my glorious blue bar (not to mention an excerpt about ninjas).

Here goes: http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=120766

Oh yes, and here's my latest sentence. A winner, if I may say so myself.

"The crisp autumn air hit her like a package of meat."

I couldn't have said it better myself...

I have again been a bit of a slacker in keeping the countries of the world informed on the novel writing front. However, last night I stopped writing at 38,951 words, leaving me just shy of 39,000 words exactly, by 49 words to be precise. My father challenged me to write a sentence of exactly 49 words, thus putting me exactly at the 39,000 mark. Here's the sentence, and yes it's 49 words so you don't need to waste your time counting:

"Patrick walked through the lobby, shiny black shoes on polished stone floor, to the elevator at the other end, where another snazzy coated white gloved man stood looking rather like he had just walked out of an Edward Gorey book and was missing only a monocle in his eye."

The only part I lament is that I sadly had to cut out the word stoutly, which was in there somewhere... I don't even know where anymore, but I like the word stoutly. Too bad.

Daniel is a savior, a mover a mountains, a shaper of worlds. I have a plot now, hit man and all.

*cheers gleefully and skips off into the sunset*

Epic Tales from the Front Lines of NaNoWriMo 2006

I set out on this month's journey beginning with a character based upon myself, putting her in my life, and starting with events exactly as they happened to me. I intended to break off along the first tangent that presented itself. It soon became clear, however, that no such tangent was doing anything of the sort. I was simply increasing my word count further and further with an accurate depictment of my life (that is, if my name were Sarah). Beginning to feel a bit panicky, I wrote the following letter:

Dear Plot,

Will you please grow a backbone? I did not offer you my entire life story for you to leech onto. Just one, simple, personal issue. You have now taken more than your share of my life and mind, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would find your own path. I do not create weak plotlings that follow in everybody else's footsteps, thank you very much. Now get Sarah out of MY grandmother's apartment and into somewhere interesting where SHE belongs or I'm going to have to let my inner editor decide what to do with you.

Trying to remain civil,
Your Mother

Astonishingly enough, when I returned to my work the next day, Sarah immediately got out of my grandmother's apartment - in fact she even ran away, excitingly enough - and off to much more interesting things of which I was not a part, thankfully. However, it then became apparent that although my plot had indeed found its own voice, it was NOT a voice I wanted to hear. Out of my grandmother's apartment turned out to be into a cafe where she did nothing other than meet a cute Irish guy for whom she hasn't stopped swooning since. This was CERTAINLY not something I had in mind, so once again I wrote a letter explaining to my plot just what I thought of it's idea of a turn of events:

Dear Plot,

Alright, I have to hand it to you. I told you to give yourself a good kick in the pants and get moving, and you did. Congratulations on that, I commend you and I appreciate it greatly.

However...

I do NOT write chick lit for crying out loud! When I sent you out of my life to go find your own voice, I meant something that I, your author, might actually enjoy! I am not amused by an MC who is based upon yours truly having nothing better to think about than some cute Irish guy she met in a cafe, kapiche?

Now lets get some action around here or I'm gonna have to blow up her plane, and we BOTH know how detrimental that would be to the storyline.

Thank you,
Your Mother

Miraculously, my plot once again listened. I was given a storyline, an actual storyline to work with, something that may actually be salvageable into something half decent, given several months of editing. I was so impressed by my little plotling I just had to write another letter:

Dear Plot,

You're the greatest. I've written you two angry letters so far and each time you have not failed to whip yourself into shape right away. I wish I could give you a present or something, but I'm not quite sure how to go about that. Let me know if you'd like any explosions or anything and I'll see what I can do.

Much love,
Your Mother.

Nevertheless I soon came to find that EVEN with a half decent plot laid out in front of me, the whole thing was still sounding rather pansy. Only 15 pages in and probably two thirds of it has been spent in cafes, and this Irish guy is still popping up too often for anyone's good. Feeling useless once again, I wrote the following letters:

Dear NaNoWriMo Forums,

You are seriously damaging to my word count. Is there any way you can please not be so distracting? I'm still about 1500 words short of catching up to today's quota, so if you could just disappear entirely and let me finish, that would be great.

Distractedly,
Captain Hook

P.S. Don't even THINK about mentioning the irony of this letter...


Dear Cast of Characters,

I would like to give all of you a swift kick in the pants. Grow a grain of sense, will you?

Irritatedly,
Your Mother


Dear Plot,

We've been through this a million times now, and I know you're doing a much better job of giving me an actual story line to work with, but GET OUT OF THE EFFING CAFE'S WILL YOU? Ceaseless conversations over tea and coffee do NOT constitute action!

Getting impatient,
Your Mother

I soon left to finish my banis and other miscellaneous meditations, during which I had an epiphany about how good my potential plot might actually be able to become given the proper effort and editing time. I was reinspired and returned to my document with an iron will. No sooner had I typed three sentences, however, when I suddenly realized to my utter horror that we were back in my life! My character was suddenly planning a trip through Europe with none other than a friend based on Sierra herself! How did this happen?? Will somebody please grow some sanity around here??

The war is on.