Just wanted to check in regarding my status for NaNoWriMo.

After tomorrow night, (assuming I come home and write) I’ll only need 10,000 more words.  That’s about 2,500 words on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which is totes doable.

However, at this point I kind of feel like I did when I went to the doctor as a child right after I peed.  One time the doctor told me to go pee in a cup and I looked at my mom panic sticken and announced that I had already gone, and she just shrugged and said, “you can always squeeze out a little more.”

The story is kind of like that to me.  I feel like I already let so much out that I don’t have any more, but I have to keep squeezing and pushing out the stuff that might not be ready to come out yet.

So.

That’s a great analogy.

Anyway, I’m still feeling accomplished, though I’m quickly coming to recognize how naive it was to think “I’m writing a novel in a month!”  Yes, the novel will be done in the sense that it has a beginning, middle, and end–but damn, there will be so much more to do when it’s done.  At the end of the Pep Talk book for this project, it even says, “Now that’s your done… are you ready to spend another year with this story and it’s characters?”

When I read that today (I skipped ahead), I was surprised.  I mean, I knew I was going to go back and add and expand and rewrite, but when I really map out everything I want to do that to… yeah, a year seems about right.  And that’s a long time.  I’m not sure I have the patience to give this novel what it needs to really become what I want it to be.  But I suppose I can try, and take it one day at a time like I did this month.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I feel incredibly accomplished at reaching the half-way point of this project.  I gave myself lots of pats on the back when the word count crossed the 25,000 mark.  It’s like climbing a mountain (sort of, I guess), because if you’re half-way through your journey that means it’s all downhill from there.  “The worst is over,” and all that.  So, yay.

“The worst,” in that sense, has been one of the biggest obstacles in the way of this goal:  that little voice in my head that says whatever I’m writing is total crap.  Chris Baty, who started the whole NaNoWriMo thing, wrote sort of a pep-talk book you’re supposed to read the month before (which I did), and he calls this voice “your inner editor.”

It’s much easier said than done, but once you “fire” this inner editor it’s a lot easier to write, and the more you write the eaiser it is to get further and further away from the voice until a new one comes along that’s even a little encouraging.  I’m happy to say that’s happened for me.

I’ll rekindle with the more cynical inner editor on December 1st, but right now I want to celebrate the half-way point by posting another excerpt before he gets back and calls it total crap.

Click here — it’s a PDF this time, with copy protection enabled, because someone told me I better do that else some shady character comes along and claims my work as his own.  So you can’t print it or export it into Word… but you should be able to at least read it.  I mean, that’s the goal.  So if you can’t, please let me know.

This picks up about 17 hours after Clay has been trapped in the elevator, or about 10 hours after the first excerpt (I think).  Don’t worry too much about spoilers, because a lot will change in the re-write, and the only thing that’s really given away at the end of this is that Clay is having a rough time in there.

Thanks for reading!

I posted the excerpt from the novel on the NaNoWriMo page as well, and someone read it and sent me the following comment and I had to share it because it totally made my day:

Adam,

Your excerpt is great! I love Stephen King and I think you do a great job of emulating his ability to create relatable, human characters, while nevertheless retaining your own voice. Keep it up!

Well alllllright!

I’ll be halfway done on Sunday, though I’m realizing what I’m writing is probably going to end up being nothing more than a pretty coherent outline.  To really make it the novel I envision, 50,000 words just isn’t enough.  I’m going to try to go back and expand on things to get the word count closer to 100,000 – 120,000 after the basic story is worked out this month.

Anyway, thanks again for all the kind words and support through email, Twitter and DM, and NaNo mail.

I’ve been having fun writing everyday, and honestly 1,667 words a day is really not that much.  The problem is falling behind, as I did this past weekend, so when you miss two days in a row suddenly on the third day you realize you have to write 5000 words to stay on target, which is not so easy.

There’s good days and bad, and on the bad days I can still eek out 500 or so words so I’m still treading water.  I’m only about 2000 words behind, but plan to do some catching up this weekend.

One person has asked to read some, so I’m going to post some below.  This sort of violates the rules since by showing people it sort of cements the scene in place and makes it harder to edit later if need be, but I feel like the scene is pretty solid as it is.

Anyway, I condensed a 10 page scene down to 3 pages and posted it below.  To give you an idea of word count as it translates into length, the excerpt below is about 2500 words–or about a day and a half’s worth of work.

Read the synopsis of the novel in the last post if you’re not familiar with the plot.  This excerpt picks up about 6 hours after Clayton got stuck in the elevator.  And if you can’t view the word count graph in the last post but want to keep track of me, you can go to my NaNoWriMo page here and click “Stats.”

Hey, thanks for reading.  Comments & critiques welcome, as always.

Read the rest of this entry »

What you see below is a graph charting my progress in NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and you can read more about it here.  After two years of coming up with various excuses (actually, there’s a JulNoWriMo, too, every July, so I’ve had make excuses 4 times now), I’ve realized a very important life truth…  you will not have time for something unless you make it.

So this year it’s all or nothing:  either I prove to myself I can write, or I give up that dream.  Even though I am purchasing a house and moving this month–which would actually have been a good excuse–I’ve comitted to this.

The graph below updates automatically so you can track my progress, if you choose.  The yellow bars are my word count for the day and the blue bars are the daily goals, all the way up to 50,000.  It will be humiliating to have said all that and then crash and burn in the middle of the month, so part of the reason I post this is to keep myself motivated.

See you at the end of the month!

UPDATE: So there used to be a graph here, but it apparently didn’t work. Anyway, I have a little widget on the right side of the screen that tracks word count.

What’s the novel about?  Well, I have a rough idea.  So far I’ve put together this little blurb, recognizing it may change as the story develops.

After years of pestering her boyfriend to propose, when the day comes Bethany Kibler says no.  She immediately regrets her decision but when her boyfriend fails to come home from work the next day and doesn’t return any of her phone calls, she is forced to accept the fact that he has moved on and she should, too.

Except he hasn’t.  Clayton Ross would love nothing more than to go home.  But he is stuck, trapped in the elevator on his way out of the office.  He can’t get out–and it’s a holiday weekend, with no scheduled building activity.

Both are forced to evaluate the kind of relationship they have with one another and themselves, while confronting their very worst fear: belong alone.

Until, after a failed escape attempt that leaves a hole in the ceiling of the elevator, Clayton starts to convince himself that he’s not alone–not really.

Because from the darkness above, something keeps looking at him.