Here's my victory on tape!


Edit: Wow, Toronto is ALL OVER the NaNo site today!
My video is featured on the NaNo Video Site!...cool! And so is our Subway Write-In!. Finally, if you listen about half way through the latest NaNoRadio, I'm on that too :D

And with just under four days remaining in National Novel Writing Month....I bring you the following conversation that indicates the state of my brain.

linden_tree need happier subject. does incense ever expire?
gleefulfreak no!  in fact, it improves with age
gleefulfreak at least the good stuff does
linden_tree well then why is this stick so stupid?
linden_tree i light it...i blow it out, and it does nothing
gleefulfreak it is stupid!
gleefulfreak i usually light it, let it flare for a moment, then wave it around till the flame goes
linden_tree am i doing it wrong?
gleefulfreak if you don't let it catch enough before you extinguish the flame, it just won't burn
linden_tree *watches yet again as the flame extinguishes on its own, and it doesn't burn*

linden_tree *realizes how stupid she is, and turns the stick around*
gleefulfreak oh deb, TELL me you did not light the bamboo end
linden_tree *shifty eyes*
gleefulfreak if you lit the bamboo end, please go to bed because you need to sleep! :)
linden_tree i didn't pay attention when i stuck it in the thing
gleefulfreak that's why i like japanese incense - it's a solid stick, you can light either end, or break it and only burn a bit at a time
linden_tree ya...it's the incense's fault.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is my only text update for NaNoWriMo 2007. I hope you enjoyed it! I'm at 46289 so far, and expect to win tomorrow if I can manage to write my dark and disturbing scenes in a well-lit coffe shop full of hyper Wrimos.

Day 8
Day 9 (Excerpt!)

So last year I updated here like a fiend during NaNo, but this year I've taken a more visual approach and have been posting updates to the NaNo Video group. If you want to see how my NaNo is going, check these out :) Some of them are set onto private and can only be accessed by these random links; that's why I'm not just posting one link to my profile on there. Anyway, I'll post 'em up here as they go up, I'm trying to do one every day.

Day 1 & 2
Day 3 (featuring Joseph starting his NaNo and a trip to the store)
Day 4 & 5
Day 6 (Toronto Writing Session #2)
Day 6 (Challenge to NY and Chicago)
Day 7 (so very stressed)

I wrote nearly 6K today (including 924 in a 15 minutes word war)! I think a few minutes ago was the first time I ever cried and laughed at the same time and the crying wasn't just a symptom of the laughing.

Now I want some "AWESOME JUICE!"

The END is in sight! In exactly a week (though not at the same time everywhere), the clock will strike midnight and many thousands of people will put down their virtual or real pens. And it will be DONE! (As an aside: I must remember to donate this weekend)

So...where am I now? I've made quota on three of the last four days, but I'm still 5830 words short of where I should be. That's okay, because I am pretty sure I'll still be hired on Monday which means I can borrow the laptop for the overnight tomorrow.

But...my brain is degenerating! Perhaps only non-Nanoers will notice this, as everyone attempting this insane endeavor is probably experiencing their brain slipping away at the same rate. It's like when two people sit in a plane and though they're both moving, they don't perceive the other person as moving, but to someone on the ground looking up at the plane, both people are moving. Gimme a break, I'm tired, okay?

I could tell my brain was degenerating because I seemed unable to pronounce the simplest of words at choir practice last Wednesday. And these were the words of songs I already know. As a result I attempted to "Deck the balls with boughs of holly" after I implored God to give my Master "a good piece of meef." oO.

Tonight, I proceeded to end with this gem of a paragraph:

Just then, a wormhole happened, and out dropped some worms. They were big huge worms and they were purple colouered and then everyone knew why wormholes were called wormholes. God wasn’t too amused. He quicky metabolized all of the alcohol and God only knows (haha) what else was in his system). Then he stood up in all his roaring Godlikeness and said "WHAT ARE YOU WORMS DOING HERE?"

Gold. Solid gold.

I don't often spread my emotions across the blogsphere, but I'm rather stuck in self loathing today. The novel isn't going well at all which is probably why I haven't been doing regular updates this week. I don't feel wacky inside, so it's hard to write wacky, and I'm not having as much fun as I should be through the process. Problem is, I don't feel much like writing serious either. The thing needs a major overhaul, lest it degenerate into a stream of consciousness, and maybe trying to create a story arc and map out all the things I've already done would help? I don't know :( I feel like my fellow Nano'ers are writing brilliant epics, whereas most of what I've written is horribly flat.

It's not all to do with the novel. A lot of it has to do with the job situation, I'm sure. I may have been ready for a change, but now that it's actually here it seems daunting and difficult, and I question my own abilities and what I can tackle right now, although I did that even when I got this job and that all turned out fine. I feel very alone and frustrated with myself in every sense of the word, and that percolates through to everything, including the novel.

What I'd really like to experience on December 1st is a sense that I can actually achieve some serious wordcount. I know my first novel (the serious one that I had to drop on Day 2) is a novel that needs to be written, and I'd love the whoosh of the "wow, I can do this" behind me when I restart it next month. The journey of writing it will be hard enough without doubt creeping in. Not to sound horribly emotional, but I need that whoosh because I haven't had any inspirational adrenaline in a very long time.

Looks like this has gone from a Nano update to a digital imprint of my own insecurities. My blog, so I suppose I'm entitled.

Here are the positives of the weekend:

(1) I did hit half way today as I was dragging myself over quota (the first time in 5 days I've made quota, and just barely).

(2) The Nano social on Saturday was great fun. There was cool Nano Swag ( Behind the cut )

I'm off to sleep in just a moment, but I wanted to keep up with the running tally on here. I wrote 5244 over the weekend, thanks to two writing sessions and my brother helping me out by rambling on and on and give me words I could type brainlessly. This puts me a little behind where I'd like to be, but I'm over quota for the three days, so I'm catching up slowly. My counterpart in Chicago still has a slight edge on me though. I'm hoping to hit 20K tomorrow, which will put me just a day away from where I should be right now. I think I've done okay considering I'm still fighting the sick.



I've got two issues dragging me down right now:

1) The truth is, I'm feel that my wackiness is waning, and the fact that I actually like the chapter I posted makes my inner editor fight to be let out of her jail because there are expectations now. I'm going to start diving deeply into the lovely dares (and the Tickle Box). Of course, that's quite difficult when you're writing primarily on a laptop with no internet access, and the dares are all online, but I intend to have a paper copy in my hand by the end of work tomorrow. I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank those who came to my aid in the last post (believe me, it's all going in there, and I'll tell you how as soon as I know)!

2) Still no plot. It's beginning to be a problem because God can't go on flapping his arms forever. Right now I'm flitting between different random scenes. Something needs to happen and I have no idea what. Maybe it will come together in week three...in the mean time there will be heavy drinking and dream sequences where I will cram in as many dares as possible.

Week Two is not fun...but here's one thing about it: The Automatic Word Summary function! This is how word summarizes my novel in 100 words or less. Rather astute, I'd say. A little shorter than the excerpt I posted, so probably more readable :)

( Read on... )

Friends, I still have no plot. So...I've decided to devote some time to getting to know God (my main character) a little more, and he tells me that he wants to do some online quizzes. Lots of them. Paddings and paddings of them. Reams of them.

I've done a few usual ones like "What Season Are You" (he's Winter), but now I'm looking toward stranger waters and seeking answers to burning questions such as "if God were a dysfunctional Barbie Doll, who would he be?" (he's a sorority slut).

Here's where I plea for your help! If you have any favourite links to weird and strange (or even perfectly normal) quizzes, or have a vital question about God you'd like answered by the online quiz of some 13 year old girl with too much time on her hands, please let me know!

Screw this, no writing today.

My eyes are so bloody tired from looking at screens all day (even at work when I'm not Nano'ing, I'm still surfing because I have nothing else to do. Also, people would think something was wrong with me if I closed my eyes.) Why am I writing this now, damnit?

I've also gotten sick with a cold that is mugging up my head and making it really hard to sing, which is bad because we have another concert coming up and fast. I wanted to not put too much effort into choir tonight, but had to because 1/2 our soprano section were knocked out with some kind of sick and didn't come. So that required brain that I don't have.

Wednesday nights are bad anyway because I go straight from work to choir, and get home at 11pm. I tried, really I did, and took the laptop to write on the bus on the way to choir, but I had to pee so bad that I couldn't think about anything else. Although, if I was feeling better, I would have worked that into the novel somehow.

So all I accomplished today was reading "Week Two" in No Plot? No Problem! And also, I did something eccentric which was covering my face with blue toothpaste. It works, I swear.

DAMN YOU, WEEK TWO!

Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na JUNK FOOD!

Dear Friends,
Is it any surprise I feel lethargic and weighty? On Sunday I purchased all of this junk food, and I am steadily eating through it as I work on the novel. So far, I've gotten through one box of crackers, half the box of cookies, and two of three of those Rockets candies (my favourite, and most delicious).

How horrible, I know, and yet I feel as though I can be exuberant and crazy as I want to this month because I'm writing a novel! My superego can relax, and grant my Id and Ego permission to do anything (or slack off) because this month, I'm writing a novel!

This has cropped up in areas other than junk food binges, of course. So far this week I've...

Bought myself a Leafs Jersey

Majorly slacked off at the gym (only went once in 7 days)

Bought $45 worth of Lush stuff, including a moisturizer that has made my face break out absolutely horribly

Smeared bright blue toothpaste all over my face in an attempt to smooth said breakout

Created a huge yellow Nano Calendar that's up on the wall right now to keep track of my Word Counts (complete with shiny reward stars)

Started creating a weird Acapella song for Nano in my head, which I will hopefully get onto the computer just as soon as I get my mic back

*Yawns* I've written 4150 words in the last two days, thanks to three consecutive word wars on MSN last night, and some computer time I snuck in on the way home. The tangents are getting stranger and stranger. I'm still slightly behind (today's target is 11 667), but not too far behind now, so I should be pulling even by the weekend, latest.

So can I interest you in an excerpt?
( You know you want to! )

Not really caring aboutformatting/spelling in this day and age :) Feedback and suggestions for further literary madness always appreciated!
Night, all!

And here we are at the end of the first weekend! Although I'm still off the pace due to changing plots, I'm pretty happy with how things are progressing, and my new silly novel which I'm titling Taking Care of God is writing itself far more easily than it's predecessor.

I cannot extol the virtues of writing on a laptop enough! This afternoon, I settled on the couch with a blanket, and sipped tea and listened to Norah Jones as I wrote, and looked out of the window on occassion. One cannot comfortably curl up with a desktop. The one downside to this laptop is that I can't use the internet, which would be okay, except I need to rely heavily on the dares when the wackiness evades me, and it's nice having Word Wars to get me going once in a while.



And of course, laptops can be lugged around! Greg picked me up on Saturday morning and we went to the group writing session downtown at the Dundas & Roncessvalles Second Cup. One of my coworkers, Lida, who I'd convinced to take part came too. The place was absolutely packed full of people, and the staff were incredibly good natured about the whole thing. Naturally, we bought tons and tons of caffeine; I don't see the point in getting anything but an extra large (pictured above).

I managed to get about 2000 words down that session (we were there for about 4 hours) in between chatting with other Nano'ers, Greg who was much more focused wrote about 3600! I definitely do better when I have company; it was great to be able to shout out "hey, give me the name of a random thing," or draw a suggestion from the Ticklebox and work that into the story somehow. I'm trying to keep track of where different bits come from. Here's a picture of Greg, and Toronto's two lovely coML's, rachel and bunnyhero.





Sunday dawned, and again I managed to wake up earlier than I wanted to, after typing for an hour in bed before having a luxurious bubble bath the night before (hey, it's nice to have the house to oneself sometimes). Today wasn't quite as productive; I was tired and not feeling overly wacky, so I think my word count was maybe 600 or 700. Still, I spent about an hour inside the relaxing image with the couch and the tea before I fell asleep there with one arm around the laptop.

I was hoping to make 10K words this weekend; even though I didn't, I'm feeling pretty good, and looking forward to having another relaxing evening of writing tomorrow before the week begins to get hectic.

Stay tuned for more updates, pictures, and maybe even an excerpt?
Goodnight, everyone.

(*I actually wrote this up this morning but LJ was being dumb and didn't let me post.)

This is very early on a Saturday morning for me – yick, I can’t sleep. I’m afraid that Nano will eat me! I didn’t to update on this every day, but it turns out that I have loads of things to say.

I’d like to skip back to Day Two for a moment if I may, because even though I put Camille aside at the end of the day, I still learned something about the joys of Nano’ing!

Getting off work, I felt like I was in superhyped up mode. Why? Because No Plot? No Problem! had arrived at my local library and was waiting for me to rescue it. I seized it, opened it, and walked back into the mall. That was around 6:00. By 8:00pm, I was about 80 pages in, having covered Chapters 1, 2 & 3 during 30 minutes on the eliptical and squinting in the dark on my yoga mat just before class started, and read bits of Chapter 4 on the walk home, darting furtively between lamposts for light, and trying not to bang into poles and/or buses. By 9:00 I was well into Chapter 4, and had made myself a nice dinner. I also took the opportunity to spin around my house and make all the weird noises I could possibly think of during the 10 minutes my dad was gone to pick up his passport. I had to pent that up when he was around, because it turned out that hearing me yell “COOK FASTER DAMNIT, I HAVE A NOVEL TO WRITE” at the perogies wasn’t exactly his cup of tea.

Then it was computer time, and now that it came down to it, I was having a bit of a problem actually getting started because, as I said up there, the idea wasn’t going well and my characters had effectively decided to mute themselves and have me shove them around like bits of Playdoh. So I did what any other Nano’er would do...FORUMS!

I needed some motivation and fast (and Greg, one of the only friends I’ve been able to convince to come with me on this crazy adventure) was on Away mode. I clicked on over to the MSN thread in the "Word Wars" forum and started adding names like crazy, hoping someone would be online.

And oh, they were, they were! Within a few minutes, I was in a group chat with Greg, a girl from Montreal, a guy from England, a girl from Hong Kong, and another girl from New York. And then there was war! In 10 minutes, I wrote 571 words of absolute crap crap that didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter though, I was just happy to be writing something. So let it be known, Nano is a very powerful, unifying thing. And now back to the novel.

Day Three (Friday)

Of course as we all knew I was starting fresh on Day 3. I wrote a silly bit of prologue in a dull moment at work with absolutely no idea where it would go. Still, I enjoyed it and it was good to put something down on paper. Of course, I deleted the document by mistake and now I’m paranoid that the second one isn’t as good as the original.

Speaking of work, I found "Chapter 3: Noveling Nests, Magical Tools, and Growing Stockpile of Delicious Incentives" to be quite illuminating in terms of the "Do's" and “Don'ts" of writing at work. ( Mostly Don'ts... )

"...remember, above all else, that your novel is not a self-improvement campaign. Your novel is a spastic, jubilant hoe-down set to your favorite music, a thirty-day visit to a candy store where everything is free and nothing is fattening. When thinking about possible inclusions for your novel, always grab the guilty pleasures over the bran flakes. Write your joy, and good things will follow."
- No Plot? No Problem!, page 88.

*deep breath* I think I'm going to have to start again...even though I did do quite well today and am currently sitting at 2 231 words. That's mostly thanks in part to a word war where I managed 571 words in 10 minutes. Mostly garbled of course, which just messes up my sense of direction.

Here's the problem. My current attempt is exactly that: an attempt to self-improve. I'm funneling all the issues I've been struggling to resolve into my poor character, Camille/Cayenne. She's drowning in the weight of it all, but I can't help her because I don't know how to help myself. And because she's crumbling, she can't attempt anything else resembling a plot. I can't throw in wacky, provoking characters or dares. So all in all, the word supply is drying up.

I know it's early, and I know plots and resolutions don't emerge in a day, but it's not just that. Writing this novel would be insatiably dark, and it's hard enough to tackle those things when I'm not obsessing over wordcounts. A novel in 30 days? Bring it on. A complete psychological makeover? Not happening.

I'm really sad to do this, I'm attached to it and I know it's a good idea, and I hate to leave Camille in limbo with the one line she's spoken thus far. I swear I'll bring her back in December. In the mean time, maybe what I need is a little fantasy and whimsy to take myself away.

...and my internal editor won't shut up. Seriously. I need to build a physical representation of her, and shove her in a cage, or possibly burn her to paper shreds. I sort of feel like I have to edit, since whatever plot ends up happening will probably be more of a character plot than an action plot. Every word the characters say, or at least their intent must be clear, because otherwise no plot will form. This is why I've written only...



I'm doing better than I thought I won't be. I didn't intend to write last night at all, and tonight I knew there would be no time because usually I get home from choir practice and go right to sleep.

Also, I realize that I absolutely can't write this at work. I tried for a couple of minutes in between lots of busy paper work, and the phone rang and I got mad. That can't happen, as it's my job to answer the phone. Tomorrow I'm bringing home my laptop, and I'm hoping things may go more smoothly from there. At the very least, it will mean more writing time.

Well, I'm out for the night, my friends. I'll leave you with ( the first paragraph )

My computer's social life as the clock struck midnight. A truncated snapshot.

( It begins... )
So..it's just past 1:00AM. I've written 140 words, but they're not horrible words. They're full of metaphors which means more words. It was a cute little prologue anyway that glossed over the fact that I have no idea what's going on.

Did anyone else do any late night writing?

Edit: If you want to see how I'm doing every so often, check out my author profile, here.

The following service announcement is here so that people reading it who have not yet heard of this madness still have a few days to become ensnared if that is what they wish:

National Novel Writing Month* begins in just 5 days!

*That's a goal of writing 50 000 words (or roughly 175 pages that constitute a short novel) in 30 days.

I was going to write a few meandering paragraphs on what I'm pondering, but since I will be enroute to Montréal in roughly 8 hours, here are a few mangled sentences. Before that though, warm hellos to my new friends off the Nano boards.

Do I have a plot? Hell no!
Am I scared? Quite, but what's life without periodic insanity?


...free hug?