NaNo 2005: The Wrap-up

Aw, crap. I did it again, didn't I? I completely let time get away from me and almost didn't get a post up for the entire month of December.

(Actually, I'd been planning to do a year end wrap-up after the holidays, but I got a nudging reminder from a reader that I'd left the results of the NaNoWriMo thing up in the air. So consider this a brief update until I get all ponderous and melancholy about my life next week.)

I finished NaNoWriMo again this year, crossing the finish line at 50,949 words on the morning of November 25th. Miraculously, the story doesn't completely suck. It's still in need of some major editing; some scenes need to be fleshed out towards the end, and some tangents need to be expanded upon. The "John Hughes movie" gimmick needs some polishing. But all in all, I'm pleased with the results. (I'm also pleased with the fact that I resisted and didn't do grievous bodily harm to my antagonist. There was a particular chapter where I completely loathed him to the point of having to walk away from the keyboard. It's a miracle that his next appearance in the story didn't conclude with something like this:

I smiled at him, reaching behind the sofa to retrieve the flamethrower I'd left back there for just such an occasion. "After all this time, I'd hoped you would have some sort of respect for my feelings," I remarked, checking the settings on the weapon. "But I guess I always saw things the way I wanted them to be rather than the way they actually were."

The color drained from his face. "Can't we talk about this?" he asked nervously, carefully setting his wine glass down on the coffee table.

I shook my head. "What's the use? I can't remember the last time you were honest with me."

I pulled the trigger and watched as the flames engulfed the recliner. Damn. That was going to come out of my security deposit.

Doesn't really have that cheeky chick lit feel to it, does it?

So, yeah. The evil ex character lives. I not only spared his life, I actually gave him a chance at redemption in the last scene. I'm a hopeless sap.

In addition to contending with evil ex-boyfriend characters and plotlines that jumped back and forth between present day and 1987, I kind of ended up as the de facto Municipal Liaison for the Cincinnati area. Our official ML had asked back in October if I could cover for her while she was out of the country for a week or so in mid-November. She organized the Kick-Off party the weekend before Halloween, and then... well, I don't know. She dropped off the face of the earth. Her last post to her online journal was on November 2nd, she disappeared from the NaNo forums, she didn't reply to any of my emails. In despeartion, I randomly selected a coffee house for the Saturday meeting. And the Tuesday meeting. And the following Saturday's meeting... And the Midway Day party... And you can see where this is going, huh? (It's now almost a month later, and I still haven't heard a thing from her. She posted a few times to her journal, and both I and another NaNo writer made "welcome back" comments to no response. Oh well.)

Somewhere over the course of many drinks at the Thank God It's Over party at the Dubliner, a vote was taken by the other NaNos and I was elected the new ML. I was not present for this coup; I was in the bathroom at the time. (Hmm. I see a new motto for next year. It's not as good as "I only signed up for the parties!" though.)

At one point I stopped writing to make a seed beed necklace. Hey, it was integral to the plot. Calling it method writing.

I'm in the process of compiling the soundtrack this week. I have to hunt down a few songs that I currently only have on vinyl or never got around to buying. Who knew I would need Anthrax's cover of "Bring tha Noise" at this point in my life? So it's off to the iTunes Music Store with me, I suppose. Hopefully that will inspire me to actually edit this year....

This year's NaNo was brought to you by Chock Full O' Nuts, Gallo Café Zinfandel, Sampoerna Xtras, Smithwick's, the Highland Coffee House, Rhapsody New Wave Radio, and WOXY Vintage.

NaNoWriMo Update, Day 11

Ah, November. The best of times, the worst of times. The time to drag every bad cliché and plot idea out of storage and throw them against the metaphorical wall in hopes that something will stick long enough to drag 50,000 words out of it.

After last year's experiment ("let's start with no plot whatsoever!"), I decided to do a little planning. I scribbled down a few pages of notes, doled out a few name changes to protect the innocent, and... fell asleep on the couch at 11:30 pm on October 31st, resulting in me missing the starting gun at 12:01 am. Oh well.

I'm writing chick lit this year. I find this funny because I can count the number of chick lit novels I've actually read on one hand. (Two of them have the name Bridget Jones in the title, and the other one involves haircuts named Betty and a Tiny Wooden Hand.)

So here we are, one third of the month in. How am I doing?

I have unexpectedly become the surrogate Municipal Liason for the Cincinnati writers (along with bardiphouka, another of the seasoned NaNo vets). It seems that Steph, our actual ML, had a trip planned to Jordan in the middle of the month. As far as we can tell, some last minute emergencies blew up in her face, and she went missing in action around November 2nd. It hasn't been much work - planning which coffee house to meet at, monitoring the forums and answering any questions that crop up - but it's just enough to distract me from writing as much as I should be.

(And yes, I am anxiously watching the world news, since the suicide bombings occurred the day after she and her boyfriend were due to arrive in Jordan. I don't know if they were staying in Amman, and I don't think they were staying in any of the affected hotels, but it's the not knowing that's driving me crazy.)

Our group has been relatively quiet and antisocial, with the exception of a group of us that had already been hanging out together before this year's NaNo. We've had a few new faces show up at write-ins, though. I know everyone has their own way of going about completing their novel, but part of the fun is meeting other people sharing in the overcaffeinated insanity.

When I haven't been out blowing money on bottomless cups off coffee around town, I've been working at home, fueled by caffeine and the Magic Red Wine. The combination seems to be working well.

Also adding to the word count is an steady stream of WOXY Vintage Radio and Rhapsody New Wave Radio. Much of my novel deals with flashbacks to the late 80s - early 90s, so I've been listening to music that keeps me in the right frame of mind. (It's so much easier to write about a nightclub in 1991 when you're listening to Front 242 or Depeche Mode rather than Green Day or Fiona Apple.)

I'm not having to research as many weird things as I did last year, although I did have to hunt down a few songs by The Birthday Party, Wayne Newton and Anthrax w/ Public Enemy for inspiration in certain scenes. Oh, and I've had to look up a few album releases dates to make sure my characters aren't dancing to a song that had not yet been recorded. (I'm a stickler for continuity on the weirdest things. I think I've changed Potential Love Interest Guy's job three times in twenty pages, but I spent a good fifteen minutes figuring out which album Jesus and Mary Chain album included "Head On" and when it was released.)

Unexpected things have happened in the course of writing. One of my characters went crazy on me for a scene with no explanation. (She went from being the happy-go-lucky encouraging best friend to paranoid freak in the period of a few days.) That kind of threw me off track for a day or two. The creepy and annoying character decided he wanted another scene or two, which will actually work well with an upcoming scene. A dream sequence involving vampires, bloody Marys, and "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" appeared out of thin air. And most suprising of all, the throwaway gimmick of my main character comparing her life to the worst John Hughes movie ever is still managing to hold together somewhat.

Things could be better. I had hoped to be at least halfway done by this point. I'm close (current count: 23,677 words), and since I'm a few days ahead on my word count, it gives me a little room to slack. (Like, for instance, tomorrow night when the write-in will probably be followed by dinner and drinks.)

But most importantly, the story itself doesn't suck too badly. And that, my friends, is a major accomplishment for me during NaNoWriMo.

19 days to go. Keep your fingers crossed.