Purple Bar Fever

The number for the day is 50,601.

Yes, that's right. I actually passed the 50,000 word mark on my NaNoWriMo at 9:09 pm this evening. After four years of trying and three years of crashing and burning, I have finally completed a novel.

Granted, the pacing is all over the place and there are chapters that are semi-brilliant followed by chapters of absolute crap. There's a mostly failed metafictional angle that I need to figure out how to fix, if only for the fact that it resulted in one of the funniest chapters I have ever written. (My characters leave the story, park their car at the foot of my bed, and tell me everything that's wrong with my plot. They then demand a fun scene, and spend the next thousand or so words getting drunk and playing Trivial Pursuit.)

When I started writing this year's attempt, I had every intention to write absolute crap, something that I would keep until it was validated, then laugh with glee as I deleted it from existance. Looking back upon it, I realize that there are actually some redeemable passages in my manuscript. Yes, there are at least 5000 words that need to be thrown out immediately, but there are several places where I can see adding details and extra scenes, two-dimensional characters that could be padded out to make them somewhat believable. It would require some major overhauling and a road trip to a state park two hours away to clear up some details that I guessed at from vague information on the internet, but I could possibly pull a decent story out of this. One that I wouldn't be ashamed to let other people read... who'd a thunk it?

(Sorry, had to take a break, as iTunes was playing "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel, and I had to shake my groove thing, then seek out the Lemonheads version for the juxtaposition. The shufflemonkeys are being kind to me, and selecting happy happy songs while I celebrate my novel's completion. There's nothing like opening the individual sized bottle of champagne while the computer blares R.E.M.'s "Superman.")

Yes, the end scene is 80s teen movie treacle. Yes, my villian comes very close to monologuing (guess who saw The Incredibles yesterday?) and bears more than a passing resemblance to Agent Smith from The Matrix trilogy. (I even pictured Hugo Weaving sneering the lines as I wrote them, and had to resist giving him sunglasses more than once.)

All in all, the whole thing is a big giant mess. But it's done, and I will be downloading my winner's certificate tomorrow.

For your amusement, I compiled a list of things I researched while I was writing. Enjoy!

tinfoil hats
witchcraft trials in Ohio
cave systems in Hocking Hills State Park
Hanging Rock Iron Region
parts of a knife
Rosicrucians
locations of Meijer stores in the Kettering area
how to signal a horse to stop
parts of a bridle
quotes from Toy Story
transcript of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire
lyrics to Elliott Smith songs
lyrics to "Margaritaville"
type of European camper vans
Sheila James Kuehl's biography
arteriovenous malformations
Waffle House menus
locations of Spaghetti Warehouse near Dayton
script to The Breakfast Club (because IMDB quotes let me down)
MacGillycuddy's Reeks
the effects and duration of sodium pentathol
quotes from The Iron Giant
hemostat forceps
Jospeh Campbell's description of the Hero cycle (long since abandoned)
CIA mind control experiments (not used)
remote viewing
Tae Bo
name origins, mostly Irish
various and sundry Trivial Pursuit questions
history of Haydenville, Ohio
butterfly effect
lyrics to Muse songs

Thanks for everyone's support. I couldn't have done it without you. (And for those of you still writing... Go! Go! Go! I'm at the finish line, cheering you on!

Chapter Thirteen

I'd fallen behind on my word count for NaNoWriMo. Life, as usual, had gotten in the way. Despite the fact that work had been incredibly slow, there'd always been a daily mini-crisis popping up to prevent me from working on things. Plus I really wasn't sure what the hell I was writing. I'd chucked my original plot out the window on the second day, and started fresh with new characters and a completely ludricrous plot about a slacker psychic and a government conspiracy and uncommunicative boyfriends. It was absolute crap. Perfect for NaNo, right?

I fluctuated between days of writing my ass off and days of just staring blankly at the manuscript with no idea where to go with it.

Not a big deal, I figured.

Last night, I had a brainstorm on the way home from work that actually made the plot work and would probably carry me through to the 50K mark. Granted, it was still crap. I scribbled down a few notes in my project folder and lost myself in a really bad episode of CSI and a really good episode of Without a Trace.

Friday night, I told myself. Friday night I would write. I would do 10,000 words in a weekend and get back on track.

7:30, Friday night. I went on an emergency mission of mercy to feed Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern's cats. I envisioned the next few chapters in my novel, heard the dialogue in my head, saw the cheesy chase scene. Brilliant!

(I also realized I was writing a bad X Files episode. Well, if Mulder and Scully were twenty-something slackers instead of FBI agents, and Scully was psychic, and the episode had been written by Jerry Bruckheimer, Joss Whedon, and Kevin Smith. And they'd all smoked a giant bag of crack before they pitched it.)

I drove home, opened a bottle of Gallo Café Zinfandel, changed into comfy clothes, and settled down to make more notes while I watched Joan of Arcadia. At 9:00, I would write.

I started sobbing my eyes out around 8:35. I didn't stop until about 9:15. Have I mentioned how brilliant Joan of Arcadia is?

They killed off a character that I've hated since the moment they introduced her. I saw the death scene coming a mile away. I called the cute Gift of the Magi-esque scene between Luke and Grace. I saw the Hamlet references coming. I swooned at the cuteness of Joan and Adam's first real date, complete with Joan's mom trying to hold back the tears. I even called the appearance of DogWalkerGod as soon as I heard the distant barks in the climactic end scene. (DogWalkerGod is played by Russ Tamblyn. He was Riff in West Side Story and Gideon in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was Dr. Jacoby in Twin Peaks. He's also Amber Tamblyn's dad - she's the eponymous Joan.)

And they used Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart" for that last climactic scene. That song alone makes me sob.

That's good writing folks. Yes, I cry at the crop of a hat, but I was sobbing loudly for the last fifteen minutes of that show. Ma Huang actually came in to check on me. (He seems to do that when I'm visibly upset about things. Kismet, on the other hand, couldn't care less.)

And now it's after 10:00, and I'm trying to pull myself together out of the sorrow that I'm feelig over a bunch of imaginary characters on TV so I can write my imaginary characters into the worst chase scene ever.

I just wish that Rhapsody would stop playing blocks of Elliott Smith songs. Stupid shufflemonkeys, I'm depressed enough already!

14, 548 words down. Back into the fray....