Fast Fiction

I don’t know how it slipped my mind, dear readers three. But there it is. I am published now. You can buy it online. Or come by the house and take one of my complimentary copies the publisher sent me.

Of course sales have been going like gangbusters. I can track who has ordered copies and I’ve been quite suprised to find that 90% (9 sales) of those ordering the play don’t even know me (not that I know of, anyway). I’m very big in ... hmm, well, there’s really no rhyme or reason to it, no pattern I can detect. Leavenworth, Kansas; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Caspar, Wyoming ... Wheeling, IL.

I brought this up for another reason though. It’s about titles. See, the title is The Redeemer. Now when you go to the front page of the site and you can search by playwright (well, I can’t really change my name easily) or title. Well, take a lookee at my title and you’ll see that it falls in the last half of the alphabet. I’m thinking this is a bad idea. I have a similar issue with the short film I did a few years ago, entropy. Sure, E is pretty close to the beginning of the alphabet, but ya hafta go to page two to see it.

I’m not saying I want to be at the top of all lists, I just wanna be somehwere on the list where someone will see it before they get bored. I don’t have name recognition to get me started. I wonder if anyone else has thought about this.

So I’m thinking in the future, I’m gonna start all my titles with an A. I have no idea how I’m going to find appropriate titles that begin with A, but I think this might be the key to my success.

I had fun reading this article in The New Yorker today called Select All by Christopher Caldwell. It’s about how having choices, making decisions and feeling comfortable with those decisions may have a lot to do with our feelings of well-being.

And I think it’s true to a large degree. I think it’s one of the reasons I like shopping at Trader Joe’s. Let’s face it, when you go to the standard grocery store, you’re presented with 60 different choices for one thing - different sizes, squeezable bottles, brands, off-brands, names (catsup, ketchup, etc.). We try to eliminate choices. “I’m not buying an off-brand” or “I want organic”. This all makes it more manageable. Well, Trader Joe’s offers little of that. The most overwhelming part of the store is the cheese section, and not because it offers so much of the same thing, there are few different brands of the same cheese, just lots of different kinds of cheese.

I think a great deal of middle class depression can be eliminated by not shopping. I think if I didn’t go shopping as often, I’d probably be happier. Of course not having enough choice makes us feel trapped. Thank goodness I’m not the one who does the grocery shopping.

I’ve been thinking about my writing lately. Which is good, because there are large spans of time where I don’t think about it and I worry that makes me a bad writer, or worse, not a writer at all.

Anyway, the point is that I was thinking about my first novel (heehee), The Exchange. I’ve decided to amp up the drama in it and maybe bring it into the 21st century. For those of you who have joined this blog more recently than two years ago, the story centers on a teen girl who reconnects with her father through a series of letters. Of course that doesn’t make sense now, it would be email. So I’ll fix that.

And I think I’ll kill off the grandmother while I’m at it. That way she’ll have a huge hole in her life and it will propel her on her trip to meet him. Grandma won’t die in the car accident. I think it’ll just be a stroke or something rather quick.

So, it looks like I’m in for NaNoEdMo. And the best part is that much of my editing will also be writing, which as we all know is the only fun part about editing.

I’ve been sadly lax lately blogging. I can’t think of much to blog about that would be of interest. Though I’m not sure that stops many bloggers.

Sean Bonner says that you have to update your blog lots. I fail that test.

I loved his posting called Al-gebra. Very funny.

Does this count as a post?

I’ve noticed that I never talk about what I read on my blog.

I’m not really into fiction. Yeah, I know, I’ve been doing the novel-in-a-month thing, but I think that’s more of an exercise than anything else.

My taste, first off. I’m a science aficionado. Not science fiction, which is great for movies and TV shows and books and all, but I like pure science. I think it goes back to trying to understand this mixed-up world of ours. I read a lot of consumerist science stuff (‘cuz I’m not well-versed enough for the real journals). I’ve been reading Scientific American for many years, Discover, because it’s great for really short bursts of reading, kind of like the Entertainment Weekly of science journals. I like Tuesdays because that’s the day that the New York Times has their expanded Science section. I like physics and the ideas behind quantum physics and the search for the superstring theory. I don’t understand it all and I’m trying to read Brian Greene’s book right now, The Elegant Universe.

I like the life sciences and I’m fascinated by the beasts that are only recently gone from our world, like the Steller’s Sea Cow (like a manatee only twice as big and lived up off the coast of the Alaska). I like stuff about animal behavior and organization. I like to watch bees and ants and I’m interested in animal culture as it relates to understanding our own brains. I like it when we discover that crows are smart, because I hope it makes us more humble.

When I was a teen I read books like Carl Sagan’s Dragon’s of Eden and everything of Lewis Thomas I could get my hands on. I struggled to get through Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which I never did and it still sits on my shelf as a testament to my failure to learn more about the mathematics of music.

I like geology and plate tectonics. Mostly because I lived in Humboldt County, which is pretty much on top of the Gorda Plate as it’s being subducted under the North American plate and from the geology class I had at college, someday that fault is going to rip starting at the Mendocino Triple Junction and head all the way up the coast to the Juan de Fuca plate and past Seattle to Vancouver. It’ll be a big earthquake - that’s the Big One - not the San Andreas that’ll hit North America. For some reason I check the recent quakes every day. Like that’s going to warn me.

My favorite TV show is Nova - it has been since I was a kid. I remember the first show I watched on Nova was about dreams and the subconscious. I think that was in 1977, back when we still had a little 14” black and white TV. I watch the Discovery Channel and National Geographic channel but I think that they sensationalize stuff a lot or gloss over the reality of our breadth of knowledge. They also only like to do shows on stuff they can get film of - so you can count on lots of animals and not a lot of hard science.

Don’t get me wrong, I like other brain candy type TV shows - I’m embarrassed to list them, but it goes something like this (in really no order), Star Trek (Enterprise at the moment), Angel, Stargate, ER, Law & Order. I’ll watch silly sitcoms or reruns of old shows on Nick at Nite (Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched), but that’s all it is, brain candy. As empty as a bowl of starlight mints.

I think my interest in non-fiction is actually pretty helpful as a writer. I know that there are plenty of other playwrights that try to merge the technical with the dramatic (Stoppard, David Auburn, Michael Frayn).

I got the car back from the shop and it looks pretty damn good. They detailed it as well ... I should have timed the accident when it really needed a good wash and wax, but I’ll take what I can get. They even shampooed the mats.

Now, about me. I’ve had this bronchitis thing going on for a while. I first went to the doctor on New Year’s Eve and he gave me a round of Biaxin XL and sent me on my way. Two weeks later I was still wheezing, so I went back and he put me on Advair and some Allegra to keep things from irritating me (yeah, like Allegra works on all irritants!).

Well, another couple of weeks and I get this horrible pain in my chest. At first it’s just behind my shoulder blades and I chalk it up to sleeping in the wrong position. But then it moves over to my left side and gets bigger and pretty much makes breathing rather painful. So, back to the doctor. He does chest X-rays to rule out pneumonia and pleurisy and they come out clear. So he says that I’ve probably just trashed those muscles from all the coughing and I should stop that. He puts me on another round of antibiotics (Zithromax) and this time I have to accept a cough suppressant - Phenergan. Now, I’m not one for taking narcotics. He offered me codeine, and I know most folks jump at the chance to get some codeine, but not me, it makes me nervous and anxious. So he gives me Phenergan, which as far as I can tell, is an anti-vomiting and general knockout drug.

That’s good, because I’m under doctors orders to get more sleep. He said nine or ten hours a night. Well, a spoonful of this stuff at nine each night and I’m out by ten and could go until ten the next morning. I haven’t been at the office much, mostly because I’m taking this stuff and I shouldn’t drive, and even when I’m there I’m either complaining about how much it hurts when I breath or totally zonked off my ass with the hangover this creates.

We’ll see how the next few days go. The worst news about all this is that I can’t see myself being ready to train again until March at the earliest, which means the LA Marathon is out of the realm of possibility. Oh well. There’s always a marathon somewhere. There’s no reason I can’t train for the one in Santa Clarita or maybe Big Bear.

I left my car at Moden Auto Body on Monday. I’m riding around in a Dodge Stratus ... which I wouldn’t really consider an approximate replacement for the Prius, but hey, the insurance is covering it.

See it as it happens.

So, I’m cruising around the ‘net looking at other blogs. I’m trying to figure out what other bloggers have that I don’t. You know, they post all the time, they say clever things and have multiple entries on one day. They look like they have interesting observations and they’re not afraid of sharing them. But I’ve also noticed that a lot of it is filler. There are the people that put a picture of the book they’re reading… is it a picture book? won’t the title do? They put little pictures of everything up, the CD in their player, a little pixie that is supposed to tell us what the weather is like where the blogger is. They take a lot of quizzes, and post the results. They answer a lot of questions ... Friday Five, Thursday Threesome.

I’m just not able to do those things on a regular basis and I wonder if that makes me a bad blogger. Sometimes I don’t think I’m a blogger at all. I have a blog. I keep a blog. Just like I write novels, that doesn’t make me a novelists. I write plays, good plays, and that makes me a playwright.

What’s the difference, and why do I care?

So, the new car is great. I love it. I love just about everything about it.

It’s attractive.

It’s so damn attractive it compelled a couch to come off of some car ahead of me on the 5 north just past the 170 merge. There I was, second lane from the left and it was tumbling towards me. I couldn’t change lanes, as it was taking up part of the #3 and some other car was in #1. So I took it on the chin. Well, Dyna (what I named the car) took it on the passenger side fender. It’s not a serious blow, but will require more work that a bottle of rubbing compound.

I think I’m taking it well. After all, I’ve had the car only a scant month and I’ve already messed it up. But I’m grateful that I didn’t hit anyone else and that Brett (in the car with me) and I are fine. And the car was driveable.

But I have yet to go to the body shop and get the real news.

I’ve decided that the repairs will take an inordinate amount of time and I will have to live with the dent so I’m going to name it. Dyna, meet Dent, Arthur Dent.

Because I’m not clever enough to have a page about me, this is just an entry about me. Unlike all the other entries on this blog that only pretend to be about me.

I am: happily married
I drive: a 2004 Prius
I am: liberal
I live: in Los Angeles
I react to: bee stings
I use: a PC
I type: 70 wpm
I am: the middle child
I have: one dog
I have: two blue eyes
I play: Scrabble online
I have: no tattoos
I have: two piercings - one in each earlobe
I like: chocolate, licorice, coffee (the dark flavors)
I earned: a BA
I earned: an MFA
I eat: candy, often to the exclusion of meals
I have: lived in three states (Pennsylvania, Ohio and California)
I lettered: in swimming in high school
I deny: that I know how to use PowerPoint
I read: non-fiction
I drink: at times
I prefer: gin
I love: mangoes
I vote
I walk
I sleep
I can’t sleep
I write: plays, first drafts of novels, emails, blog entries, photo captions, synopses, biographies, loglines, drafts, notes, about me.

Yes, when everything’s new, you feel like there are so many more possiblities.

New kitchen means that I can be organized and change my lifestyle into one of productivity and hospitality.

New car means I can drive with less guilt. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to drive more.

This of course rubs off on other parts of my life. Once again I am starting on The Artist’s Way program for myself. This means a bit of whiny journaling (called morning pages) and some other exercises. The goal is to dislodge those things that keep me from my writing life. Let’s face it, I’ve got the time to get things done, we all know that I can write really, really fast, so there’s no reason that I can’t conservatively churn out a play a year. But I don’t and I need to work through why that is and change it.

I used to think my lack of productivity was okay. There was still plenty of time. But there really isn’t. And even if there is, and half the stuff I write is crap, shouldn’t there be more of my stuff, so more would be good stuff?

Remember back in October I mentioned how upset I was about getting rid of the dishwasher?

Here’s a little update. First, the new dishwasher kicks the old dishwasher’s ass! It’s so quiet that twice on Thanksgiving people opened it while it was running because they didn’t know it was running. And it actually cleans the dishes! What a concept. I’m having trouble getting used to the part where you don’t actually wash the dishes before you put them into the dishwasher. You’re just supposed to scrape them and put them in all crusty with food and sauce and stuff. It’s supposed to be more efficient (saves water and energy over hand washing). And it works.

Yes, getting rid of things that no longer suit your needs is good.

Anyway, from my previous post you can glean that I’m selling my car. Well, I sold my car. To a nice fellow named Howard who is a grad student from UCLA. I showed the car only a three times and was stood up for appointments twice as many times. Howard is very excited about the car, the only person who saw it that was. And because he seemed so excited before he even came to see the car, I did something special for him. Knowing my affinity for spreadsheets, you won’t be surprised to hear that I made a log of all the major maintenance on the car. All I did was take what I had on the work orders from the dealer and synopsize them, but I guess it gave him the impression that if I was meticulous enough to make a spreadsheet, I probably took good care of the car. Which I did.

See, that’s what upset me about the process of selling the car. Everyone was quoting Kelly Blue Book or Edmunds to me. First they weren’t running the numbers right so they’d tell me that the car was only worth $2,200 or something, when they were inputting that it was only in fair condition and didn’t have AT, AC, ABS and all that rot. And what’s wrong with charging what it’s worth, anyway? That’s what the book tells you, what the car is worth. If I had a pound of gold to sell and you went and looked up that gold is selling today at $409.50 per ounce, you don’t go in asking for 10% off - because you know that’s the value of it. Period. (Okay, maybe that’s not a good example, because gold is a commodity and appreciates for the most part, where a car is useful and depreciates for the most part.) The value of my car was at least what the blue book said, if not more. There were intangibles that I thought added value: The car was in great shape; No accidents; It had been kept under cover during the day for the past four years and carported for the past six at night; Absolutely nothing wrong with it mechanically. Yes, it will need new tires in about 5,000 miles. But to me that’s another year, so why would I replace the tires now? That’s normal wear. Someone tells me they’ll need to be replaced in two or three months, I ask them where they hell they’re driving! Across the country a back?

Anyway, Howard saw the virtues of my little car and appreciated how much I appreciated her. She really does run great, quiet and I had always gotten better mileage than the EPA suggestions on the sticker (chalk that up to clean livin’ baby). Let’s face it, a car only three months shy of 10 years with only 65,000 miles, well equipped and from the original owner is quite a find these days.

My point though here, and obviously I have more than a few of them, is that there is nothing wrong with the car. I just feel like getting a new one. Or so I like to rationalize. The Impreza was a compromise car from the start. It’s small and doesn’t have a lot of features like cruise control or a nice stereo or the space to schlep stuff. It was good to get me to work and back and to run errands and to take the dog to the vet. I want a car that pollutes less (and let’s face it, the Prius pollutes soooooooo much less). I ran a few numbers at the Enviromental Defense Fund’s Tailpipe Tally - now they don’t have the ‘04 Prius up there so I ran the old one against my little Subaru. At 6,000 miles a year (okay, that’s really more than I drive, but it’s a nice figure):

CAR…...............Fuel/Cost…....CO2 ......CO1 ....Nitrogen oxides….Hydro-carbons
2003 TOYOTA PRIUS….124 gal/$191….2396 lb…38.4 lb….0.4 lb…........0.4 lb
(48.6 mpg, SULEV)

1994 SUBARU IMPREZA..231 gal/$356….4477 lb..165.3 lb…15.2 lb….......10.7 lb
(26.0 mpg, Tier 1)

You see that? My car puts out 10.7 pounds of hydro-carbons a year and the Prius puts out 0.4? My car puts out more than 25 times as much?

So that helps me to rationalize my impact on the planet and all that rot. Because that is really what I’m trying to do. Hone my life, decide where things are important. And if I can afford a better, more efficient car after reducing my driving, yeah, it’s my responsibility to do that. And I kept my last car in great shape and it will perform better for the environment than some other clunker that it’s getting off the road. It’s my responsiblity to be an early adopter of techonolgy and lifestyle choices I think can make a difference. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

I know, it’s a little off-topic. But I finally got the call that my car is coming in! I’m getting a 2004 Toyota Prius.

So, if you want a good deal on a sweet little, low-miles car ... I’ve got just the thing for you. My 1994 Subaru Impreza with only 65,000 miles on it!

So I prepped my “manuscript” for posting on the NaNoEdMo Yahoo!Group for reading. I wanted to at least fix a few of the glaring errors (I called one of my characters by the wrong name for several chapters) and then I decided to break up the chapters properly. I kind of abandoned the chapters when I wrote the fairy tale part. I just started writing the fairy tale from beginning to end, instead of sprinkling it in every other chapter or so. So I went through and chopped it up and inserted it where I thought it might belong. Who knows if it does. The book is about 1/3 fairy tale, 2/3 saint’s history.

So, I re-pdf’d it. I’ve uploaded it now. I also corrected some security measures I’d placed on it. It wasn’t letting anyone print it. The security is just supposed to keep someone from copying and pasting the text. I have this bizarre fear that some student somewhere is going to turn it in as a writing assignment. That’s the only thing I can figure it’s good for. No one is certainly going to steal it and put their name on it and send it to a publisher.

Yes, it’s true, I write like a woman. But I blog like a man! I threw some entries from this blog through the Gender Genie (which is brilliant, I tell ya!) and it said that my entries were male. It’s supposed to be 80% accurate.

For giggles I also ran some of my novel through it. I definitely write fiction like a woman. I even ran the “fairy tale” sections through separately.

Now I feel like running other things through it. Bicycle assembly instructions. Software help text. Letters. Emails. Essays from the web.

I suppose after doing this twice I have a certain sense of confidence, one that almost replaces the actual act. I know I can write a novel in a month because I have written a novel in a month, so why do I have to write a novel in a month?

But I started a novel. So, I have to finish a novel. And so I did. I killed them all. Well, not everyone. Damon lives (mostly because he’s doing the killing) but Dympna, Brother Gerebran, Raina and the Minstrel are murdered.

I went over to The Coffee Table and sat in the back and had a little split pea soup and green tea with ginger and just wrote the ending.

time…..tally…...words…words/minute
6:30…..47,452…..122…..08.13
6:45…..47,871…..419…..27.93
7:00…..48,214…..343…..22.87
7:15…..48,650…..436…..29.07
7:30…..49,175…..525…..35.00
7:45…..49,830…..655…..43.67
8:00…..50,172…..342…..22.80
8:15…..50,455…..283…..18.87

The manuscript itself is a horrible mess. I abandoned using chapter headings back at chapter three, and I’m not sure I even marked breaks. I wrote the fairy tale piece as one long chapter, but it’s really supposed to be interspersed in alternating chapters. But if I don’t have chapters, how am I supposed to alternate. I suppose I only have four chapters ... I never did any spell check. I know there are several large gaps and other continuity errors.

But such is the way with NaNovels. For now I am going to go to bed with a gentle sense of self-confidence. Not only did I write a novel in a month, but my tally shows that I spent a scant 32 hours actually at the keyboard working on it. So how much can anyone expect?

Yes, it’s hard to end a novel when you know how it’s going to end, oddly enough. I knew from the very beginning that the novel would end with my main character dead. (I hope I haven’t spoiled anything for you, but you must have figured if it’s the story of a Christian martyr that they do end up dead at the end ... always.)

But for the past week I knew that I was not going to write today, at least not during the day. November is a stressful month and deserves a little diverson.

I went for a hike today with the Man and wrimo Will. We went to Devil’s Punchbowl in the Angeles National Forest. We went off the trail, which has its benefits, and drawbacks if you end up getting. Which we weren’t, seeing how we always knew where were, just not necessarily how to get back to where we knew we wanted to be.

Oh, and I took lots of photos!

You’d expect a binge on Thanksgiving day. I mean, it is the eating holiday. But I don’t suppose there’s a binge expected on the Saturday after.

I slept in. An essential prequel to a binge, if you ask me. And you should, since I’m an expert of the easy binge. I showered and did my emails and such and then I headed over to Espresso Mi Cultura in Hollywood. I found a spot on my second loop around the block, which is good because I really, really wanted a Mexican mocha with a double shot of espresso. I’m really not much for sugary drinks (I like my sugar in my candy, thank you very much), but a Mexican mocha is a very, very nice way to start a binge.

time…..tally…...words…words/minute
12:30….38,289…..042…..02.80
12:45….38,555…..266…..17.73
01:00….38,954…..399…..26.60
01:15….39,370…..416…..27.73
01:30….39,864…..494…..32.93
01:45….40,396…..532…..35.47
02:00….40,856…..460…..30.67
02:15….41,101…..245…..16.33
02:30….41,655…..554…..36.93
02:45….42,219…..564…..37.60
03:00….42,399…..180…..12.00
03:15….43,005…..606…..40.40
03:30….43,451…..446…..29.73
03:45….43,980…..529…..35.27
04:00….44,534…..554…..36.93
04:15….44,909…..375…..25.00
04:30….45,551…..642…..42.80
04:45….46,005…..454…..30.27
05:00….46,371…..366…..24.40
05:15….46,977…..606…..40.40
05:30….47,330…..353…..23.53

That leaves me less than 3,000 words to wrap up the story. Unfortunately it’s not that easy. I’ve only accounted for two miracles, but I figure I can just skip over the third, because I find no mention of it in the listings of her life story anyway. It’s a novel, not a petition to the Pope for beatification, after all. I’ve gotten them to Gheel. Now I just have to have the spies find Dymphna and have Damon come after her.

I’ll try to post later with the latest version. Right now the one that’s up is 12,000 words shy of where I am now. I’m sure you’re all following along with the home game, right?

Ah, the holidays. I didn’t figure on writing on Friday, but then again, I did think that I could get some words down on Wednesday, so it was only catch-up.

We went down to Crystal Cove in Orange County to the beach for the afternoon. I got some cool photos ...

Then home and off to The Coffee Table in Silverlake for some words before dessert.

time…..tally…..words….words/minute
7:00…..34,965…..453…..30.20
7:15…..35,260…..295…..19.67
7:30…..35,732…..472…..31.47
7:45…..36,310…..578…..38.53
8:00…..36,700…..390…..26.00
8:15…..37,049…..349…..23.27
8:30…..37,625…..576…..38.40
8:45…..38,012…..387…..25.80
8:50…..38,247…..235…..15.67

I wrote a horrible scene (in the sense that it was emotional) where Damon kills his horse when it comes up with a broken leg after a tumble in a stream bed while chasing Dymphna. But it’ll give me a good spot to start from tomorrow.

Yes, in an effort to assuage the sense of doom I’m getting over the bad, bad novel I’m writing (see, I wanted to write a decent story ...) I’ve gone back and dug out my first novel.

I’ve not looked at it since I finished it way back in November of 2001. I might have glanced through it when I exchanged novels with some other wrimos back in the early days of the nascient 21st century, but other than that it’s been sitting on my hard drive.

Well, I don’t recognize it. I opened the file in order to make a PDF, and I really didn’t recongize it. I didn’t even realize that the main character’s name was Alicia. That doesn’t sound like a name I would give a character. Well, I must have. I don’t think someone found the file on my computer and did a global find & replace. But maybe our firewall isn’t as good as I thought ...

Anyway, it’s up now. Have a great time reading it!

To bring you up to date, I did not write this weekend. I did a brief session over at Silverlake Coffee Company, but the blaring music, bad service and incessant smoking caused me to leave halfway through my three hour session. So I only got about 2,500 words for the weekend. I’m planning to write LOTS AND LOTS later this week. Maybe a session on Wednesday and then doubling down on Saturday and into Sunday. Whee, a last minute wordcram!

Yes, it’s Sunday and I haven’t done my 10K for the weekend. Yet what I’d really rather do is paint. Paint in the kitchen and make my house pretty. I can make my house pretty (or prettier ... it’s pretty much a mess) and everyone will look at it and praise me.

Or I can keep writing a novel that gets shittier by the day and feel only the satisfaction of completing the task because I really won’t have anything of value to show for it.

Maybe I can paint a little now and write a little and then paint a little.

I’m planning on writing out again this evening and probably tomorrow, too.

Things are going along okay with the novel. The pacing, again, is off. I feel like I haven’t gotten the story going very well, but I think I feel that way every year around the 30K mark. Someday I’m gonna write a novel that is just crammed full of plot and when I run out of plot I’ll just cram some more in there. But that’ll be another year.

This year I’ve got a plot and involves a girl running away from home in order to keep her father from forcing her to marry him. And he’s just now announced that he intends to marry his daughter. I’m at 27,000 words and he’s just now mentioned this?

I know, I know. Just write it and worry about it later. I will. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, I will. I’m just talkin’, you know? Because I hadn’t updated my blog and I wanted to let you know that I hadn’t forgotten about it.

I also spent a little time fixing my excel status spreadsheet. It was misbehaving because I wasn’t writing every day. So I just took out the days I wasn’t writing, so it won’t have 30 rows like it’s supposed to have. It’ll probably only have about 14 rows. Let me know if it’s still not working properly.

A flexible schedule is key, I guess. I got about 3K under my belt by just letting a few loads of laundry slide. I just figured I should try if I can. So I did. And it’s done. I’m over the half-way hump. I’m not at the 30,000 mark, which is where I’d like to be, but I’ll take what I can get at the moment.

So, since it was late in the evening, I went local, to the Silverlake Coffee Company. Unfortunately it was the busiest I’d ever seen it, so I had to settle for a seat outside. I’m a whiner and I’m gonna tell you it was just a smidge too cold for the manual dexterity needed to operate a keyboard.

I had a lemon bar and a large cup of gen mai cha. They really have the best tea there. I don’t know if it’s because it’s loose tea or because they’re very generous with it.

The first twenty minutes were a bust as I moved tables twice, but you get the idea here:

time…...tally…..words….words/minute
4:30…..24,340…..386…..25.73
4:45…..24,803…..463…..30.87
5:00…..25,380…..577…..38.47
5:15…..25,837…..457…..30.47
5:30…..26,488…..651…..43.40
5:45…..26,896…..408…..27.20
6:00…..27,099…..203…..13.53

So, the goal is to go out on Wednesday night and perhaps get another five thousand words under my belt. Maybe they’ll even be good words.

I’m working on it! I’m working very hard on it! I went out to Silverlake Coffee Company today from noon to three. I did a little over 5,000 words.

I had a nonfat latte and vegetarian sandwich, this time without mustard and without mayonaise.

The afternoon went something like this:
time…...tally…..words….words/minute
start…..14,316
12:30…..14,607…..291…..19.40
12:45…..14,945…..338…..22.53
01:00…..15,311…..366…..24.40
01:15…..15,793…..482…..32.13
01:30…..16,063…..270…..18.00
01:45…..16,722…..659…..43.93
02:00…..17,284…..562…..37.47
02:15…..17,938…..654…..43.60
02:30…..18,677…..739…..49.27
02:45…..19,096…..419…..27.93
03:00…..19,339…..243…..16.20

So, to reward myself I walked across the street to Rockaway (I don’t actually recommend that website, btw, it’s quite annoying, though it may actually have some good content) and bought myself two used CDs, one was the missing Enya and the other was a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I actually wanted one of those monk chanting CDs, just for writing purposes because I’m having trouble with my first plot.

I headed home for a little while and took the dog out. She had a little upset tummy earlier this afternoon, so I wanted to check up on her before I headed out again.

Then I headed over to Rocktitlan in Hollywood.

I had a Mexican hot chocolate with a shot of espresso and one of the worst croissants ever. (It was small, sticky, had milk chocolate instead of dark and was more bready than buttery.)

That’s okay, I got lots done, a little over 4,500 in two hours.

time…...tally…..words….words/minute
04:15…..19,386…..047…..03.13
04:30…..19,787…..401…..26.73
04:45…..20,380…..593…..39.53
05:00…..20,921…..541…..36.07
05:15…..21,380…..459…..30.60
05:30…..22,028…..648…..43.20
05:45…..22,360…..332…..22.13
06:00…..22,889…..529…..35.27
06:15…..23,409…..520…..34.67
06:30…..23,954…..545…..36.33

That brings the tally for the day to 9,638 and my total so far is 23,953. So I’m a little more than a thousand off of half-way, but it certainly not an unrecoupable lag.

Oh, drat! This is not what novel I belong in. I mean, the Oscar Wilde thing is dead on, but Dorian Grey ... sigh. I thought I’d end up in ... jeepers, I don’t think I even know what novel I should end up in. I won’t even tell you what tripe popular novel I ended up in with the other quiz I took.

In my not so humble opinion, you, of course, belong
in the Picture of Dorian Gray, and do not try
to deny it. You belong in the fashionable
circles of Victorian London where exotic
tastes, a double life, decadence, wit and a
hypocritical belief in moral betterment make
you a home. You belong where the witty
apothegms of Lords, the silly moralities of
matrons, the blinding high of opium, and the
beauty of visual arts mingle to form one
convoluted world.

I like to think of myself as a sidelines person, mostly because I know I’m a control freak and would probably try to dominate anything that I get involved with. But here it is, the middle of November and I am again Municipal Liaison for Los Angeles for National Novel Writing Month.

Perhaps I’ve embraced the ideals of NaNoWriMo a little too whole-heartedly or perhaps I’ve just appointed myself a vehment disciple or knighted myself, or perhaps I’m just angling for a fight.

What am I talking about? Rules. The rules for the damn challenge.

I think I’m a purist at heart. In all things. I don’t like hybridized things (well, except my new car, but that’s another story). If you’re going to bake a cake, make it a real cake with sugar and flour and all that, because making something out of soy and apple peels is not the same thing, it’s a valid thing, but I don’t consider it a cake.

I think NaNoWriMo should be preserved in all its purity. Write a novel of at least 50,000 words in one month. Period. A pure work from your own mind within the month of November. Sure, your idea comes from somewhere, something that may have happened to you, or an idea sparked by a painting or a cartoon, but it should be something you create.

I’ve taken it upon myself to spread this message on the NaNoWriMo Forums. Not in an evangelistic way - I don’t go inserting myself into every conversation saying that folks are not following the rules. I just hang out in a little poorly traveled corner and hope to answer questions.

Sure, I probably come off sounding like a have some sort of exclusionist view or superior attitude. But they asked, didn’t they? Who did they think would answer.

Anyway, my rules for writing a novel in a month. The novel must be started and finished within the month of November. No pre-writing (I had character names and a map of Ireland from the middle ages as reference). No picking up an unfinished work. No stopping at 50,000 words. That’s right, the story must come to some sort of conclusion - no matter how hastily and awkwardly tacked on, it will end.

Now is that so hard?

No sleet, but it was rather chilly this evening and we had an actual thunderstorm here in Los Angeles. I don’t have much time lately with work and this short film thing (I’ll explain that some other time) and the municipal liaison thing and then the kitchen and all that rot.

I went over to The Coffee Table and sat on the back patio in the waning rain and the kerosene heaters and popped my earbuds in with my celtic/new age mix.

I had:
1 pot of Rooibos Tea
A side of Garlic Mashed Potatoes

time…..tally….words…words/minute
8:00…..11,993…..457…..30.47
8:15…..12,432…..439…..29.27
8:30…..13,055…..623…..41.53
8:45…..13,529…..474…..31.60
9:00…..14,069…..540…..36.00

As I posted on my excerpt at the NaNoWriMo site, I have nothing much to say about the actual thing. I don’t recommend reading it, especially at this juncture. I’m working on the interwoven story, but I haven’t done that yet, so it just sits there like a turd in the wrong spot (I’m not sure the right spot for a turd, maybe a kitty litter box or a toilet, but I digress). So, I can only beg your forgiveness or at the very least caution you not to give a looksee until maybe December fifth or so. If even then.

But here it is in a nutshell, this is how Word AutoSummarized the thing:
Dymphna shook her head. Dymphna shook her head. Dymphna shook her head. Dymphna nodded. Dymphna said.
ìIím Dymphna.?(r) Dymphna yelled. Dymphna asked.
Dymphna nodded.
Dymphna shook her head. Dymphna said slowly. Dymphna nodded. Dymphna nodded.
Dymphna said. Dymphna nodded. Dymphna interrupted. Dymphna asked.
Dymphna pulled back. Dymphna nodded. Dymphna nodded.

So, that about brings you up to date. I’ve got a character named Dymphna and she has some sort of trouble with her neck.

I know, I complain a lot. But this is a blog. Which I think is Dutch for whine. I’ve noticed that weblogs.com has not been showing me as an updated blog when I put a new entry up.

I know, there are only three or four of you reading and you don’t need to see that I’m updated on weblogs.com, but it’s a feature of blogger and I’d like it to work.

So, I’m going to try to do it manually.

So, as I posted in the Los Angeles Forum I went out to Pasadena to write out with other wrimos at Zeli’s which is located inside Vroman’s bookstore on Colorado Blvd. I got there a little after two and realized immediately that this was the worst possible place to write. The coffee house was cute enough, with some sort of revival gothic theme with pointed arches and iron light fixtures. And wrought iron furniture.

The tables were low or high, small or huge. But as far as I could tell, there was no way to match a level surface to a comfortable chair in order to type. So, I pulled a small side table up to a little couch that had a cushion on it of the same level as the table and I set up my laptop and just hunched over it and typed. I got about 1,000 words in before the first wrimo showed up. Overall, the day netted 4,505 words. I’m still behind where I should be at this date, but I know that I will be able to write one evening this week (I didn’t last week) and I’ll catch up.

I ordered:
1 medium non-fat latte
then later I took a break from 4:00 to 4:15 and ordered:
1 medium gen mai cha (loose leaf - yummy)
1 slice of pumpkin cheesecake

time…..tally….words…words/minute
2:30…..07,386…..355…..23.67
2:45…..07,656…..270…..18.00
3:00…..07,992…..336…..22.40
3:15…..08,464…..472…..31.47
3:30…..08,675…..211…..14.07
3:45…..09,057…..382…..25.47
4:00…..09,057…..000…..00.00
4:15…..09,458…..401…..26.73
4:30…..09,946…..488…..32.53
4:45…..10,267…..321…..21.40
5:00…..10,569…..302…..20.13
5:15…..11,247…..678…..45.20
5:30…..11,536…..289…..19.27

It’s a great bookstore, and the coffee house would be great to hang out in under other circumstances, but for a novelling location, I found it a little off. But who am I to argue with 4.5K?

I went out this evening, having decided that it was too cloudly to watch the eclipse with the intention of making 10K (that’s 6K in one sitting for those following along at home).

Well, best laid plans and all that rot. I got to the Silverlake Coffee Company. It’s blissfully deserted. Just me and the guy who works there. The music is loud, he’s playing Blur, I think. But I drop my laptop on the table closest to the door and order:

1 large cup of Gen Mai Cha (green tea with toasted rice)
1 pecan bar - heated

I settle in and when the fellow behind the coffee bar disappears (he sits out back and smokes), I went and found him and asked if he was going to sit outside if he could turn the music down. Which he did obligingly.

And I got to writing. A few more people came in and a few left. Then a fellow started moving tables around. Then he brought in a couple of guitars and a small amp. Oh, there’s live music on Saturdays. I’m the only one there, except for a kid at one of the computer terminals, I think he’s the owners son. The guitarist introduces himself, to me, because I’m the only one there. Steven. He usually has a vocalist, but she’s sick right now. So, he played for me. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind a little instrumental (maybe not right next to me) but he was exceptionally chatty. So, I didn’t get quite as much done as I hoped. But I did get 3K in, and at this moment, that’s something to be pleased with.

time…..tally….words…words/minute
5:45…..4,009…..733…..48.87
6:00…..4,288…..279…..18.60
6:15…..4,899…..611…..40.73
6:30…..5,091…..192…..12.80
6:45…..5,477…..386…..25.73
7:00…..5,730…..253…..16.87
7:15…..6,120…..390…..26.00
7:30…..6,406…..286…..19.07
7:45…..6,632…..226…..15.07
8:00…..6,878…..246…..16.40
8:10…..7,031…..153…..10.20

I’ll probably go back next week, but probably a little earlier.