70135 / 50000 words. 140% done!

So, that happened.

Finishing a novel- or rather, a first draft, because this is nowhere NEAR ready to be read by anyone who isn't editing it- is a weird process. After a certain point, I think I was just hurling myself forward with my teeth gritted, detemined to FINISH THE DAMN THING ALREADY. It's a good motivator, if nothing else; I was logging up to five thousand words a day towards the end there because I'd reach my daily goal and think "well, I'm only five hundred words away from the NEXT thousand" and just keep plugging ahead.

And again: this book is not even remotely close to being readable. I'm not sure how long the editing process will take; probably longer than it would otherwise, because I'm in the ensemble/crew of my university's fall production of Richard III, so I have four and a half-hour rehearsals every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in addition to three other classes. By the time I stagger home at night, I'm generally too wiped to do anything but fall into bed and scroll tumblr with my eyes glazed over. I have a writer's group meeting on Sunday; I'll be looking for potential editing partners there, and after that, I'll probably be doing schoolwork during the week and editing on weekends. I don't have any deadlines on this book except the ones I set for myself, so I have time.

What I really feel about this project- more than anything else at the moment- is a drive to keep going. After frantically writing for so long, not having any immediate work to do on it feels incredibly strange. I'll probably feel like this until I send it out to a beta reader and get it back; on the bright side, this is certainly good preparation for waiting on agents and editors.

Where do we go from here?

50140 / 50000 words. 100% done!

The good news: good god y'all, I wrote fifty thousand words!

The also-good but slightly more complicated news: that doesn't mean I'm done.

Fifty thousand words is the minimum generally given to people who want to write a novel- that's why it's the stated goal for NaNoWriMo. But it's not like you just hit the 50k mark and toss your pen in the air crying "TOUCHDOWN!" I've written by wordcount before, and what I inevitably discovered is that writing rarely fits into pre-ordered wordcounts like that. This one I'm working on right now is going to be- by my estimate- another ten thousand words at least, in order to resolve the main conflict and wrap up all the subplots. The challenge going forward is going to be writing in order to fit the plot rather than meet my goal for today. With the fifty thousand baseline reached, I no longer need to be concentrating on making sure the book is long enough, and instead the focus will be making sure that everything is being wrapped up properly. Up to this point, I've been measuring my daily goal by word increments; one thousand words is the minimum, and then if I go over that, that's a bonus. Obviously, since the wordcount is no longer my primary goal, that's not going to be the benchmark for a day's accomplishments anymore. And even when I do finish this draft, it's just that- a draft. There's  long, hard road of editing waiting ahead of me.

But you know what? I still wrote fifty thousand words.

Bottoms up!

Write what you know, so they say

32080 / 50000 words. 64% done!

 

Dear readers, I am afraid I have a confession to make. The last time I updated you on my writing process- back in April, holy crap- I said that I was in the process of completely rehauling my novel's plot and setting, and in doing so felt confident that I would soon be back on track rather than stalled at 16k.

Famous last words.

The change of scenery did help . . . for a few weeks. Then I sunk right back into the quagmire I'd been in before: I could not write these characters. It wasn't writer's block, because writer's block is generally broken by spells of time that you can actully write. Could I put words down on the page? Well, sure; but none of them were especially good words. They were okay. They were the kind of words I'd find in a book that I would mildly enjoy while reading, and then completely forget about as soon as I turned the last page. Now, obviously not every single word you put to paper has to be GEENIUS!!!!11!! but if you don't have any passion for the subject material, you know and your readers probably will too. So while you can technically write a whole book like that, it's a pretty boring, thankless experience.

So while I was staring unhappily at my unfinished rough draft, trying to figure out how to mount the unsurmountable barrier of ennui, I decided to start a "side project" of a novel idea that I'd had on the back burner, just for something to look forward to while I was slogging away at Project A. Just a fun little dark fantasy/horror novel, a bunch of my favourite cliches tossed in to make a big ol' soup of magic and death, no big deal. I wasn't planning on making it a Big Thing, or even a Showing To Other People Thing.

Again, famous last words.

I'm not going to counsel that you should give up on your current project whenever something new and shiny pops up, because that is terrible advice. What I WILL say though is, if you struggle to break 10k on a novel and hate every minute of writing it, and then you get an idea for another one that pours right out of you and that you really like working on and are really enthusiastic about . . . well . . . sometimes your subconscious really is trying to tell you something. In this case, the message was "stop messing around with a project that's making you miserable and writing the book you want to write." Which, all things considered, is not the worst advice I've ever gotten.

The value of cleaning out my desk

1413 / 50000 words. 3% done!

No, you're not misreading anything. A lot has happened with The Novel since last I updated you on it in . . . September? Geez. Anyway, school caught up with me and my writing lay dormant for several months, over which period I came to the conclusion that the novel as it was progressing really did not work. Not that the plot did not make sense, exactly, but the prose was sluggish and the characters dull. It's far from the worst thing that ever happened to me as a writer; rewrites happen. Moreover, I'm far, far happier with the novel as I've plotted it now than I ever was when I was struggling to jam it sideways into a broken mold. Am I more or less back at square one? Yeah, kind of. But it's a much more fulfilling square one than it was before, so I can't really feel bad about it.

The charming kook has left the building

16224 / 50000 words. 32% done!

In fairness, this is not the thousand words a day I promised when I first started working on this project. But I have been busy! Oh, how busy I have been. Running to classes, running from classes, running to meetings, running home to cook dinner, catching up on my readings from the class I just swapped into (protip: if ever you should switch classes after a semester starts, don't switch into an English class), visiting home, getting my computer fixed- well, you get the idea. And the upcoming week does not look any calmer- tomorrow I have two regular classes, one dance class, and one audition ending at eleven at night, and then I'm up again at nine the next morning for class. I feel a bit like that episode of Nostalgia Critic where he's screaming "I'M THE ADULT! I DO THE ADULT THINGS!"

I've arrived at a point in my novel now that I didn't expect to reach for at least several thousand more words- the main character's breakdown/panic attack. See, as I've mentioned, the narrator of the novel has OCD and takes medication to control it. It goes missing halfway through her roap trip, and what happens? Boom. Panic. I originally planned for this to be more around the middle of the book, but I've been restructuring the plot lately, and realized that my idea of the trip taking up two-thirds of the plot makes no sense. No one wants to read 30 000 words of getting on and off buses. So the panic attack comes just before the halfway point, and as such, I've been revisiting my own illness, reading over descriptions of what panic attacks feel like, and generally trying to get a sense of what's going on in my main character's head. Ironically enough, part of my inspiration came from the TV I've been watching lately.

I'm sorry, were you looking for the sweet, pliant
abuse victim/PTSD sufferer? WRONG NUMBER.

When I get back to my room at night, I'm generally too tired to read or write, so instead I flop on the couch and catch an hour of TV before I go to bed. My latest hour's worth of entertainment has been BBC America's Copper, a show which seems almost uniquely designed to appeal to me: it's a period drama, it's a diaspora story, it's about the underprivileged class that history generally ignores. Also it's kind of like Gangs of New York, but if the screenwriter had had a firmer grasp on the idea of "characterization."

At first glance, the show has exactly zip to do with my book, and honestly, it doesn't- different types of characters, different plots, a sad lack of telepaths. (I feel like every form of media could be improved with telepaths.) What impresses me so much about the show is the way it deals with mental illness, and specifically PTSD. It has two characters with obvious, overt symptoms, and several others who display more subdued reactions. It does well by them, I think- making sure they're sympathetic without turning them into victimized caricatures. And most importantly of all (to me) it says something that a lot of media surrounding mentally ill people never address: being mentally ill does not automatically make you a nice person.

We have a tendency, I think, to valorize those with mental illnesses- we have our Rain Mans and our I Am Sams and our Beautiful Minds where the lead might be crazy, but it's okay! They're a genius so that makes up for it. Or you'll get the Inspirationally Mentally Ill/Disabled character, who is so gosh-darn sweet and kind and self-sacrificing that you'd swear they escaped from a Candyland board. I understand why this happens- to most, disability and illness seem like terrible things, so they try to find some way of "fixing the afflicted," so to speak. They may hear voices, but they're so good at math! They may have flashbacks, but they're so stoic and hot! They may never be able to live independently, but they're so sweet and cuddly!

If the words "just get over it" leave your mouth,
I will shoot you in the EYE.

Except . . . no. No, that's not how it works, and I wouldn't want it to anyway. Making disabled or sick characters one-dimensional angels fails on a writing level- no one is a one-dimensional angel unless they're on an episode of Supernatural- and on a basic human level, because reducing us to that stereotype robs us of our basic humanity. The disabled are still human. We have bad days. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we snap and yell at people. Sometimes we react to our problems badly and take it out on others. Sometimes we don't have good coping mechanisms. That's what makes us people. And disability does not rob us of our basic personhood. If you think that, you're a crappy writer, and also a pretty crappy person. And that- among other things- is part of what I'm trying to do with this book. People with disabilities and mental illnesses exist. Some of us are teenagers. Some of us are even on your YA bookshelves.

Music theatre Mondays: The people called it ragtime

15627 / 50000 words. 31% done!

I have a weird sort of fascination with mediocre creative products. You can see it in my Goodreads reviews- when I like a book I'll leave a few lines of "yeah, I really enjoyed this," but if the book is bad- or has good points that unfortunately don't outweigh the bad ones, then I'll spend several paragraph citing examples and explaining why the book didn't work for me. I love reviews like that- both of my own work and of others'. "I liked it" or "I hated it" don't elucidate much about why the consumer liked or disliked; detailed reviews help readers understand whether or not they'll enjoy a product, and creators understand what did and didn't work in their creative process.

Which brings me to Ragtime.

Ragtime is based on a 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, which was also adapted into a movie in 1981, starring a young Samuel Jackson. It's a sort of modern-day Les Miserables, with the cast of thousands and the political backdrop. There are three families, none of whom (with the exception of Coalhouse Walker and his girlfriend Sarah) have names- they're just called Mother, Father, Tateh (which means "father") etc, because this is a Serious Allegorical Novel that Needs No Names. The book was adapted into a musical in 1998, and won multiple Tony Awards. It's playing now at the Shaw Festival, which is where I saw it. Upon seeing it, I came to the following conclusions:

1. The music is great! 
2. The script is terrible.

I can see very well where the problems came from- the book is a panorama of 1910s New York, much in the way that Les Miz covers a vast scope of French society of the 1800s. The problem is, the musical bites off far more than it can chew. It wants to tell a story about every single one of its characters and, in the alotted two and a half hour running time, manages to tell none of them. It wants to make a statement about American culture and the American Dream, but ultimately says nothing because they haven't had time to build to any kind of thematic conclusion. They stuff the stage with cameos from various historical figures- here's Henry Ford! Here's Evelyn Nesbit! Here's Emma Goldman!- but none of them have any real, long-lasting impact on the plot. With the possible exception of Booker T. Washington, who actually influences one of the characters' decisions, absolutely none of these people need to be here. They definitely don't need to have their own songs, which they all do. (Ironically enough, I think Washington is the only major figure without a song.) Some of this, from what I understand, is  a holdover from the novel- where Nesbit had a subplot involving Tateh's daughter (who also doesn't get a name)- but the fact is, she serves no purpose other than the Younger Brother character crushing on her and then throwing an entitled rich boy temper tantrum when she won't love him back. This character is possibly one of the most eminently punchable I've ever seen in musical theatre, second only to Roger Davis. (Oh believe me, I'll get to him one of these days.) "I'm rich! My sister's husband gave me a job! But Evelyn Nesbit won't love me! My life is empty and without meaning! Wahhh!"

The face of First World Problems

I find most of the rich family offputting for exactly this reason- they don't need to be here. It's amazing how much they don't need to be here. Their only purpose is to walk in and become the White Saviour characters for the audience to sympathize and identiy with, despite the fact that nothing in their background indicates that they would be this compassionate and non-racist. They exist to make the audience feel better about their grandpa who still cracks racist jokes. It's as simple as that. And considering how little connection these characters have to each other in general, we don't even need them around to tie everything together, because they just emphasize how little sense this story makes. Coalhouse comes off as massively selfish, since he abandons his son to become a terrorist; poor Sarah gets virtually no characterization before being stuffed in the fridge; Tateh bobs in and out of the story, undergoing massive development offstage; and the various historical figures, as I've said, have nothing to do with anything. So if the musical is so terrible, why am I so fascinated by it?

Well, I love the subject matter. Immigrant history fascinates me, especially urban immigrant history, especially in this time period. And for all that the musical fails so epically at tying their themes together, I do at least respect them for making the effort. It's not like I can't appreciate panorama stories; Gangs of New York is one of my favourite movies, and for similar reasons. But Ragtime is a musical, not a movie; it doesn't have the advantage of gorgeous cinematography and period detail to capture the audience. So what does it have?

Well . . . the music is amazing. Really, truly amazing. I have a good chunk of the soundtrack on my iPod, and  I listen to it regularily. For all that the historical figures don't need to be in the show, they have some of the best numbers. I could happily play "Crime of the Century" or "Henry Ford" or "The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square" for hours. "Wheels of a Dream" is beautiful and heartbreaking. The Prologue is breathtaking, even if it does take TEN MINUTES to introduce everyone. I challenge you to listen to this and not want to jump out of your seat and dance. (Although: what's up with the choreography? You've got this big showstopping number, and you . . . have the actors stand in a circle and stomp their feet? Come on, guys.)

But most of all, I think I really just respect the authors for trying. Did they succeed? No, not in my opinion. But I have a lot of respect for people who are willing to make the effort to shine a light on some little-known parts of history. Even if it does mean watching John Hinckley up there whine about how he can't get in Evelyn Nesbit's drawers.

"And now I'm going home"

14915 / 50000 words. 30% done!

I'm back! And apparently a weekend off was what I needed in the first place, because my wordcount is once again happily rising. I have my outlines back, and I'm tinkering with them a bit, thinking about story structure and character development and all those good things. I've had some ideas for extending the plot (which was, as it stood, bound to fall short of the necessary wordcount) and the characters are developing un ways that are new and exciting and making me happy. Progress all around!

As part of my weekend off, I a) lounged around the house and watched movies with my mother (The Holiday; it wasn't a masterpiece, but it also wasn't a half-bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon) and b) I went to a local concert in Gage Park. The performer, Heather Dale, has been a favourite of mine for quite some time- I believe I originally heard of her via Tamora Pierce's blog, where she linked to Dale's song "One Of Us" Since Dale is, happily, local to me, I got to see her perform (yay!) and get her autograph (double yay!) Her music is in a genre- Celtic folk- that I've always been fond of, which I guess is no surprise, given that I'm the granddaughter of Scottish immigrants. Possibly it's foolish, but I like feeling connected to my heritage- even if it is just by listening to "Mordred's Lullaby" on repeat. (Yes I know Mordred wasn't Scottish. Shhh.) I've only been to Scotland twice- once when I was two, and as such don't remember a minute of it, and once a few years ago as a post-graduation celebration. It's a bit of a weird experience- neither sides of my family (Scottish on my dad's, French-German on my mom's) have stayed especially connected to their ancestor's culture, but for whatever reason, that's only made me more determined to hold on to it. Culture's a bit of a weird beastie like that- I think the further away you are from the source of it, the more invested you are in keeping it. Maybe it gives you an illusion of belonging to something, although I don't really see it as illusory. Whatever community you're in, it forms part of you're identity. I'm not advocating for subsuming yourself into the group for the greater good (THE GREATER GOOOOOD) but I think for a lot of people- myself included- nationality and culture represent a sort of semi-family, something you're born into and choose to take or leave as you get older.

Whew. Heavy stuff for a Sunday night. But the section I just wrote had the two main characters discussing community and family, so in an odd way, it all comes back around. Here's a little bit of back-and-forth for you:

“But-” I shook my head. “Of course you need to worry about other people. Don’t you want friends? Family?”
“Of course,” she said impatiently, waving a fry in the air for emphasis. “But I don’t need to rely on them, is the thing. I never need to rely on anyone. Even if people take off, it doesn’t matter, because I can still take care of myself. No matter what.”
I stared at her. “That’s really what you want?”
She shrugged. “Nothing to do with want. It’s just how things are.”

What to sing when you have nothing to say

14015 / 50000 words. 28% done!

Guess who left all her outlines at school? This girl! So I probably won't get much writing done this weekend, at least not with the novel proper- instead I'll be catching up on my reading, and maybe write some pre-novel vignettes to get more of a feel for the characters. In the meantime, I thought I'd do something fun. 

Like most writers, I listen to music while I'm working- it occupies the parts of my brain that aren't focused on the words (so I don't get bored or restless) and helps me get in the mood for what I want to write. Since I don't have much in the way of content to show y'all today, I thought I'd share some of my writing playlist instead. The songs don't necessarily relate to the book in a thematic sense, although some of them do- they just have a feel and rhythm that puts me in a mindspace to write these characters and this setting.

Plus, they're just really kickass songs.

Run - Snow Patrol

Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men

Wake Up - Arcade Fire

Raise Hell - Brandi Carlile

No Rest For The Wicked - Cage the Elephant

Phenomena - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Radioactive - Marina and the Diamonds

Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

Use Somebody - Kings of Leon

Consequence - The Notwist

Big Google is watching you

13682 / 50000 words. 27% done!

Once again, I missed a day of blogging; once again it was, in the most technical terms, Not My Fault. You see, yesterday I awoke to find an e-mail informing me that my blog was suspected of being spam, and would be locked down until I 

1. Entered a captcha
2. Gave Google my phone number so that they could text me a passcode
3. Entered the passcode, and
4. waited until Google reviewed my application and unlocked my blog

If you think that all this is kind of a lot of hoops to jump through just to avert suspicion that you might be a spambot- especially when your blog got locked down without any confirmation and a five-second glance over it would prove that it was no such thing- congratulations! You and I share a brain. You know, I already find Google's insistence on tying ALL YOUR ACCOUNTS- Youtube, Blogger, Twitter- together under one username/e-mail creepy, but the creepy gets approximately a hundred times worst when they insist on getting YOUR PHONE NUMBER in order to counteract unfounded, un-investigated suspicious that you're a spambot. You could at least buy a girl dinner first, Google.

Since I just started this blog a few weeks ago, I'm not really interested in closing shop and moving- it's kind of like switching apartments after a month because you find out your landlord is actually a paranoid creep. (Actually, that's exactly what it's like.) So I'm not going anywhere, But should this blog ever disappear, leaving only a "this blog has violated our Terms of Service" message, know that I went down fighting bravely.

Like this. Exactly like this. But with less face paint.

I've got the first-book-draft blues

10348 / 50000 words. 21% done!

Neither computer problems nor writer's block, nor essays nor a busy schedule will keep me from getting my wordcount done for the day! And look at that, I'm almost at 25%. Pop out the champagne!

. . . okay, not really. I mean, I do have a good wordcount for the point I'm at in the novel (mid-Chapter Four) but I'm struggling with what all writers struggle with: insecurity about their own abilities. The problem with a job that involves being so much in your own head all the time is that you lost perspective on your work too easily. It's not a team job, like architecture- unless you're co-writing, there's no sharing of the workload, so a) it's all on you, and b) IT'S ALL ON YOU. Ergo, if you make a mistake, you generally have to figure out how to fix it by yourself. (I actually have co-written in the past, and the creative sharing of ideas is loads of fun, even if you must occasionally resist the urge to throttle your co-writer.) And of course, writing is a relatively subjective endeavour, so it's not like "the roof caved in! Clearly we did something wrong!" Something can feel wrong, but after being wrapped up in the project for weeks on end, it's hard to put your finger on why it doesn't feel right. (I almost typed "write" there. God, I'm tired.)

The thing that's most important to keep in mind, I think, is the fact that it's a first draft. You just have to keep chanting first draft, first draft, first draft in order to keep yourself from losing it and running naked up and down the freeway screaming about bears. Not that I'm there yet. Mostly.

Introducing: music theatre Mondays!

9323 / 50000 words. 19% done!

 Never let it be said that I allow computer problems to prevent me from writing.

Pursuant to my post on Tragic Gays, I have a little linkspam for you! Here's a list of four new queer YA books; here's Autostraddle's list of the 20 best novels for queer girls (I did raise my eyebrow at "Perks of Being a Wallflower's" inclusion, given that it's actually queer-free, but I suppose tastes vary) and here's a blog post by Sarah Diemer (author of The Dark Wife, which I highly recommend) on the so-called "realism" of queer YA romances with sad endings.

I was thinking last night that I need set topics to blog about; if I keep going as I am now, I'll run out of steam by the end of the month. And while I'm sure you're all fascinated by my endless computer woes, I should shake things up a bit. So: MUSIC THEATRE MONDAYS!

You know what I love? Music. You know what else I love? The theatre. (I love Slings&Arrows, but I'm always a bit pained when they take swipes at musical theatre for being stupid or insipid or whatever. Yeah, okay, so there's more of a focus on song and dance than language; that doesn't mean that the art form hasn't made significant contributions to the popular consciousness.) Some of my friends and family think of me as a theatre snob, but that's not really true- at least, I don't think it is- I don't object to loving some seriously silly or flawed stuff. I'm an avowed fan of The Producers, after all. When I object to a piece of theatre (or a book, or a movie, or a TV show) it's not because I think it's stupid; it's because I think it's harmful. Like, when I object to Spring Awakening, it's not because I don't like "The Bitch of Living" (it's a pretty kickin' song) or the anachronisms in costume (I think it's a cool way of relating the characters to modern teenagers); it's because I think that it says things about sex and teeenaged-hood that are harmful (it's okay to sleep with someone who has no understanding of what she's doing!)

ANYWAY. That was a total tangent. What I was trying to say was, I like musical theatre. So what I want to do with these music-theatre Mondays is spotlight musicals that I personally really love and talk a bit about why I love them and what I think they're trying to say.

First up: Bonnie and Clyde!

This show opened and closed pretty quickly, which I understand, but think is a shame. It's not what most people think when they hear "Bonnie and Clyde;" they think sexy, they think danger, they think half-naked Faye Dunaway.

Not that I'm complaining, per se . . .

But the actual Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow- who I didn't know too much about until I started doing background reading on this show- weren't especially thrilling or sexy. What they were, above most other things, was tragic. They both had pretty crapsack lives, before and after going on the road, and this is what this musical really touches on. It's the only adaptation of the story that (for instance) that acknowledges that Clyde Barrow spent a chunk of his early life living under a bridge, or that he was raped in prison, or that "nobody ever gets out of West Dallas." It doesn't surprise me at all that this show was written when it was; the original demo was, I think, recorded in 2008, right about the time that the stock market crashed. When does the show take place? 1932. Three years after Black Tuesday. Songs like "Made In America" (my personal favourite, not least which because it's a lot of fun to headbang angrily to) and "What Was Good Enough For You" hammer home the point- life in the Great Depression SUCKED. It sucked even harder if you were poor to begin with. So what do you do if you're poor, starving, and have been repeatedly abused by the justice system? Well, you go on a crime spree! (Note: do not actually do this.)

Unfortunately, the reason I love this show so much is the exact reason (I think) it closed so fast. For one thing, Broadway audiences are generally pretty well-off; you have to be, to afford tickets. So a show about the angry, disenfranchised poor turning on those more well-off than them is not an easy sell for that kind of audience. But more than that- and this goes back to what I said about what people expect from "Bonnie and Clyde-" this musical is just too raw. It's too real. The writers never shy away from the kinds of people they're writing about- and as sympathetic as I find them, they really did do awful things- and when you add in the fact that people didn't go in expecting realistic examples of Depression-era criminals, it's not really a wonder that ticket sales weren't great. So it closed. And I am terribly sad that I never got to see it, though I do live in hope that it'll be put on at a local community theatre. And there is always the soundtrack to listen to. We may be in debt . . .

The bog of eternal stench meets the blog of existential despair

8032 / 50000 words. 16% done!

Portrait of the author.

 There must be a universal rule somewhere that states "if you are awoken before nine in the morning by a customer service representative, it probably means your day is not going to go well." Whether there is or not, it certainly applies in my case. On Wednesday morning, I was awoken at the charming (if you're a bird) hour of 8:45, by a Bell Canada salesperson to inform me that my message of "hey, please cancel this order" finally got through to them and they'd cancelled it. I didn't actually drag my carcass out of bed until an hour after that, having already recognized that the day had given up before it even started, but sure enough, it went flying downhill as soon as I got out of bed. It was blisteringly hot (one might point out that it's been blisteringly hot for weeks now, and this is not a sign that the universe is conspiring against me, but I know better) I missed the bus (although "missed" implies a certain amount of complicity on my part, like I was running late and didn't get to the stop on time. What ACTUALLY happened was the bus driver speeding right through the stop, even as I waved to get on, possibly flipping me the bird as he did so) a call from home informed me that my cat had pissed all over my beloved childhood stuffed animals, and last but not least, my computer done broke.

Now my computer is only two months old, so I might be forgiven for assuming that a) this is pretty early for it to go and die on me, and b) that the warranty it's under will cover repairs. So after I did what I always do when the computer breaks and called my mommy ("MOMTHECOMPUTERWONTTURNON! ALLMYWRITINGISONTHERE! IDUNNOWHATTODOOOOOOOOOOOO!") I called up the computer tech people to ask why their fine product appeared to be functioning as well as the toy telephone I had when I was three.

[Half an hour of consultation and several automated sales pitches later]

Me: So what you're saying

Me: is that the computer I paid you five hundred bucks for

Me: the computer I paid you five hundred bucks for last month
Me: has suddenly come down with a case of corrupted hard drive
Me; and now I have to schlep down to Best Buy and pay them a hundred bucks to retrieve my data
Me: the data in danger of being lost because the computer you sold me failed
Me: and I have to pay for this out of pocket
Me: because your warranty doesn't cover it?
Sales Rep: Yes ma'am.
Me: *SILENT FACE OF RAGE AT THE PHONE*

So adios amigos until we meet again! Let it be known that if lightning strikes the Toshiba headquarters in the meantime, they totally deserved it.

AVENGE MY FOUL AND MOST UNNATURAL MURDER

My ability to word good is all used up for the day

7451 / 50000 words. 15% done!

Ah, that's more like it! All in a day's writing.

(No proper blog post today, because I'm too sleepy. Regular posts will resume shortly!)

Possibly this also explains my aversion to vampires

6455 / 50000 words. 13% done!

Admittedly not the most prolific day I've ever had, but that's what comes of afternoon naps. Do as I say, not as I do.

The word counter I've been using since I started this novel is the NaNoWriMo Word Meter. I've tried NaNo several years in a row, but never managed to complete one. I think my highest wordcount was 5k. I attribute this to two things:

1. NaNo is held in November, which is the worst of all possible times for students to take up writing 1667 words a day. At least, not 1667 words of stuff that isn't term papers and exams.
2. I am just really, really bad at deadlines. I'm getting better! I've never missed a deadline in the two years I've been at university! But when your professor isn't looming over you promising hellfire and failing grades should you fail to turn in ten pages on the life of Catherine Tekakwitha, the deadline just lacks that extra oomph.

Number #2 (heh) is a big part of why I started this blog. In 2011, when I signed up for a fanfic challenge to write a fic of at least 15k over the course of a summer, I used the same word counter when updating on Livejournal, and I found it helped when trying to motivate myself. It's easy to get discouraged when you're just staring at the wordcount at the bottom of the Word document; it helps a lot to watch that colour bar inch ever closer to the finish line, whispering "soon, my precious . . . sooooooooooooon."

The other helpful thing, I find, is the percentage calculation. Which is a bit odd, because if you had suggested to me before I started using the word counter that I would be comforted by a percentage, I would have laughed in your face and possibly spit on you and cursed your descendents. I hate math. Haaaaaaaate it. I hate arithmetic. I hate multiplication and division. I hate algebra. I hate calculus. I even hate numbers. Like the number 2, what does it think it's fooling? I can feel it laughing at me. I see that sarcastic upper curve there. My hate extends yea verily to the very first caveperson who invented the concept of numbers. I don't know who or where they are, but I hope they feel very guilty about it.

And yet . . . percentages! They calm me! I think it's a matter of perspective, honestly. Looking at "6445 out of 50, 000" is a good inducement to taking up drinking. Looking at "13%" is much more encouraging. I'm in the double digits! I'm in the teens! And I'm only on Chapter Four! Maybe I can do this after all.

But I haven't forgiven the number 2. Smug bastard.

On second thought, maybe I'll just stick to dancing

6163 / 50000 words. 12% done!

A Freeform Poem, By The Asthmatic, Out-of-Shape Author, Upon Taking Up Jogging

well this isn’t so bad
I feel kind of badass. Like the king of the road
Or the world
I think I like “king of the road” better. Sounds more Springsteen.
Man, my keys are REALLY noisy. I need a place to keep them that isn’t around my neck.
I think my watchband is loose.
Breathing is getting a bit difficult. No big. I’m the king of the road!
Okay, my chest is starting to hurt. I think I’ll stop at the corner.
Or . . . not at the corner.
Ow, ow, ow.
Oh hey! Passerbys! Well I can’t stop now; they’ll think I’m not committed to the jogging experience.
I am totally committed to the experience. I am the king of jogging. And the road.
Ow ow, burning chest pain, ow. Is this normal?
Maybe I should have googled this before going out.
NO. BADASS KINGS OF THE ROAD DON’T GOOGLE.
Is that a bus, or the bright light of my imminent demise?
Am I going to die like Oliver Welles?
 OH GOD THE BRIGHT LIGHT
IT CALLS TO ME
TELL MY MOTHER I LOVE HER.

That blogging thing

I've had an active ~presence~ on the internet since I was a wee thing, and spent my early online years trawling this endless series of tubes trying to find any scrap of information I could pertaining to James Cameron's 1997 masterpiece Titanic. One website stands out fondly in my memory; circa 2002, it featured several flashing gifs, midi files, and a giant background picture of poor Leonardo diCaprio floating away into the Atlantic while Kate Winslet looks helplessly on. Now I know better; now I'm after Pretty Little Liars.

But the point of this little ramble down memory lane is simply this: in all my e-travels, I've never really blogged for public consumption. Which is odd, when you think about it; I've called myself a writer for as long as I've been online, and yet it never occured to me to have a blog written specifically for people to read. Oh, I've had plenty of blogs; but they ran more along the lines of online diaries, the kind you set on fire when you reread them as an adult, shuddering at how woeful you were because your mom wouldn't let you stay up late to watch The X-Files. Fortunately, the handy delete button most websites come with make burning your early diaries that much easier, and more environmentally conscious. No trees died for this angst! But, circling back 'round to the point of this entry, that still leaves me without any kind of written record that I write For The People instead of for myself. I love my e-diaries, but the fact is, they're written for me, and that's not a good habit to be in when you want to write for public consumption. Not unless you want to be [insert cheap shot at popular female novelist here].

So: I have a blog! A proper-type blog with a nice layout and my face attached (sure it's my face hugging a dalek, but still: face) and a promise to you, my readers. As I embark on my quest to finish and publish a YA novel on my own, in the footsteps of so many great YA authors who went before me, I vow to you that not only will I hold myself accountable via daily updates on my progress, I will also update you on my life in general at least once a day. I cannot promise that I will do this without fail, but I can promise to let you kick my virtual ass if I don't. After all, I'm entering into a contract with you- with this blog, you get to demand content of me. So over the course of this long strange trip of writing a novel, we are going to count on each other. Whatever we have at the end- a terrible first draft and 350 days' worth of unintelligible entries- we can't say we didn't try.