Erin's 2007 NaNoWriMo Attempt

Chapters Four-Seven. Total Wordcount: 11026/50000

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:19:16 GMT

Chapters Four Through Seven: November 7
or: What the Hell Happened the Last Four Days That Prevented Any Mention Of It Up To This Point That Precludes the Possibility of Me Simply Being Really Lazy For Almost a Week

Obviously the perspective I was needing was not forthcoming simply by sitting at my computer staring at the somewhat in excess of five hundred words I had to my name. I decided that I needed to go on a quest in order to gain that perspective. Or ideas. One or the other. Obviously wandering away from my computer and my novel was the best way of writing said novel. No, that made no sense whatsoever, but I at least pretended it did, because this was not the mere procrastination that had been plaguing me up to this point. This was something much more special. This was, in fact, Epic Procrastination.

So in order to take my quest, I figured that I had to slog up a mountain to speak to some guru that was on the top. That's how these things always happened in fiction, anyway. And I was writing fiction, so that worked out perfectly!

Thankfully, I happened to have a mountain handy. There was one in my back yard. Well, it wasn't literally in my back yard. But it was pretty darn close to my back yard. You could see it from my back yard. Technically, it was across a few empty lots, a water runoff ditch, and a street from my back yard. But really. Mountain! There had to be a guru on the top, didn't there?

It wasn't a tall mountain, either. It was hardly a hill, mind you, but it wasn't going to take me eight years to finally ascend to the summit. I hoped. That would totally put a crimp in my plans to write a novel in a month. Unless it was writing a novel in a month eight years from now. Or sixteen, depending on how long it took to get back down the mountain. But no, it was just a reasonably sized mountain. And yes, I may have been ridiculously out of shape, but I had to be able to make it up the mountain, didn't I? And get to that guru that just had to be on top of the mountain and would tell me how I was supposed to continue my story.

I packed a bag of provisions, even if I was not entirely sure if you were supposed to bring nothing when you go on those quests up mountains in order to gain wisdom. Still, I hardly wanted to lose out on the last of the Halloween candy. So that was the first thing packed. I also took a jacket, just in case, and a big bottle of water. Because I live in the middle of the desert. And I set out.

The first obstacle I got to was the fence in my back yard. It didn't actually have a gate and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to get through. I could always get in my car and just drive out of and around the master planned community I lived in in order to get to the mountain, but that seemed like it was violating the principle of the thing somehow.

I could have scaled the fence, maybe, but the whole fear of heights thing stood in my way more than a little. And the bars were definitely too close together for my fat little self to squeeze through. So what I did was... Well, actually, I got in my car and drove out of and around the master planned community that I lived in in order to get to the mountain.

However, I wasn't going to cheat. It was very possible to drive halfway up the mountain, which I was in absolutely no way shape or form going to do. So I got out and started walking. Well, climbing. It was dusty, and it was dry, and it was surprisingly steeper than it looked from my back patio, but nonetheless, I had to persevere. Step by step, I went up and up and up and up and up and up... and this was just along the road that I could have driven my car up. What? It isn't like I was going to not take a path offered to me. Anyway, I eventually got up to about halfway up the mountain, where there resided a cave. With a burnt-out car and graffiti residing there. The easy part had been finished.

Going up the rest of the way to see the guru which absolutely had to be up there was going to be even more difficult. But I had to press on. There was no way I was going to be able to write my novel without the help of the guru who had to live on top of the mountain in my backyard.

So I got down to it. It was hot. And it was even dustier. And rockier. And dry. And even steeper than the actual road had been. But nonetheless, I had to persevere. Step by step, I went, occasionally all but crawling, up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And suddenly, or, well, not all that suddenly, because, really, it took a while, as was evidenced by the fact that I was exhausted and extremely out of breath, the top of the mountain was within reach.

I took a quick drink of water and downed a bit of Halloween candy and pressed onward. Up and up a little more, and I was finally at the top of the mountain.

But where was the guru? The guru was absolutely nowhere to be found. There was just me and the top of the mountain. Had the guru left? Had the guru died? Or was it just that the guru had never actually been there at all? My beloved fictional tropes had betrayed me. I was never going to gain wisdom now.

I sat down on a rock to take stock of my options. I didn't want to head back down. Because if the guru who more than likely didn't exist actually did exist and had just stepped out for a brief constitutional and came back while I was gone, I would have lost the chance for great wisdom. Besides, it was a long way down. And dry and hot and dusty and steep. It wasn't going to be pleasant at all.

I could have possibly worked on my novel, even without the benefit of a guru's wisdom. But I had not brought any writing utensils, and scratching more words in the dirt would be rather counterproductive to getting them actually appended to my novel when I actually did leave.

So I was there at the top of the mountain. No guru, no anything. Well, except for water and Halloween candy, and not even much of that. Just a few of the candy coins with the crispy rice in them. Oh. And my jacket. I decided that taking a nap would probably be the best idea. If the guru came back, I was sure he would wake me.

So I rolled up my jacket for use as a pillow and relaxed there at the top of the mountain. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind blowing by as I drifted off to sleep.

The dream I had was... very strange. I don't remember everything that happened, but I do remember that it started out with swirling colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, but not just the basic colors of the spectrum. Basically, any color available in a ninety-six count Crayola crayon box, complete with crayon sharpener, was swirling around the giant void. From periwinkle to silver, to goldenrod, to blue green, to green blue, and no, I still wasn't entirely sure on the difference between the colors. But at any rate, you get the idea. So yes, there were these swirling colors in a giant void that seemed to go on forever. Granted, it wasn't all that void-y because there were colors in it. Maybe it was just a colorful void. But again, you get the idea. After a while, I don't know exactly how long, you know how dream time works, the colorful void's colors started dying down, and I saw a tree. I wasn't sure exactly what kind of tree it was. It was leafy, though. And the trunk was gray-brown and whatnot. And... there was a face in the tree.

Not one of those standard tree faces you think of when you think of tree faces, if you think of tree faces, although I'm sure most people don't, as a rule, think of tree faces all that often. At least I don't. But you know what I mean. Like one of the faces they put on the Ents in the Lord of the Rings movies! Tree faces that actually looked treelike. No. The tree face on the tree that I dreamed of looked more like the face on a marble statue. Except that it was the same color of the tree bark. And it moved. It said something to me. Of course, what it said to me had absolutely nothing approaching sense in it.

"Hello. Never of the ways do you sit there with an eyepatch in your arms of orange. Instead you put a table in a lemon and twirl around and around and around and around and around and around in circles until the balloon turns and dips and spins in your purple haze of moonlight picture frames, bending until your cell phone becomes a key and a crayon and a carpet and a birdcage. Never think of the window or the candle that looks like an eye or the three cats sitting across from the three birds, them in turned being watched by a Storm Trooper. Be careful, because you never know when you will sit up screaming, and burst into show tunes, as sung by Darth Vader. You do not want such things to happen. Not even to the orange, or the strawberry, or the pomegranate. But you do want your package, and you want the fish to deliver it to you once it is ready to be delivered, but you also want it now before the mailbox becomes a stick of gum and the package cannot arrive."

In the dream world, however, this apparently made perfect sense to me, because I responded in kind.

"You know what I think, because I don't want the cap of the pen or the house to become something that will turn and hit me into glass or into a hat with a nose floating in front of nothingness. How do long and rambling letters from green panda bears turn and face the enthusiastic firemen living on top of telescopes? Do they even understand the way the wires wrap around the roses? Or do they just discount the parakeet blankets?"

This obviously made absolutely no sense either. But it was a dream, and it made sense to us in the dream, I suppose, because neither of us looked at each other with an odd look on our faces.

And then I woke up.

And sat up.

And blinked.

And I said, aloud, "Well what the fuck good was that supposed to do me?"

No less an awesome author than Neil Gaiman once said that dream logic was not story logic. And my dream logic apparently wasn't logic at all. Because that bit of weird swirling colors and nonsensical conversation wasn't going to make it into any novel. Ever.

At any rate, apparently sitting around wasn't going to do any good. The guru did not appear to be coming, if the guru existed at all. Help for my novel was not going to come on top of this mountain. I started on my dusty dry steep trek downwards.

When I was about halfway back to the cave, an alien ship suddenly came out from behind a cloud and floated above me. A loudspeaker in the ship started burbling loudly in a strange alien tongue. "Asdfhdfou nrbeotu ewbuigoibn wbithkjn oerjhvjknet eoueth! Nirtjhihero ieyhrteuibg oehiwb f ethsdfh netihtoet mefibnagb oetuwgbu nglketiha ltnebb touewhdf wuhtero ymbabugh'ikhdfgad atihea bi! Boutbr myhbaiuh abutha tehagbto ykla atbuwyny abieryhwb yieiryoinhg petiekancx! Niereyou ntabiw ty yeiryabny pueiyhrn? Bneroyuona!"

I blinked and shook my head abruptly. I had to have been hallucinating. I dragged my water bottle out and took a long drink, leaning on a rock to rest for a bit. The alien vessel disappeared. Thank God. That would have been really annoying, to keep hearing "Dehnti otyhirth oymire pwiogn othiengp eineriw opgnibnw eorjsdifj dskhdrfdsf spohaliftmfw!!!" over and over again.

That taken care of, I continued my trek down the mountain. And eventually made it back to my car. I unlocked the passenger side door and hit the button that unlocked the driver's side door. My key didn't actually work in the lock on the other side. I sat in the car and relaxed for a moment.

I turned the car on to head back home, Panic! At the Disco pouring through my speakers, as The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage was on the radio at the moment. I took off, heading away from the mountain and the lack of a guru. That had failed miserably.

I got home and slept. Because, really, trekking up and down a mountain is fucking exhausting.

I woke up three days later. That sucked. In the meantime, though, I had another dream. And it really didn't make much sense either, but at least this one may have been useful.

I was sitting back up on top of the mountain, and it wasn't as hot or dry or pretty crappy as it had been in reality. I heard footsteps and looked over. There was no guru there, but instead, it was a very small little girl. I had never seen her before to the best of my knowledge, but in my dream, she seemed familiar. She smiled at me and greeted me with a simple hello.

I said hello back, because she was cute and seemed friendly. The rest of the conversation went something like this.

"Who are you waiting for?"

"I don't know exactly. A guru, I guess. Someone to help me write the story I want to write."

"How is someone else going to be able to help you with your story? Isn't the story inside you? That's how stories usually go. If someone else helps you, really, it makes it their story, doesn't it?"

"Well... not if they just give me advice or something."

"The only one who needs to give you advice is yourself. You'd know where the story is going if you just listened to yourself. Crossroads are special, you know."

"You know about the crossroads?"

"I'm part of you. You know that crossroads in many places mean a link between the real world and another one. And that's where he's standing right now. And that's where he gets his quest. Or at least where he gets the first hint of the quest."

"And what's she for?"

"She gives him the quest."

"And we never see her again?"

"Oh, no. I think you know better than that. You like her too much to let that happen, don't you?"

"Well, but if I have to listen to the story..."

"No, you have to listen to yourself. Remember. The story is a part of you."

"Like you are?"

She smiled at me. "I am the story."

"You?"

"Yes. And I'm sure that you can help me grow."

That was the point at which I woke up three days later. Thankfully, my mother had called in to my work and told them I was sick. And I woke up on Wednesday. Which was a day off. So that kinda won a lot.

And I had finally found my guru. Of course, I was the guru, so I had found out a bit late that I didn't have to climb up a dry dusty steep mountain to actually get to the guru. Eurgh, my lips were chapped.

But I could finally write more.

I made my way to my computer and looked at the story. And then I added to it.

"I am merely a traveler."

The woman smiled. "A mere traveler would not find himself here, Drake Abarion. Not at my crossroads."

"Your crossroads?"

The young woman simply smiled again.

"What do you mean your crossroads?"

"I watch over them, when the time comes where it is needed to watch over them."

"What do you mean?"

"There is a storm coming, Drake Abarion. And the storm will not abate without help."

He frowned. "What sort of storm? And what sort of help?"

"One not entirely of the world you come from."

"Come from?"

"Crossroads belong to no world in particular. Meetings can occur there that could not a mere ten feet away."

"You mean you..."

"Am not from the world that you call yours. But I am here to offer you a message."

"What message?"

"You can be the one who saves your world from destruction."

"What?"

"I believe you heard me, Drake Abarion. There are... signs, of one who can turn the tide. You bear them."

"What signs?"

"Nothing you would know, nor anything you could see. Trust me when I say they are there, though."

"How am I supposed to... I don't even know what storm this is."

"I am here to offer my assistance. If you allow me, I can travel along with you, to help you with what must be done."

"Who are you?"

"Melinera. I have come from the world of shadows to be a guide to the one who will take up the mantle of protector of this world."

"And if I say no?"

"Then I wait for another who bears the signs to come by a crossroad that I have access to. And hope that he or she does not come too late."

"To save the world from destruction."

"I will not deceive you, Drake Abarion. This is no simple task I ask you to undertake. And there is no guarantee of success. Or even survival. I can only offer you my own assistance, for what it will be worth. And most of what I can offer you is mere knowledge. I am no warrior."

"Neither am I!"

"But you can be. Will you be the one your world needs, or will you be along your way?"

....... Nine hundred and five words. Holy crap, I had almost doubled my word count. And was pressing up on a thousand. Which, granted, was far from where I needed to be, especially with a week all but gone, but still, it was real honest to goodness progress. And maybe the girl that was my story grew up just a bit.

Well, obviously Drake was going to go and say yes to Melinera. (I decided that I might have to change that name in the future. It reminded me too much of 'Marinara'.) Of course, if he said no, I could definitely pad the word count with someone else who could be the hero the world needed, but... Really, I kinda liked my protagonist. And wanted to know more about him. So basically, I decided that I would stick with Drake.

I smiled to myself. The story was finally beginning to take off on its own two feet. I was actually pleased with it in all areas but word count. And as long as I remained pleased, and remained writing, the word count would take care of itself. I only had forty nine thousand and ninety five words to go. And even presuming I didn't get any more done that day, I had twenty-three days to get those words in. So that was basically.... two thousand, one hundred and thirty four and a half words a day for the rest of the month. Yes, that meant about twice as much every day as I had written at all thus far, but it was still doable. I just needed to hunker down and work. I could do it. No guru necessary. Nor Halloween candy. And that bit was fortunate, as I was out of Halloween candy anyway.

However, something critical was coming up, which meant I would have to put a temporary hold on further writing. Yes, this was something of a trend, but it was the same hold that had happened nearly a week ago. Namely... MythBusters.

And wow was I not disappointed. Seriously. The episode presented me with a thing of beauty so phenomenally amazing that it almost brought tears to my eyes. It was spectacular. It was awe-inspiring. It was... It was... It was... It was a rocket water heater.

It was glorious. It shot up in the air, and it hung there for what seemed like an eternity. A sweet and phenomenal gravity defying eternity.

Alas, the eternity ended, the water heater fell back to the ground, the episode ended after a few more wonderful and amazing replays and retests, and then I had to write more.

I sat down, looked at the screen, and got ready for Drake's reply. As if there were going to be any surprises.

"I want one answer first."

"What is that?"

"You are not from this world. You are from a different realm that touches it loosely. What difference does it make to you if my world is destroyed? Yours hardly would be."

Melinera shook her head. "You are simplifying things to an extraordinary extent, Drake Abarion. If your world falls, do you think mine will not fall after? Do you think that countless others will not fall after? The worlds are not self-contained, to live or die as they will without causing so much as a leaf to come out of place in another. If they were, I would be unable to be here. No. The worlds are connected not unlike the threads in a spider's web. They are individuals, but they meet at the crossroads. And yet, if you tear one out, it weakens the structure, and the other threads start to degrade. There are consequences to all things, and all places."

"Then if any world falls and hurts the others, why are you most concerned about mine?"

"Because yours is where the greatest threat lies now, Drake Abarion."

"What threat is it?"

"The threat of destruction, have I not said so much already?"

"Yes, but from what? In what manner?"

Melinera frowned then, shaking her head. "If I were to explain at length the reasons now, before you even make your choice, we could be here for quite some time."

Drake frowned, and looked down the road from whence he came. "You will tell me, though."

"Yes. It would hardly do if I didn't. But you have to make a choice, because the more time you take, the more time is wasted. Even now another one who could bear the signs could be approaching another crossroad, and I would not notice because I was standing here waiting for you to choose. Choose now, Drake Abarion. Choose wisely. And choose well."

He steeled himself, and turned to look ahead. "I will, then. You leave me little choice."

Melinera smiled slightly. "There is always a choice. And you made yours. Whether the choice was for good or ill remains to be seen as we travel." She took a few steps, walking behind him. When she reappeared at the side of his vision, she was wearing a dark green traveling cloak and had a haversack slung over her shoulder. "We have quite the journey to make, Drake Abarion. We should get going." And then she stepped out of the crossroad, to Drake's right, along the road he was not even considering traveling. "Follow me."

He did.

... I realized then that that was actually a chapter ending. I was amazed. And I had over thirteen hundred words. And I think I had a title for both the novel in general, and the first chapter. So I went to do some adjusting. Where 'Untitled, for now' had been, was now 'Where the Worlds Entwine', although even that was subject to change. And underneath it was a simple 'Chapter One: The Crossroads'. Hey, it was a little bit of word padding, too.

I stood up to stretch my legs a bit and walk over to the refrigerator to get a drink of lemonade. I did live in the desert, after all, and my throat was a bit dry. And I liked lemonade. And now I had reached... well, to be perfectly honest, a crossroads. I didn't know exactly where the story was going anymore. Of course, that often times could be a good chunk of the fun of writing, but I didn't even know where to begin to find out.

Oh well. At least this time I had faith in my ability to find that way to begin.

Chapter Two. Total Wordcount: 6751/50000

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:49:30 GMT

Chapter Two: November 2
or: How Does One Manage To Add To a Novel When One Has To Work That Day?

So as dawn broke... well, not actually dawn. As midnight broke on the second day of my month long novel writing quest, things were looking rather bleak, if not entirely so. I had four hundred and eighty eight words to my credit, and while it was by no means the recommended sixteen hundred and sixty seven, it was also not zero. Granted, it was closer to zero than to sixteen hundred and sixty seven, but even starting was an accomplishment. I had successfully posted my first day's paltry offerings to the journal I had been twice requested to make. Therefore, I was ready to start in on the second day's worth of work.

However, this second day of my quest was going to prove even more problematic than the first. I had to work that day. And a full time job means that I definitely did not have the entire day ahead of me this time. My work schedule that day was from one in the afternoon to nine at night. About a half hour traveling time there and back meant I'd be gone from about twelve-thirty to about nine-thirty. That's nine hours where I wouldn't be able to write. Or even pretend to write. Or stare at the screen some more. Oh well, I'd take that bridge when I came to it. Now it was shortly after midnight, not shortly after noon. And I could at least get some writing done, with any luck. I was not yet giving up on this venture. I quickly skimmed over what I had written the previous day, once I safely discarded the vampire novel and the whatever the hell else I came up with with the fungus monsters. I'd just had a mysterious introduction. There was only one way to follow a mysterious introduction.

Drake blinked. "Who... are you?"

See? Perfect. And now... An answer, maybe?

The young woman's smile grew fractionally. "I could ask you the same thing."

And maybe now we get to find out a little more about Drake. That would be awesome. What am I saying? I'm the author, I say we get to find out a little more about Drake. Because it's not as if stories ever go ways authors don't expect or anything. Pardon me while I laugh.

"You could. Will you?"

All right then. We've found out that Drake is a bit of a smartass. Nothing substantive.

The woman merely arched an eyebrow. Drake continued. "I am Drake Do'Urden."

... I am so totally kidding.

The woman merely arched an eyebrow. Drake continued. "I am Drake Abarion."

And at long last. Drake has a surname. Taken from one of my RP characters back from like seven years ago, and slightly modified. But whatever.

"And what brings you through these woods, Drake Abarion?"

You see, she uses his full name because of two reasons. One, it makes her seem a little more disconnected from him, and two... That's an extra one to the word count! I remembered then that I had to go do my Neopets dailies again. But I added forty-three words to my count before straying at all! Or at least mostly at all.

Unfortunately, sleep started calling. Especially since I had to work, and rather earlier than I usually had to work. I would have to find out what it was that brought Drake to the woods after I woke up. Which was sad, because I was wondering.

Unfortunately, I forgot about the time crunch that inevitably results from working early. (I normally work later than that, shut up, one pm is early for me!) I didn't have time to even contemplate writing. I had to do too much stuff. I had to shower, get dressed, collect my laundry, clean up my computer desk (it had finally reached that point where mom couldn't just let it slide anymore. I had been expecting that. Probably should have cleaned it before November...), and a thousand other tiny little tasks that in and of themselves are pretty much nothing, but lumped all together, completely take away the time between waking up and actually heading out the door to work. The answer to the question of what my seeming protagonist, Drake Abarion, was doing in the woods, would unfortunately have to remain unanswered. At least for the time being. It was disconcerting.

So I headed off to work with questions bubbling in my head, and unfortunately, no foreseeable way way of getting them answered. Not exactly the best mindset to head off to work in. It will, at the very least, keep you distracted. Add that to the lingering concerns about my extremely sad word count, and let's just say that working was not exactly at the forefront of my mind. I could only wonder if I would manage to change that at some point during the day. And hope that I would.

Work, unfortunately, turned out to be mind-numbing. But not mind-numbing in the way that actually makes you able to grab a bit of scratch paper and get novel ideas written down. No, of course not. That would be far too convenient. Instead, it was mind-numbing in that incredibly busy way where there's a whole lot to do, it's just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. You get the idea.

So, basically, I had no problem at all with getting my very budding novel out of the forefront of my mind in favor of work. In fact, the only difficulty was getting it back to the forefront of my mind instead of said forefront swimming with such things as charity donations and gift card purchases and stuffed animals and the high definition television that magically showed up at the information desk during my two days off. It really was cool. We were playing the Planet Earth miniseries on it, with no sound, of course. Once when I was walking back to the information desk after doing something up at the registers, I saw a snippet of some emperor penguins and promptly started penguin walking (or would that be waddling) all the way over to said information desk. Never let it be said that I am not a complete dork.

Eventually, however, I finally managed to drag myself to the end of my work day and had a remarkably uneventful drive home. Nothing at all inspiring that would be able to influence my novel at all. No explosions, no high speed car chases, no horrific accidents I passed on the way. Not as if I could really stick a high speed car chase into my novel, given the genre of the thing, but you never did know, did you? There could always be a high speed dragon race, or something. Actually, that's a pretty interesting idea. Note to self. Perhaps a high speed dragon race later in the novel. How cool would that be?

So I got home, and the first thing I did, before absolutely anything else, because it needed doing was... no, it wasn't sitting right down and writing more. It was eating. What? I was hungry. I'd been through a full day at work and had not eaten anything more than a cookie. And that had been four hours ago. We could totally not have that. I needed food and I needed it as soon as possible. After all, I could hardly be writing a masterpiece of a novel on an empty stomach, could I? So after a nice meal of a rice pilaf TV dinner thing, I sat down at the computer. And checked my e-mail. What? That needed to be done too. If I just started on my novel, I'd be wondering what exactly had been in my e-mail. So I fully slaked my curiosity. And then! Then, finally, I was ready to continue writing.

Where was I? I opened my novel file and took a look.

"You could. Will you?" The woman merely arched an eyebrow. Drake continued. "I am Drake Abarion."

"And what brings you through these woods, Drake Abarion?"

Oh right. I was wondering what the answer to that question was going to be.

"I am merely a traveler."

What a cop-out. And he's too damn taciturn. Note to self. At first opportunity, get a really damn talkative character. That could not possibly be anything but an extreme boon to the word count.

The woman smiled. "A mere traveler would not find himself here, Drake Abarion. Not at my crossroads."

Oh, now that was interesting. Her crossroads? I think I had been a little fixated on Supernatural. Didn't I see something in the DVD bonus features about crossroads spirits imported from Africa or something? Would I have to watch those DVDs again? Or would I have to do some other research? Did I dare brave the wilds of Wikipedia again? Would Wikipedia even prove all that helpful? I was at a... well, at a crossroads. Maybe I could just duck the issue entirely and do the research later. Or maybe I could just make up my own legends. This was my fantasy world, after all. I could do as I pleased. Or I could...

"Your crossroads?" Drake asked.

... Damn. Now I needed an answer. Or maybe I didn't. Let's see. How do I up the mystery?

The young woman simply smiled again.

There. It definitely upped the mystery factor in my mysterious young woman, who probably wasn't a woman at all, at least in the sense of the word as we understand it. However, playing up that mystery also plays into the fact that I actually have to find an answer. Which is so incredibly not helpful.

I leaned back in my chair, sighing, and then looked at the clock. I then looked at my word count. Five hundred and forty four. With a half hour left in day two, things were looking amazingly bleak. I really needed some Halloween candy.

Chapter One. Total Wordcount: 5029/50000

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:22:01 GMT

The Completely True, Not At All Fictionalized (Honest) Account Of Why Exactly I Was Unable To Write a Novel In a Month

Chapter One: November 1
or: The Day of Lofty Expectations, Which Were Quickly Shot Down By That Bummer of an Experience Called Realism

It was a pretty extravagant goal, I'll grant you. But I honestly thought I could do it. Write a novel in thirty days. It couldn't be that difficult, could it? Fifty thousand words! That's less than two thousand words a day. That's not hard. I speak way more than two thousand words a day, at least. And I'm sure I can probably write that much.

Yes, I'd tried it before, and yes, I'd failed. Rather miserably. But just because it wasn't necessarily that I myself had done it in the past, I knew that other people had. So I knew that it was possible. And besides, this time around, I had advantages.

First of all, it was, as usual, in November. However, the changes to daylight savings time pushed back that traditional 'fall back' to a few weeks later. Smack dab in the middle of said month. It was brilliant. I had a whole extra hour to work on getting those fifty thousand words. Instead of seven hundred and twenty hours to do it (okay, minus work and sleep), I had seven hundred and twenty-one. Yes, that may not seem so much in the scheme of things, but really, every little bit counts, doesn't it? That's what they say, anyway.

Second, this time around? I had a fool-proof plot! I actually knew for once what I would be writing! It would be this really cool young adult vampire love story. Kinda. It was a vampire romance, yes, but then the hot sexy oh em gee droolworthy vampire would have honestly ended up EVIL in the end. Goodness. Who ever could have thought of something like that! What a cliché buster! It just doesn't happen in modern vampire fiction! Really! No tortured anti-hero here. Just an admittedly hot vampire who ends up really being all about the blood sucking. And then the protagonist chick would be saved by the geek boy who'd been her friend all along... Wait, no, that makes it sound like the girl would just be a set piece. Don't wanna be misogynistic about it. I know. She'll be saved by the geek brother and his twin geek sister! And end up settling down with one! Or both! Hey, never know!

And then I realized something. Everyone and their mother was doing a vampire story this year. And although it was good, maybe, that I had tapped into the collective gestalt of month-long-novel writers, I wanted to be much more original. Of course, that plan scrapped, I had absolutely no idea what to write about after all. And that makes writing considerably more difficult.

But all was not lost, was it? Maybe I just had to tweak it a bit. Maybe instead of a hot sexy oh em gee droolworthy vampire, it'd be a hot sexy oh em gee droolworthy... uh... fungus monster! ... Wait a minute. I think that's something of a contradiction in terms. If you're a fungus monster, odds are pretty good that you're going to be anything but, well, hot, sexy, or oh em gee droolworthy. I mean... Fungus. The mere concept would take the readers right out of my impending piece of brilliant prose.

So the fungus monster was out. Hot sexy oh em gee droolworthy merman? I bet that'd be fairly unique. Of course, the fact that I was pretty sure my heroine was unable to breathe underwater was a bit of a stumbling block. A dude in a fish tail flopping around the beach really didn't exude take-me-now vibes, did he? Nor did a drowning tend to lead to long term romance.

Okay, so set the merman aside. Along with the vampire and the fungus monster. .... Wait, now that would be an interesting plot idea! A merman, a vampire, and a fungus monster... fighting crime! It would be brilliant! The Superhuman Detective Agency! Throw in a HUGE SENTIENT BUG. Of course, the huge sentient bug would be a sympathetic character. Because he's a huge bug and people are automatically revolted by a huge bug. But he's really kind and sweet on the inside. Right where his gooey green guts are. Awwww.

... Maybe not. I'd need a good villain for the Superhuman Detective Agency. And I think all the good villains are taken. Besides. Reading about a huge sentient bug would creep me out a bit.

So, okay. Merman, vampire, fungus monster, huge sentient bug, all out of the picture. Maybe I could write a straight-up romance novel! It couldn't be that hard to write massive amounts of purple prose, could it? She gasped in shock, her heaving bosom straining against the constricting fabric of her undergarment. She had never seen a length of man sausage quite that large. Of course, she had never seen a length of man sausage at all. "Be gentle," she breathed, barely above a whisper...

... Spare me.

Okay. No merman, no vampire, no fungus monster, no huge sentient bug, and for the love of God, no lengths of man sausage. I mean... man sausage? Where did that even come from?

So I had quite satisfactorily come up with a rather sizable list of what not to write. Which helped me in precisely no way shape or form in deciding what to write. I stared at the blank word processor. Ideas were lacking. It wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.

... Maybe a romance novel with no man sausage? Throw in the huge sentient bug instead? But how would that even work. Bugs and humans... I don't think they exactly have compatible sexual anatomy.

That'd be more like a horror novel anyway.

Oo! Now that was an idea! A horror novel! I could write something dripping with fear and gore and terror! Something about the dark things that lurk in the shadows, ready to reach out when you least expect it and do horrible things. Horrible things like disembowelling you and using your entrails to spell alien letters on the roof to summon the mothership to take the unspeakable dark thing home. And then the invasion! Wait. I said horror, not science fiction.

Okay. So not an alien... Or maybe I could actually do science fiction! I liked science fiction, didn't I? Space wars, spanning the galaxies! Spandex jump suits!

Maybe not.

So I was just sitting there, staring at my computer, plots jumping through my head, and summarily being discarded. Because really, they weren't good plots at all. Blank screens don't lend themselves to novels, do they? Maybe I just needed some sugar. Another advantage of starting at the beginning of November! Leftover Halloween candy! I got up, leaving that infernal mocking blank screen where it was, retrieved that king of all candies, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and promptly devoured it. Realizing that that was a bit anticlimactic, I returned to the computer.

The blank screen was still there.

Damn you, blank screen! Why do you mock me? Why do you do such hellacious things! Like stare at me, seemingly benignly? I know that underneath that blank white seemingly placid facade, you were laughing. Laughing at my inability to write. Laughing, I say! That's its goal. Now that would be an interesting villain. A completely blank screen. Just laughing. Of course, it wouldn't be very compelling, would it?

I had no plot. They say no plot, no problem. Don't believe them at all. No plot, no story. Well, no plot, no characters, no story. Blank screen? No novel.

Maybe all I had to do was something like coming up with a first sentence. Maybe I'd hit upon that perfect first sentence and the rest would just come flowing out onto the screen like... water. Or sunshine. Or... Something that flows. A first sentence. I had to be able to do a first sentence...

Once upon a time-- No. Already too cliché. Select! Delete! Laughing blank screen!

It was a dark and-- Oh, so overdone. Select! Delete!

The road was barely visible, turning and threading its way through the old, twisted, and gnarled trees, weaving its way to nowhere.

... Oh, hey, I liked that one.

Suck on that, laughing blank screen. Now you were a not so laughing, not so blank screen. With twenty-two words on it. Only forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight to go.

And it only took me thirty nine minutes! Why, at this rate, I'd be done in 24 and a quarter days! See? It's not that difficult!

Okay. So I had a first sentence. Eat your heart out, Hemingway.

Wait, no, Hemingway had tons of first sentences. I only had one. But it was a good one, at least in my opinion.

Okay. So what about this road? Was there something special about this road? There had to be something special about it. Where did it go? It couldn't really go to nowhere. Nobody really chooses to go nowhere, so they wouldn't go so far as to make a road to it. Maybe it went to somewhere, a long time ago. I had no idea. Was there anyone on this road? There had to be someone there, didn't there? That could totally lead to a second sentence.

Footsteps could be heard in the dust of the path.

... Wait. That probably needs some editing. It's a road, not a path. Roads are somewhat bigger than paths.

Footsteps could be heard in the dust of the road.

Who was hearing the footsteps, though? I somehow get the idea that this guy's traveling solo.

Of course the only ears to hear it belonged to the same figure who owned the feet.

That sounded so insanely dumb. But still! Forty-nine words! I was on a roll! And it was only one am! Wait. That meant Mythbusters time. The seduction of the Great American Novel novel couldn't possibly do anything but wait on the shenanigans of Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. And most likely explosions.

Now, if you have to ask why Mythbusters should have taken precedence over novel writing, you obviously have never seen Mythbusters. And that hour spent away from my forty-nine word magnum opus was worth every minute. Not only did I get an explosion, I got Tori in an underwire bra. Now that's something you don't see every day. Unless, of course, you happen to have taped that episode.

So, Mythbusters taken care of, it was time to return to... Actually, it was time to do the dailies over at Neopets. Priorities, remember? Didn't want my poor little virtual pets to starve to death. And then I had webcomics to check up on. These are important things to worry about, you know. Besides, I was off work and had the whole day ahead of me.

By the time I finished that and checked my LiveJournal friends list again, despite the fact that it was rather late, and thus, nobody was posting, it was three in the morning. Which obviously meant that it was time to return to my phenomenal novel in progress.

The road was barely visible, turning and threading its way through the old, twisted, and gnarled trees, weaving its way to nowhere. Footsteps could be heard in the dust of the road. Of course the only ears to hear it belonged to the same figure who owned the feet.

Yep. Still the same as I left it. I realized then that it needed a title. Of course, it was rather hard to title something before I knew much more about it. So I just went to the top of the file and slapped an 'Untitled. For Now' up there and garnered myself an extra three words. Ha! Fifty-two. Where now... Well, I needed to know more about my sole traveler here, didn't I? Time to add another sentence.

A stiff breeze blew through the wood, causing the traveler to draw his cloak tightly around himself.

Was I writing a fantasy novel? It sure looked like it. You don't get too many cloaked guys walking through eerie forest paths nowadays, at least. I checked my word count again. Sixty-nine. I will admit to being immature, because it made me giggle a bit. Sixty-nine words in three hours and change. I'd probably have to pick up the pace a little later on, but for the time being, my bed was calling my name, and I was entirely in favor of going to see what it wanted. Even if I was pretty sure.

Given that I went to bed at three in the morning, waking up at shortly before noon really shouldn't have offered all that many surprises. Especially given that I didn't have to work. I really needed to buckle down and work harder, especially given that I was something like sixteen hundred words short of my daily quota. But I had all day!

Of course, then my best friend got on AOL Instant Messenger. I had to talk to her. She commiserated with me on my lack of progress, but she was still supportive and confident that I could get it done! So I talked to her for about an hour before she had to go to work. See, I had the day off and free for writing! Okay. I looked at my sixty-nine word novel. I needed another sentence.

The weather was not normal for this time of year, and he did not know if it was merely these woods or something far more sinister in play.

Wait, no. Show, don't tell, right? Maybe the weather ends up being a plot point, maybe it doesn't, but we don't quite yet care what this guy thinks about it. Or at least I don't. Cut out everything after the comma.

The weather was not normal for this time of year.

Seventy-nine words! See, I'm improving! Slow and steady wins the race, right? I went to get another peanut butter cup. And then I remembered it was November and I needed to go change the watering clock. Watering restrictions, we're in a drought, we went down from the Monday Wednesday Friday fall schedule to the Monday only winter schedule. Thankfully, that didn't take very long to do at all.

Of course, that being taken care of, I had a few other friends to speak to. Novel commiseration is a great way to pass the time. After all, I had all day!

So, I looked back at where I was. If the weather wasn't normal, what was normal?

Instead of the warm calm that was customary for the waning days of summer, a blustery gloom had settled over much of the region.

Blustery. I liked that word. And it upped my word count to a full hundred and three! I was on a roll!

Of course, then one of my friends proceeded to tell me that she wanted me to make a journal to display my novel to all my other friends who had already done the same thing. I told her that there really wasn't much use to doing it now, on account of only having a hundred and three words, but she really wouldn't listen. I promised her I'd make one, although I'd have to do it later, because I had novel to write. Even though I had all day.

Of course, then I started looking at Wikipedia.

I really should have known better. If there's one thing Wikipedia is good at, it's being a massive time sink. You look at one article, it leads you to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, and suddenly, you're looking at something so amazingly unrelated to the reason you went to Wikipedia in the first place, it's shocking that you got there in a fairly normal progression.

So by the time I looked up from Wikipedia (the article, for the record, on the Corinthian, from the Sandman comics...) it was five past four in the afternoon. I really couldn't claim to have the whole day in front of me anymore. Although I was really quite tempted to. Far too much of the day was gone, never to return again, unless time travel was invented, and it really seemed a bit unlikely that it would be invented before the end of November. Although that led to a very interesting conundrum. Say in fifty years the ability to go back in time is finally achieved. If you went back in time to this November and finished up your novel, would you still count as a winner? I mean, technically, you would have it finished by the end of the month, but it almost seems like cheating.

Of course, at this point, the aforementioned friend's girlfriend got online and proceeded to immediately ask me whether I had made a journal for my novel yet. So I had to go through the explanation again. You see, it would be rude not to respond to a direct inquiry, and I did adore all my friends most wholeheartedly. I promised her as well that I would get to one at some point. But really, I had novel to write!

Okay. Speaking of the novel. I really had to get to it. Where was I?

The road was barely visible, turning and threading its way through the old, twisted, and gnarled trees, weaving its way to nowhere. Footsteps could be heard in the dust of the road. Of course the only ears to hear it belonged to the same figure who owned the feet. A stiff breeze blew through the wood, causing the traveler to draw his cloak tightly around himself. The weather was not normal for this time of year. Instead of the warm calm that was customary for the waning days of summer, a blustery gloom had settled over much of the region.

On recount, I realized that it was only a hundred words, not a hundred and three. That was a bit troubling. So I had to add three, just to get myself back up to expectations.

It was disconcerting.

There. Now I had a hundred and three words. And perhaps it was even time to start a new paragraph! And then I realized where the missing three words were. The title. So rock on, I had a hundred and six! Unfortunately, I got distracted from doing that by my mother calling for dinner.

Dinner was good, though. I love her tater tot casserole. And peas. Peas are pretty tasty too. But of course, reminiscing about peas wasn't getting my novel written. In fact, I hated to admit it, but most of what I had done that day wasn't getting my novel written.

I did have a promising first paragraph, though. And a distinctly unpromising title, if one that carried infinite possibilities with it. But that was digressing. I had to get started on the second paragraph. Just like the first one, one sentence would do it! I just needed to find the sentence.

Drake frowned, looking at the road ahead of him.

Hurrah! I had a name! Or, rather, I didn't have a name. I'd already had a name. My name had been attached to me ever since I was born. Or maybe before. I never really did ask my parents about it, because, really, it didn't much matter. But my main character had a name! Or at least a first name. And it was Drake. Pretty good name, in my opinion. Mostly because I came up with it. And it was seeming like a fantasy novel, instead of, like, a historical fiction thing. One hundred and fifteen words! Rock on!

I then promptly proceeded to sit for a while, staring at my screen, and biting my fingernails. So I was a nail biter. It wasn't life threatening, at least to the best of my knowledge. I hoped. My nails were unlikely to rebel, get gangrene, give me blood poisoning, and kill me. ... Although that... Actually, that was a great idea!

His sister was dead. The blood poisoning had already gone too far by the time he had managed to get her to the healers. They did everything they could, but she slipped away. Her last words had been "I love you." He was officially alone.

Oh, that was so sad. I felt sorry for poor Drake. No family left. I bet he blames himself, too, the poor guy. Tortured protagonists are rather fun, aren't they? And adding that bit of torture got me up to a hundred and sixty words. That was, to my way of thinking, so very much win. In fact, I decided I needed to celebrate. Treat myself to something. I couldn't quite decide what, however. A glass of milk just seemed a bit ordinary. More Halloween candy leftovers would have been just one more of something I'd been doing already. Maybe a Neopets game! Of course, if I started that, I'd probably be stuck playing them for an hour. And time was quickly slipping away. I couldn't have that. So instead, I decided on the milk after all.

Ahhh, milk. Okay, and a Snickers. I treated myself twice over. It was wonderful. Okay, Drake. Back to your story, right? What's happening with you? Where are you going? Why are you going there? I just needed one sentence to start off, right? It had served me well so far. Why wasn't I doing this at midnight instead of brainstorming weird things with vampires and mermen and fungus monsters and GIANT SENTIENT BUGS? It was kinda interesting where one sentence at a time would take you.... Hey, there we go!

He didn't know where he was going. But he knew that one step at a time would take him somewhere. Whatever lay ahead of him could not be worse than what was behind.

Oh! Check it out! Awesome! It was a metaphor for my writing and everything! And it was three sentences! And an extra thirty-three words for a grand total of a hundred and ninety nine. I needed one more. That even two hundred was so tempting.

Hopefully.

I liked it. I definitely liked it. Two hundred words, and it was only 5:30 in the afternoon. I had the whole evening ahead of me! Well, most of the evening. I did have to watch Supernatural that night. Mmm, Jared and Jensen. They, like Adam and Jamie, were totally worth an hour of not writing. In a totally different way.

But really. Supernatural was a few hours off, still. My novel was here, and it was now. No longer did I have a blank screen laughing at me. I had a screen with two hundred words on it. And they were a pretty cool two hundred words, too. I would be intrigued. However, I needed a plot twist. So it was time to turn to my friends. I would ask for... a dare. It could be anything. I just hoped I would be able to actually fit it in. If I couldn't... well, at least maybe I could modify it?

I asked for a dare. However, it looked like everyone was busy with their own novels. How annoying was that? Of course, I loved my friends and everything. But I still didn't have a dare. And was in a standstill.

I stared at my two hundred words a little more. I could go to the forums, I supposed, to get a dare. But it was day one. They were moving insanely slowly. I may not be able to actually get my dare in a... Oh. There. Maja offered one. Of course, my main character snogging a mall security guard in the middle of a vacant forest, in a fantasy world nonetheless, seemed a bit... unrealistic. But maybe I could work with it.

He turned to memory to pass the time and keep his mind away from the weather. The Watchwoman in the last town he had passed through was, in a word, beautiful. The moment he had laid eyes on her, he could think of nothing but kissing those rosebud lips. However, the suspicious way she looked at him, not to mention the rather large sword she carried, prevented him from actually pressing forward with those thoughts.

Close enough. And even if the paragraph was kind of... well... stupid, it fulfilled the dare. Kinda. And netted me another seventy-five words. So it couldn't be that bad.

At that point, unfortunately, I did get caught up playing Neopets games. And it did take, unfortunately, far too much time. And then it was time to commune with Jared and Jensen and the strange beasts, spirits, demons, and other thingies that their fictional counterparts hunt. And... wow. I have to admit that my jaw dropped on multiple occasions. Right, another sentence. Although it would be rather hard to excise that episode from the brain.

The road continued to wind its way through the forest, Drake following it, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, another road, just as small and faded as the first, cut across it.

What? I said it would be hard to think about something other than Supernatural. But three cheers for whatever gives you inspiration, because I had three hundred and seven words. And... two hours left? Where had the day gone? Two hours. To get thirteen hundred and sixty words. Things seemed rather bleak.

I had to make some major decisions. Where was Drake going? Why was he going there? What would he do when he got there? Who would he do it with? Would there be sex? Would there be magic? Would there be giant sentient bugs and fungus monsters? ... Oh, wait. I already cut out the giant sentient bugs and fungus monsters.

And then I was reminded about something I had promised to do. Well, it wasn't as if setting up a journal for my novel would really take all that long. I could take a few minutes to do it. All the while thinking of exactly where Drake would go next.

Of course, I didn't exactly count on my internet connection being roughly as slow as constipated molasses. Not that molasses can actually be constipated. To the best of my knowledge, anyway. It seems a bit out of the ordinary. But anyway. Slow connection. So I sat there, waiting for the journal creation pages to go through, myriad possibilities running through my mind.

Maybe there would be dragons. Fantasy novels were supposed to have dragons, weren't they? Big dragons with wings and scales and the breath of fire, or something. I don't even know. Maybe there's dragons. Maybe there aren't. There probably should be magic, though. There has to be one or the other, or else it really isn't a fantasy novel, is it? At least something otherworldly. I don't know. I'm probably not there yet. Or maybe I am. I decided to try for another sentence, journal having finally been created.

As Drake stepped into the crossroads, a gust of wind, sharper than any he had yet experienced that day, rose up, cutting into him. He heard something on the wind that sounded almost like distant tinkling laughter.

Ha. How was that for otherworldly?

I was actually sort of liking my story so far! That amazed me greatly. Of course, journal-set up time rather cut into my writing time, so I was sitting with an hour left to go, and ... Well. Not many words, in the scheme of things. Getting off to a slow start couldn't be a very good sign. Yes, there were twenty-nine days left to go in the month, and any ground lost that first day could certainly be recouped, but... Day one is the day you're supposed to be full of vim, vigor, and vitality! It's the day you're supposed to jump out to an insane forty-seven hundred words! It's the day you're supposed to buffer up for those times you're going to stumble down the road!

Instead, I stumbled straight off of the starting blocks. That was so very not a good sign. I needed to focus. At least get a little more done for the day. Sentence at a time, self, sentence at a time. Where was I? Oh yes, the distant laughter. So what happened next? I turned back to the keyboard.

Drake looked over his shoulder in the direction of the tinkling. He saw absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, he was unnerved. A few seconds of watching, and he slowly, carefully relaxed. He took a deep breath and turned back in the direction he was heading. A young woman stood right in front of him.

Two characters! Yay! That means dialogue! And probably conflict! And both of those help word counts! I was in a transport of delight! Perhaps this miserable fiction writing day would at least be somewhat salvageable. And now it was time for the safety net of all fantasy authors. Especially those who were writing for quantity. Excessive description.

She was at least a full head shorter than he was, with skin barely less pale than the full moon. Her eyes, so dark it was difficult to tell where iris ended and pupil began, tilted ever so slightly on her face. Her hair was just as dark, and fell in waves down to the center of her back. The gown she was wearing was a shimmering white, and the material seemed thin. Yet somehow, she was showing no reaction to the cold. Drake stared, spellbound. A faint smile played across her full lips. But she said nothing.

Yes. There was another chunk of wordcount to help out so that the situation later on didn't look quite so horrible. I leaned back in my chair, grinning. Maybe this thing would work after all.

Then I got up to get some more leftover Halloween candy.