As part of National Novel-Writing Month, I decided to write a novel. Knowing me, it is extremely geeky and generally boring, devoting many pages to the inner workings of the Linux networking stack and jokes about tachyon particles. My goal, along with the other participants, was to start writing on November 1st, and stop writing at the end of November 30th, and have a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel. Mine is titled "You Will Die a Slow, Painful Death." I chose this name on the spur of the moment, and the domain name happened to be available, and here I am, a novel that, just by reading it, can cause a slow, painful death.
November 29th.
Well, it's over. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and the ending is horrible and it needs to be completely rewritten, but it's done! I finished a novel! A short novel, to be sure, about 175 pages, but a novel! It feels so good to be done with it. I sent an email to the people that organize it offering my technical expertise on a volunteer basis for next year. I'm sure there's other hackers out there that get a kick out of doing this on the side that would like to have ways to connect to the nanowrimo.org servers and update their statuses with widgets or something cool like that. They said they'd contact me in January when they're working on the new site design stuff for next year. Fun stuff!
One of these days I may put a version of the book up here for people to download and laugh at and be bored to tears by, but not yet. It must be revised!
November 22nd.
They said it would get easier at this point. The ideas would be pouring out of my head faster than I could type them. I'm here to tell you it's all a lie! I have a week left and I'm already 3.5 days behind, with a terrible case of writer's block. My projection is to finish December 4th! I'm going to have to make up a lot of ground over this Thanksgiving break so that I can give thanks on November 30th that I'm finally finished with this blasted thing.
November 18th.
It really doesn't seem like it's been 18 days since I started this boring novel. Not that writing it has been boring, but the content sure seems to be. I finally reached the half-way mark today, 3 days behind schedule. Due to various circumstances and general laziness, I didn't write anything for four of the days of last week, leaving me behind. If I can pump out another 5000 words in the next 8 hours I'll be in great shape heading into Thanksgiving, where I intend to do lots of writing. The writing does seem to be getting easier now, partly because I finally gave up on the notion that it's going to be any good, and partly because the boring parts, being boring, I am now skipping in favor of writing more interesting parts. Just 11.5 days to wrap this up. It's going to be close!
November 11th.
It's odd, the difference in feeling between now and two days ago. Then, I was about 4000 words behind, and now here I am, 12 words ahead of schedule and a whole night ahead of me. Seeing the "I've fulfilled today's quota!" message above this text is a great feeling, as is feeling like I can actually keep writing. The writer's block I was struggling with all day yesterday as I knocked out the most words so far this month seems to be abating. Like the Cake (probably cover) song says, "He's writing, he's writing, he's writing a novel. He's writing, he's weaving, conceiving a plot. It quickens, it thickens, you can't put it down; now it takes you, it shakes you, it makes you lose your thought." A main character was brutally murdered 8 pages in! My characters are naming themselves before my brain catches up! When will the excitement end?! Oh, in about 18 days. I better get to work. The halfway point is apparently this week.
November 9th.
I fell behind again, between shooting IDPA on Monday night and Star Trek on Thursday, I'm just about 1 day behind, not to mention I haven't written at all so far today. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up over the weekend. Who needs sleep, right? It seems to be becoming easier to find the words I need to fill the spaces and make the chapters long enough, so hopefully my rough outline will somehow be stretched to fit. At least I've passed 20%. Just 21 days to go!
November 4th.
They say the first week is the hardest. I keep running into giant roadblocks
on my path to 50k. I seem to be falling a bit behind. I thought the time
change would give me a little extra sleep, but instead the squirrels woke me
up having an orgy in my attic. It feels like I'm forcing the writing, which I
guess is somewhat expected, but it sure is tiring. At lease I've passed 10%.
November 2nd.
So far so good. Thursdays are hard days with star trek in the evenings taking up time, both viewing and driving. I've never claimed
to be a creative person, and writing this seems to mostly bare that out, but there have been a few times so far that a piece
of the story will "click," almost write itself perfectly in place. There's a huge gap between a rough plot outline and the actual
prose, and it's exciting when little tiny pieces magically appear and connect together. Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty
horrible, and it involves mention of computer programming algorithms of all things. Hopefully there will be explosions soon or
I may die of bordom writing it.