The Brain Dump

Alright. This is it. The last day. And I have 5,059 words to write. Totally doable (I wrote 5,036 words the day I crossed the 50,000 word finishline), but it's going to be a long day.

Assuming you're interested (which, I suppose, is one of the reasons for writing a blog in the first place), I'll be updating sporadically throughout the day. So here's hoping it's at least exciting. The good news is I have two scenes coming up that I've had all night to think about, so I know more or less exactly what I want to happen. So at least I'll hit the ground running.

My father wants to take the family out to lunch and I need to shower, so my first update will probably be in two hours or so. My goal is 1,000 words per minute--16.666 . . . words a minute.

Alright, enough stalling. Time to get to it!

Update: 3:40pm

Ooooook. So my dad waited until two minutes before 1pm (as we were finishing our lunch) to tell me that he had scheduled a half an hour massage for both myself and him. So how do you cay "No" to a massage? Which is my way of saying I did not. We got a massage by the same lady, which meant we were there for an hour, which meant I did not finally settle in to get down to writing until 2:30. Which means I've only been writing for an hour so far. It hasn't been so bad. I have 653 words.

I've been writing in the living room, so as not to seem anti-social to my parents. But my father went to the store to by some cable that he wants for his new PS3 and my mother is asleep in a reclining chair . . . leaving me the only one aware of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the television. Time to go to my room and get serious about this.

4,406 words to go.

Update: 4:44pm

Another hour past and you can add 720 words to the count. That brings the total to 1,373. 3,686 to go. I imagine my family will want to eat dinner in an hour or so, so I'll update you again right before that.

Update: 5:45pm

Wooooo! One more hour: 906 more words. I'm starting to get cocky . . . 2,279--almost halfway there. I'm feeling a might peckish, so I'm going to take a break before finishing out the day. At this rate though, I'm hoping I'll only need another three more good hours. Kinda makes me feel bad about all those days I was a total slacker . . .

Update: 7:43pm

I'm back from dinner. So it's back to writing. My parents (naturally) chose today to rent the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is . . . about the longest movie this side of The Lord of the Rings. I told them I would write and watch it at the same time. We'll see if I can keep up the pace.

Here we go.

Update: 8:43pm

645 more words. 2,924 words total. I'll try another hour of watching this movie, but I don't know if this pace is going to work.

Update: 9:47pm

Well, not quite an hour has it been, but a wonderful time I have had. I've effectively managed to ignore the movie more or less, whose intricacies have lost long ago. It's a confusing mess of a plot and it's trying to be way more than it should be . . . at least to me. Anywho, that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to say I've had a heroic hour, managing 1,173 words, bringing my grand total for the day to 4,097. Ahhhh . . . 962 words left. If all goes well, I should reach 31,000 before this movie is done.

Huzzah!

Update: 11:08pm

Here the mighty stand triumphant!

Oh yes! I stand triumphant. 5,996 words! Here, wait. Hold on a second.

. . .

6,005 words! Is that a personal best? I have no idea. I'd have to check my January records. I don't care--I'm calling it a personal record. 6,000 words and I made my deadline with forty-nine minutes to spare! I'm glad I didn't leave it till the end . . . :)

Alright. It's been a long day. Time for beddy-by. Good night, and a Merry August to you all!

Well, I added another 937 words to my total and now it's time for some bed. That brings the total to 2,830. Guh, that leaves a little over 5,000 for tomorrow. I can do it. I can do it. Just one more day of intensity and then I can relax a little. Just one more day, just one more day . . .

So today was not quite as glorious as I wanted it to be, though the day is not finished. I managed 1,893 words--and this while fending off my father and his new PS3. I'm still working away here but I thought I would give everybody an update.

I still have a normal day's writing to do before reaching this day's goal. Back to the salt mines.

OK. So I've fallen out of the blogosphere for the past week or so, but the good news is I was not completely idle. I have been writing (most) every day and clawing my way closer and closer to the 31,000 total. The bad news is I'm not nearly as close as I want to be. I can't tell you on what day I did what, but I can tell you that I have a grand total of 23,111 words.

So. That's not 31,000. But I have two more days. Two more days to write 7,889 words. 3,944.5 words a day. 328.70833333 . . . words an hour (if I only write for twelve hours). That's . . . doable . . .

OK. So. The lesson is: meeting up with old friends and spending time playing video games with my mother (that's right--my mother!) takes time. This is doable. This is totally doable. No one's putting me on the Altar of Shame!

I will post my word count tomorrow probably around the same time as tonight. Then Sunday, the 31st, I will give continuous word count updates until what I am assuming will be my Moment of Glory--as I stand triumphant above the month of August and laugh and cry and scroll through my 31,000 words.

See you tomorrow.

Well, today was one of those days where I just had to put my head down slug through the words. The good news: I did. Ended up with 1,001 words, which, right now, is another day I don't have to make up. In other words: a good day. The total stands at 9,094.

I've started jumping around in the narrative, just trying to find words to write. I still firmly believe that as much writing as I can get done is a good thing, so I don't mind that it's out of chronological order. We'll see how long I can keep it up . . .

Hello Readers!

I write to you from beautiful Austin, Minnesota, home of Shelley and Lloyd Brandon, Christina's rambunctious parents.

Yes, I've been here since Tuesday, till Tuesday, breaking up the monotony of the Texas life. Christina's parents are fun, and, of course, it's wonderful to finally be close to her once again. Sigh, and only after twelve days being apart. I flew in to Minneapolis and Christina and her mother were there to pick me up. We drove past the Mall of America, Cabela's store of everything outdoorsy, and 5 of 10,000 lakes. So I've seen most of Minnesota's sights. One more awaits me: the ever-fabulous SPAM Museum! Complete with all the SPAM paraphernalia I could ever want.

Christina has also made sure to keep me writing. I have not been as disciplined as I need to be over the past few days. I visited with my friends Travis and Laura over the weekend . . . ensuring a zero word count over those two days. I tried to make up for it on Monday, writing 1,542 words, but then I was traveling much of Tuesday and so that was another zero day.

Wednesday, however, was better. 2,087, making up for the previous day. That brings the grand total to . . . *drum roll* . . . 8,093. Sigh . . . only 5 more days to make up for.

I haven't done any writing yet today, so I'll be back to let you know how I do.

This is me keeping the faith!

Well, the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics has sufficiently caught my attention to stop me from writing for the day. It got harder to concentrate when my parents turned it on, but I was able to get 1,002 words, bringing the grand total to 4,464. Almost a third of what I had written up to today. That's a better start than I had on August 1st . . .

I still have some catching up to do. But I'm gaining confidence.

Hello, once again, dear Readers, and how are you this day? I'm doing alright, trying to keep busy, and it is on that subject that I write to you today. As well you know, I'm living back with my parents in Texas until the middle of September, waiting for my visa papers from China. I'm also trying to finish the first draft of my first novel, the first part of which you can find on the right sidebar under Duncan and the Heart of Aria. Much of that first part I finished while taking the National Novel Writing Month challenge in January--to write fifty thousand words in thirty-one days. I undertook this challenge along with my writing group, and Christina and I (being awesome) were the sole members to emerge triumphant.

However. I'm not near done with my novel, and so I have decided that, since I don't have much else to do, I will take up a slightly less crazy version of the NaNoWriMo challenge once again, this time in August. I will be trying to write one thousand words per day, thirty-one thousand in total. That's nineteen thousand less than the normal NaNoWriMo challenge, but hopefully that only means it'll be that much easier to achieve.

Christina and I found that much of the drive to succeed in January was socially driven--we didn't want to fail while the other succeeded and we didn't want any of the shame associated with failure. And that made us try much harder. Thus, why I am telling all of you about this now and, by doing so, throwing myself upon the Altar of Public Opinion. Will it be an altar of shame, or will it be the first of many pedestals I'll be sure to put myself on top of when I finish (oh that's right: when)? We shall see come August 31st.

I have a feeling this month will be more difficult that January. In January, I had a very clear idea (and a reassuringly detailed outline) of what I wanted to write, what I wanted it to be about, and how I wanted to execute it. I have nothing like that now. I have a few very bright plot points that shine in the darkness of the unwritten, shiny beacons for me to write towards, but I'm not nearly as sure what the story will be about along the way. But . . . that's half the fun . . . right?

It's already August 8th, so I should have somewhere around 8,000 words. I do not. Not even close. I have 3,462. I can make all sorts of excuses, but I'm fairly sure the sudden spike in my time used to play video games has the most to do with it. But no more. Time to get my head in the game!

I haven't done any writing today, so that seems like a good place to start. I'll post again later tonight with my daily tally.

August don't know what's 'bout hit it! 'oorah!

I added chapters 6-11 (the rest of Part One) of Duncan and the Heart of Aria to the sidebar. I actually wrote one (and a half) more chapters in order to meet my January quota, but those are in no condition to be read, so this finishes out all the progress I have made on my first novel. One hundred and eleven, single-spaced, letter-sized pages . . . one-third of the way there. I've continue to work on it, sporadically, as school keeps getting in the way, and I'd say I am approaching the halfway mark. Approaching . . . Still, it feels good to see them listed together (even if it is only in a sidebar).

I got my second story workshopped in class last week. I turned in a heavily revised version of "A Rat Problem"--what I have since changed to just "Rat Problem." Aaaaaaaand it filled the class with wonderful bewilderment--wonderful because they said my writing style was very strong and that I have a good sense of dialogue and action; bewildering because they had no idea what to make of the ending. A few of them got it, although they weren't certain in the conclusions they had reached. So I got things to clarify . . .

My professor says I'm "afraid of character." I told him there is a difference between being afraid of character and being much more interested in the systems that construct that character. This, evidently, is one of the last things you want to say to a literary fiction professor. I'm surprised he didn't burn me at the stake.

It really brings into focus how much I need to break myself away from the "literary establishment," for, if nothing else, my simple sanity. Part of me, naturally, really wants to be accepted in this incredibly exclusive club as they wield considerable cultural clout. But. The tradeoff is having to write very specific stories--stories that, frankly, do not interest me as an artist. Don't get me wrong. The literary elite are very good at what they do, and I enjoy reading (some of) their stories. But I have other things to say.

When I think about this stuff, I like to remind myself of my two favorite authors: Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut. Pinny is shunned by most of the literary world because of his ontic antics and the sprawling, bloated, massive narratives that are his calling cards. Gravity's Rainbow, what is hailed by most as his masterpiece (no argument here), was in fact rejected by the Pulitzer Advisory Board as "turgid," "overwritten," in parts "obscene," and overall "unreadable." But I can say with confidence that he doesn't give a fuck what they think. The more I learn about him actually lends me to believe that some of the things he does, he does in order to disrupt their contented modes of reading. Kurt Vonnegut was similarly shunned as merely a science fiction writer by the literary world for much of his career. It wasn't until Slaughterhouse-Five that they realized how good science fiction can, in fact, be. But, again, he wasn't writing for those jackasses.

And neither am I. I have finally zeroed in on what it is I want to say to the world and I don't need anyone's approval to say it (though it is nice to hear that people are listening (Comments, please . . .)). Literary fiction is a genre like any other and grad school has showed me that I want to write something else. That's a hard pill to swallow when that particular genre is held up as the be-all-end-all of literature. But I need to accept it. And I think, slowly but surely, I will.

I added two more short stories and two more chapters of Duncan and the Heart of Aria to the sidebar. The short stories are "A Rat Problem" and "Blame Game." The draft of "Blame Game" is a really rough second draft, and I am in no way happy with the title. That said, I think it's an enjoyable story and one of my better ideas.

My "Dick and Jane: A Love Story" is going to be workshopped in my Fiction Writing class tomorrow. The professor makes no bones about his literary preferences, leaning towards the literary minimalism of Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Tobias Wolff. My being generally rejects this kind of writing, preferring rather the wandering postmodernist investigations of genre and form. Thomas Pynchon, for instance, one of my favorite authors, has been deemed a maximalist by many. The ol' Prof hates postmodernism. He says it's "anti-art," which makes me giggle. We'll see how he responds to my deconstruction of the love story.