12/01/2010

The Harrowing Tale of My Final Push

The month of November has ended.  There have been a great deal of things said.  Even more things that have been done.  Most of all though many things have been written.  I speak of course of NaNoWriMo.

Over the course of this last month I have known joy, sorrow, anger, disappointment, jubilation ,  and of course utter insanity.  I began by ultimately writing very very little.  At first I intended to write a Science Fiction/Romantic Comedy Alternate History/Erotic Free For All.  This did not fare well.  I was not in the mood to write something serious at all.  It was quite simply not meant to be.  It was not until the now dubbed Evening of Scribbling Recklessly that I was able to get any real writing done.  I had just over 6k when we started and that was from the entirety up to that point of the month which I believe was almost halfway through.

Then during a word war that night I had a thought.  This thought though it was simple and seemingly inconspicuous changed everything.  In the middle of the word war I looked up and stated out loud ‘I should write a religion’.  So I did.  Right then and there I began to write a religion which did in turn transform into an entire story focused upon the people of this religion and how it is that they go about their lives which are fully dependent upon their God who does in fact exist.

Then an Atheist appeared out of the blue because they needed someone to not follow the path.  Otherwise why would they have any problems.  Then a young boy who had not yet come of age discovered lying.  No one had ever lied up until now.  From there on I was writing far more than I had previously but I was still pitifully far behind.

By the time that November 29th had rolled around I had a total of 27,691 words I believe.  I needed 22,309 to make it to the 50k finish line.  It was now that I was truly sensing despair.  I felt that I could not possibly make it all that way in that amount of time.  It was heart breaking.  I had just begun to find my novel and really explore it but now there was no way that I would be able to finish it in time for the elusive purple bar.

That is when I decided to either put up or shut up.  I was either going to throw in the towel right then and there or I would by God and Sonny Jesus make it past that 50k finish line.  So upon the day of the 29th I wrote a total of 11,045 words.  Almost half of what I needed.  I would have written more but I had accidentally fallen asleep not once but twice.  My resolve was there but my body had decided that it did not feel like showing up.  Most of those words had been written during the afternoon right before midnight.

Because of this I did not have any sleep between the 29th and the 30th but rather I continued on throughout the night having no sleep to comfort me.  It was alright though.  I had my fellow NaNoers to comfort me and or threaten me whatever was necessary.  I also had my soda and energy drinks.  This caused me to be in a hyperactive state for much of this time.  Then as the night wore on I realized with great sadness that my fellow NaNoWriMo Tweeps were all leaving me.  Then there was only one left @vampiresmitten.  She remained with me the longest that night.  Partially due to her own word count needs and partially due to her inability to admit that Harry Potter is in fact Emo.

Then it reached 5am and she too left me.  I was alone.  I was hyper.  The sleep I had gotten before the beginning of my great push towards my final goal had not been terribly good sleep and thus my mind had been somewhat weak even from the start.  Now though that I was hyper active and had in fact brought myself over the 40k benchmark things had turned sour.  If ever I needed a break there was no one to talk to.  All I could do is go outside and smoke a cigarette.  But my Nano never left me.  It could not leave me.  Nor could I leave it.  I then began to suffer from an utter lack of attention.  I always believed that more time had passed than actually had.  I would feel that it been a long haul and that I needed a break and I would look at my word count and see that I had only managed perhaps 60 to 100 words.  I became utterly convinced that my word processor was conspiring against me.

I decided that in order to prove this that I would need to conduct a word war to make me stay and write for a specific amount of time and then I could calculate precisely how many words per minute I was getting.  So I went to Twitter and I didn’t even notice that no one was there.  For that was when my challenger appeared.  In the form of me.  I had at this point begun to Tweet myself since no one else would listen.  The Tweets are still out there as proof.  But I had my challenger now.  And we battled fiercely and we tied.  I was somewhat disappointed that I had not managed to put myself in my place but at least he hadn’t either.

This experiment actually proved that my word processor had not in fact chosen to betray me.  I still think that it was just a clever ploy and there was a leak involved but I had no proof to prosecute it with so I moved on.  On through the trials of my long trek towards 50k.  Soon I was in fact lamenting at the creation of my MC  seeing as he was being Emo enough to give Harry Potter a run for his money and title.  Sure some of it was warranted seeing as he had triggered events that lead to his expulsion from his home country and attempted murder but it was not entertaining.  So in order to please him and simultaneously teach him a lesson.  I did this by putting him and his love interest back together.  That was the pleasing part.  I managed to get his love interest out of the country to see him by having her flee with other refugees from an ideological cleansing that had been helped in no small way by his actions.

That was when I lost it and simply needed a direction in which to point myself until I got to 50k.  So I explored the rest of the world until lo and behold at 11:18 AM I achieved the hallowed purple bar.

I was overjoyed and I jumped and skipped.  I may have even frolicked a bit to my embarrassment.  But I had done it.  That is when I fell upon my bead and sailed into unconsciousness despite the energy drinks.  It was during this sleep that I was haunted by a nightmare featuring the number 49,999.  I was distraught but I quickly looked at my computer and knew everything was ok.

So now that all of this is over said and done.  What is it that I want to do?  I want to keep writing.  I don’t want to wait to go back and edit everything.  I want to get back in the thick of things and get it ready for proper consumption.  Obviously my brain has been rewired by this experience.

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