Yes, it most certainly is. Barely even spell-checked. The goal of the National Novel Writing Month is to produce a complete 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This one took me 25 days to do 51,000 words, and that's with goofing off. I tried to type about 2,000 words a day, but when I skipped a day or fell behind, I'd add the remaining words onto the next three or four days writing. Aside from minor cosmetic fixes that became a vital part of the procrastination process, this is essentially the same rushed and sleep-deprived prose that I generated the first few days of November 2002.
Well, these sample chapters only took about three or four days. Not included here are some "interludes" that I placed between chapters, which helped set the mood and boost word-count. I think they [the interludes] eventually became essential to the ultimate climax of the book, but they are not essential to the plot as you have it now, and I didn't want to waste your time with more Web-reading.
If you're asking why it took so long to write something that didn't even approach quality, well, blame my internal censors and my passion for getting up and wandering around the room aimlessly, staring at books without reading the titles.
Turgid, I think you'll find. Stiff. Graceless. Derivative. Simplistic to the point of infantile. That's more than one word, but still accurate. As if writing 50,000 words in a particular order so as to deliver an account of a gripping adventure in 30 days weren't enough, I also made myself a vow that I would not let Mister Wonderful, or the Mister Wonderful Voice, write this novel. I wanted a neutral narrator, a strict, tell-it-like-it-is, "ground the prose in reality so the fantastic elements are easier to swallow," Tim Powers-esque, writer - not some pitchman for cheap verbal fireworks. I thought it would make things easier. Har-de-har-har. Man, I was grinding gears all through the start of this thing and the horrible noises are still there on the page.
No.
Well, all right. Maybe a little. In the middle bits. But it loses all cohesion at the end when I realized I had about 20,000 words of plot left to explain and only about 10,000 words to do it in. You won't like it. Well, maybe you would. The writing is certainly more fluid by that point, but the narrative flow is all to fuck. But what do I know? I certainly haven't re-read the whole thing.
That's very nice of you, but there's no need for pretending between us.
Well, look. I'm not planning on reading the whole thing until January 2003. At that point, I'll see if it's worth working on. If it is, I'm going to need to toss out about 10,000 words and add 30,000, and then you can read that. If it's not [worth working on], and I decide to bungle some new projects in excitingly daft ways, learning all the time, finally getting some skills [as opposed to relying on inconstant talent], then sure, just email me and I'll provide the whole text [about 130 pages in most fonts, single-spaced] to all you curious masochists out there.
To tell the truth, I'm an alligator. I'm a momma-poppa coming for you. I'm a space invader; I'll be a rock and rollin' bitch for you... No, wait. That's David Bowie. David Bowie's in my other novel, the Mister Wonderful one. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month because I liked the charming stupidity of it, I liked the idea of a community of Quixotes, I wanted to be challenged to actually finish something I started, and I wanted to stop just talking about writing fiction.
Looking back, it was the best November I've had in more than ten years. Despite the coffee pots shattered.
If I'd set my sights lower and just wanted 50,000 words of any sort in any sequence then I might have given over to the Hooch Muse, but, silly me, I wanted to write an actual novel. Which meant having themes and symbolism and plot points and suspense and other literary devices to beat myself up over for failing to subtly include in the text of this first novel. Listen: I know a lot of words. And I can construct frivolous sentences out of them for hours on end, even when under the Whiskey of Damocles. But the challenge I set for myself on this NaNovember was to weave strong sentences that could bear the weight of a storyline. And that's harder than I thought.
Especially when there wasn't time to take the care necessary... well, let me put it this way: I'm used to spending three or four hours writing two hundred or so words that are funny and ready for public consumption right then. From idea to polish to publish in one draft, essentially. And this NaNovel had to be an actual rough draft, not to be consumed by the public, but just to be done on time. I likened the whole "having to deal with a plot and sentences that build that plot" thing to a series of islands. There were these islands that I knew I wanted to show my readers, and I had to build these bamboo bridges to get them to each of the islands in sequence. I had 50,000 pieces of bamboo to work with. In the beginning, I was trying to build strong bridges, with plenty of support, just like all the "real" bridges I'd been reading for years. When I'd used up 25,000 bamboo sticks and only reached the second island, I realized that I had to stop being a half-assed writer and just go completely buttless. The last half of the novel is just a string of bamboo that you can hold with one hand as you swim.
My point is that alcohol is no friend here. It's all about words and necessity and the glorious process. My support in this month came primarily from the lovely Chaunacey [who plays Miss Yakamoto in the Wonderful labs column] and the folks in LiveJournal who formed a little community called "NoPlotNoProblem."
I started a novel about two years ago called _Mister Wonderful's Guide to Life_ [although I'm thinking about changing the title to "It's A Good Life If You're Wonderful"]. It's written explicitly in the Mister Wonderful voice, and concerns the tale of Johnny Mozart, struggling musician. Mister Wonderful is the narrator and also a character who helps Johnny through his perilous adventures to find a book entitled _Mister Wonderful's Guide to Life_ and form his band - Johnny Mozart and the Jews.
I wrote the first bit and plotted it in a white hot burst of depression circa the 2000 Presidential unelection, but it's been languishing since. Now that I've got Zombie Waterfall under my belt [does that mean I ate it?], and I've learned how to stop worrying and love a rough draft, I'd like to see how fast I can finish the thing and move on to something even better.
Not the knowledge of a job well done, of that you may be sure.
I stereotypically drank a lot of coffee. I relied on Chaunacey. I crammed my mouth full of turkey jerky and Japanese rice snacks. I commiserated with other NaNo participants. I knew that I was doing more fiction in a row than I'd ever done before. I made myself laugh with subtle Lovecraft jokes. I delighted in discovering what I couldn't do easily. Oh, that's a good point.
When I was a kid, I was an actor. Starting in the fifth grade, I appeared in all this stuff, and, I don't know, I made a lot of people in my tiny hometown laugh. Point is - in high school, I took a writing course. And for the first time in my life, I was doing something I liked that was difficult. Acting made me popular and it was easy. Writing was ignored and it was hard and, for me, that was why I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.
Check this - For a long time now, I've been writing things that are easy for me. Part of what kept me NaNoveling was the very difficulty and the desire to quit. I learned. There are worse ways to spend a month.
