Chaoskid's NaNo2006

End o' the Month

2006-11-30T17:45:00.000-06:00

So, here we are. The end of November. All done with NaNo2006. Feeling kinda empty-ish in regards to creative endeavours, though my brain is still in writing mode so even simple emails are coming out in a semi-prosaic form. Using lots of metaphors in day to day talk. Kinda funny. I like the feeling -- and it's not a state my brain's been in for a long time, where when things happen, I think about how to write them.

I've uploaded, for your viewing enjoyment, the report card I kept to track my progress during this past month. You can see it here.

Working on getting a full text upload here, soon to be followed by some explanation and interpretation. There are major holes at the end of the current draft which need some serious filling-in. But right now, I think I'm going to take a nap....

Post 50k day two

2006-11-29T18:59:00.000-06:00

Oh my god -- the first smiling picture of the month. When I was taking these pictures, I was not putting on faces. Just taking the pictures however I happened to be looking (okay, okay, there was a hair stylist and makeup artist offstage) and this one was no different. Just happened to be a smile on my face at photo time today.

So bizarre to be done so early. Now I feel like I'm neglecting things, slacking off. Did some editing yesterday and hope to do some tonight as well. We'll see how that goes. I feel like I've accomplished so much this month and only one of them (this novel) was planned on. Granted, there were some goals for this month that fell by the wayside, but what'cha gonna do?

Video!

2006-11-28T18:05:00.000-06:00

Finally figured out my video issues and have the following to present to you:

50,000

2006-11-28T17:16:00.000-06:00

So. I've hit 50k. Been having technical difficulties with the pics o' the day and the promised video. It's all on its way though!

Okay -- here are the last two pics o' the day:

Just prior to typing the very end.

Now what to I do?

Word 49,000

2006-11-27T12:48:00.000-06:00

That's right. We're at 49,000. A mere 1000 words to go. I could write that in my sleep. As a matter of fact, I probably will...

The word: "on"

Today's the Day

2006-11-27T00:08:00.000-06:00

It is November 27th, 2006. My word count stands at 48,633. I am 97.27% of the way to 50,000 words. I have a mere 1,367 words left and it will (by estimation) take 2 hours to do it.

What an absolutely crazy month. The last two times I did this were so long ago, or else so traumatic, that I can't remember the feeling very well. The first year, I was so far behind at this point that I churned out total crap in order to get to 50k (and that crap was immediately deleted after the final word count) and the second year, I was just pushing to finish a story.

This year's a little different. I feel like I'm naturally at the end of this story. Charlie Bonnet has had to put up with my clumsy puppeteering for long enough. It's time to set him free, somehow. As I've told many people, I'm not quite sure how best to do it.

So, expect to see very shortly the following things on this site:

video footage of me typing in the 50,000th word

continued pictures-of-the-day through the end of the month

an html version of the excel spreadsheet that i've been using to track my progress

the enitrety of Illinoir once finished

a companion piece detailing my vision and ideas for this novel

The last two are the ones I truly hope you will check out. If you care to read the story, that'd be swell. I'd really like it if you'd read the story and jot down any thoughts you might have and then read the companion piece and jot down further ideas. Hopefully, someone will be able to help me make this thing a well-connected, well-defined, satisfying mystery. Someone. Somewhere. Somehow.

Off to bed. Today's the day....

Straight up description.

2006-11-26T23:21:00.000-06:00

Adam abouty-bout to go to work.

What a day. Suffice it to say that I felt like crap this morning and was able to pour it all into this:

Everything gets swimmy. Indistinct. Fuzzy. I stagger into the bathroom.
I ignore the crowd in the room and carve out some personal space in front of the mirror. I look at myself – really look at myself – for the first time in ages. I look like hell. I feel worse than I should. I am barely recognizable. The bags under my eyes have grown to nearly-epic proportions, making my eyes look sunken and hollow. My eyelids are heavy and thick. Gummy. They scrape against my eyes like sandpaper and I try not to close them but my eyes are so dry that I blink rapid fire, matching time with the tic that has started under my right eye. It is a pulsing spasm of the muscle that I can see in the mirror.
I look scared, unsure, and terrifying. I stand and watch my reflection blink stupidly as if confused by a question I haven’t even asked. I feel dumb. The fuzz in my head is turning my brain into a mere showpiece, no longer functional for more than paranoid suppositions and blind rage. Do these actually come from the brain or from somewhere else? It must be my heart, currently the most active of all my internal organs. My heart finds all this very amusing and is pumping twice as hard as it needs to in order to get my water-thin blood through my veins. I think about coffee and I swear I can actually hear my heart laughing at me, daring me to thin out my blood even more while adding some stimulants.
My hands are shaking so badly that when I plant them on the counter in an attempt to feel some small amount of steadiness, the shakes travel up my arms to my shoulders. My stomach feels like it is rotating over a fire that Is slowly boiling whatever is left inside. I stink like death. There is the taste of rot in my mouth – evil, like demons have crawled in there to die.
I ignore the stares of the kids in the bathroom with me, all of them not concerned, so much as looking for a freak show. They wonder what the old man in the ratty suit will do next. Is he going to lose his shit? I grip the sink tightly, the blue veins in my hands popping out in high relief against my pale skin.
The edges of my vision are blurry. Strobing. The flickering fluorescent lighting isn’t helping. Looking at myself is tiring as if everything I see is pulling at my eyes and dragging me down. Exhaustion overtakes me. I feel it everywhere in my body. It is both a weight and an emptiness; a physical presence that is both an absence and a burden.
I don’t think I’m going to make it through the night. Or through this life. My eyes are melting. My chest is burning. My mouth, my throat. If I still have a soul, it’s killing me too.
A voice behind me asks, “Dude?” In the mirror I see a kid, 18 or 19 years old. He is made-up in whiteface with black rings of mascara around his eyes. He looks like I feel. He looks like I look. His costume is a slight exaggeration of my reality.
“What do you want?” I manage, still gripping the sink, still holding on for dear life though I can’t see the point.
“Are you alright?”
“No.” I stop myself. I am not confiding in this kid. I am not bringing myself down to the point where I am admitting that I don’t feel so hot – much less the rest of the story – to some goth kid in a rock club in some college town. “I mean…. I’m fine.”
I give myself one last glance in the mirror. A twisted smile crosses my face. It is a frightening smile and I see the kid take a step back behind me. I give myself a wink, the smile and the facial tic turning it into a leering look. I turn from the mirror and leave the bathroom.

More darkness

2006-11-25T15:51:00.000-06:00

I am perfectly symmetrical.

Word count: 46182

Raymond Chandler said, “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” At the moment, I am nothing if not in doubt. Plus, I have a gun and am standing in front of a door. It’s the door to room 207. I decide it’s time to take control. I turn the key in the lock, and lean against the door with Kimp’s revolver in my right hand. Slowly, I open the door and lean into the room.
It is dark in here. Pitch black. The kind of darkness you have to swim through, praying you don’t sprain your ankle on some unseen obstacle. It is beyond the darkness that you find when you close your eyes. It is the essence of dark. What little light enters the room from the streetlights behind me forms a rectangle on the floor with my long shadow in its center – an ominous shape, even though it is mine.
I must make a neat target for anyone waiting inside as I stand here, silhouetted nicely against the backdrop of the streetlights and the highway. This thought enters my head and part of my mind waits for the flash of a gun, the report of the shot, the sting of a bullet, but I am unable to do anything about it. My mouth agape, I stare at the edges of my shadow, not paying any conscious attention to the danger in which I have placed myself. This is not the room we stayed in three years ago. It can’t be. Where light reveals floor, it reveals polished hardwood, not the abstract pattern of industrial carpet
I snap out of the stupor, shaking my head free of implications. I try to take a step back from the doorway, but there is something forcing me to enter the room. It is more than my curiosity about what lays waiting inside. I have a healthy sense of self-preservation, but even that is unable to resist the pull of the room. As if in a dream and without control over my own actions, I step inside. My footsteps echo loudly in the room, the sounds finding nothing to bounce off of save for the opposite walls. I close the door behind me. It clicks as it shuts and then the room is almost unnaturally quiet, as if the cars rushing by on the interstate just a few hundred feet away are not there at all.
I stand just inside the door, my right arm rising of its own accord to find a light switch on the wall. I feel like I’ve done this recently. I debate with myself about the merits of just staying in the dark; just staying here forever.

I almost had to drug his drink.

2006-11-24T22:57:00.000-06:00

Wrote this a couple days ago, probably while very very exhausted. Immediately afterwards, I thought to myself, "I may need to drug his drink to get away with this."

But I'm not gonna. Do you hear me? Not gonna do it.

I stand with my back to the bar and watch the crowd, sipping my drink. It is a typical college scene. The kids look exactly the same as they did when I was last here, all trying to be some perfect version of what they think everyone else wants to see. Whoever says that college is the place where people find their own identities is sadly mistaken. I don’t think that happens until you’re out in the real world, if it even happens then. The only thing different about these kids is that I have gotten older, so they look even younger than they once did. Eventually, looking at a college kid is going to be like looking at a toddler. Babies look like zygotes. I am a giant, stomping around the world, trying not to crush too much; trying not to leave too large a path of destruction in my wake.

Word 45,000

2006-11-24T21:29:00.000-06:00

This is me overdressed for the sixty-degree weather we were blessed with today.

Word number 45,000: a

You might remember that word 30,000 was also "a". Before you jump to any conclusions and accuse me of just copying and pasting the last 15,000 words over and over again, keep in mind that "a" is one of the more commonly used words in the English language. Also, keep in mind that these are the only two times I used the word "a" in this entire novel. So keep your criticisms to yourself, you meanie.

This one's for two of you....

2006-11-23T15:15:00.000-06:00

Wow.... Wowie wow wow.

Word count: 44713
Percent complete: 88

Dropping references like they're pennies.

The first band starts – it is Octopus 5. The band members -- all eight of them -- wear latex gloves and surgical masks. The music isn’t bad -- it’s kind of a Garth Brooks meets Pig Destroyer kind of thing – and I’m actually getting into it.

Chandler

2006-11-22T12:26:00.000-06:00

Reading some Raymond Chandler quotes and they all tell me I'm writing a piece of crap in terms of detective fiction. But they're all brilliant. Check em out:

Raymond Chandler on wikiquote

His writing style was just fantastic. Am I just now discovering this? My apologies for my ignorance.

"I needed a drink. I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation. I needed a home in the country. What I had was a hat, a coat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room."

Getting closer to the end....

2006-11-21T19:23:00.000-06:00

Posing with the photo Jen gave me prior to my first Nano. It helps me embrace both the good and the bad ideas.

Really feel like I'm closing in on the end, not only of the word count (43473) but actually of the story. I have some good images for the very end, I think. I hope.

Decided that once it's all done, I'm going to put this out there for anyone who wants to read it along with an author's note explaining exactly what I was going for. That way, all you guinea pigs will be able to help me figure out where it goes wrong, what it gets right, and maybe how to get it there. We shall see.

Want an excerpt? No? Okay.

Palindromic

2006-11-21T16:26:00.000-06:00

Word 43434: "car"

[afterthought: too bad it wasn't racecar. or mom. or dad. or madamimadam.]

Another AutoSummary

2006-11-21T10:26:00.000-06:00

Here's a snippet of a 500 word Microsoft Word AutoSummary:

I wonder if I can get my hands on that file.
“It’s not the nicest room.”
I turn the handle and the door opens.
“Okay, well…. "Livvy?" I call her name again, a little louder this time, approaching the door. The room is empty. There's nobody there. Hard times rolled off her. “Right away, sir.”
I’ll take you home if you’re not feeling well.”
“Your name is Charlie? Don’t say anything, just nod your head if you understand.”
I shook my head.
I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any excessive pain or inconvenience.

Doubting Charles

2006-11-21T10:19:00.000-06:00

Word count: 42651

Wrote this last night and as I'm writing it, I'm thinking, "I'm just putting my doubts about this novel into my character's mind." It's funny: Charlie has several moments where he has these "I can't go on, I must go on" moments that are really all my fault. This one was probably the most intense. Fortunately, it was followed by yet another revelation (on my part) about what's going to happen to him and so he made it through again. Way to go, Charlie!

I wonder about this trip to Normal. I don’t even know where I’m going or what I’ll do when I get there. It seemed like such a sure thing when I made the connection. “Go see Illinoir,” they said. So I go down there and see it and what will that do for me? That’s been the problem with this whole thing. It’s all happening in fits and starts. I’m not making any progress towards any goals. I figure out one thing and then six other things pop up and I’ll never unravel them all. I make one connection at the cost of another.
I give up on my papers, stuff them back into my bag, feel the gun. Desperation’s voice in the back of my head tells me just to put it in my mouth and pull the trigger. Rarely is that voice so dark and rarely does it sound so attractive. My hand closes around the grip inside the bag. I feel its weight and power. It’d be so much easier to stop this all right now, arrive in Normal as a corpse rather than a live human with all these questions and mysteries. Who needs them?
I sit like that, folded over in my seat, holding a gun hidden in my duffel, for several minutes and I’m not sure what brings me out of it; what causes me to lower the revolver back into the relative safety of my T-shirts. Perhaps it is my love of a mystery solved that makes me realize that I need to see this through to the end. Maybe it’s the way Kat is staring at me from across the aisle. Disgusted with myself, I withdraw my hand from the bag.
I am weak to be thinking like this. My exhaustion from the events of the last 36 hours along with the alcohol and the stress have all combined to break down all my defenses. I need sleep.

2006-11-20T19:00:00.000-06:00

Word count: 41734

AutoSummarize...

2006-11-20T11:56:00.000-06:00

Word count: 41342

Microsoft Word has a feature you probably haven't used. Or, at least, I've never used it before. It's called 'AutoSummarize...' and it's a lot of fun. I will periodically post various summaries of the novel.

Here is a 20 sentence summary:

The lighter works. If only, if only, if only!" I’ve just been working.”
"Sal!" "Bonnet!" Right?)

Law asks.
"Detective? "Livvy?" Law laughs. "Charlie!" Right? Call 911."
"Bonnet!" Bonnet! "Sorry, Law. "Alright, Law. Guys!” “Guys. Bonnet Detective Agency

The 40,000th word

2006-11-19T18:50:00.000-06:00

Is.......

"water"

Slowing it down....

2006-11-18T14:34:00.000-06:00

Only wrote 1406 words yesterday, the lowest single day total so far. Had to let go of the need to constantly match 2000 and know that the only thing that matters is that I get to 50,000 by the end of the month. There's not much to be gained by finishing next Tuesday (as my pace says I will) and a lot to be gained by dropping back down to a more reasonable pace. Just spat out 300 words about the relatively inconsequential searching of a garage, but still decent prose.

Reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Have I mentioned that yet? The book is just incredible. Chandler's prose style is absolutely amazing. I know what I'm going to be reading for the next several months....

Photoshopping

2006-11-17T17:01:00.000-06:00

Modeling the new wind jacket that Mom and Frank bought me.

Word count: 38066
This chunk (for reference's sake): 397
Percent of current: 1.04
Percent of target: .794

It draws me back in. I zoom in on the picture, on the spot where, in my copy of the photo, I am lying, posing while unconscious. I look for any signs of alterations trying to see if I had been stripped out of the picture by some highly-trained digital photography expert. I find nothing. There’s nothing that looks like it’s been brushed or blurred; no obvious repeating patterns that would indicate a copy and paste; not a single pixel out of place.
I go back to the bathroom and fish my wallet out of my pants. I retrieve the photo with me in it and take it back to the study. I flip on the scanner and digitize the image, hoping to take a look at it as well, trying to see if I’d been stripped into this one. Again, I come up with nothing.
I’m no Photoshop expert, but I’ve done my share of forging images. It’s not what you think: I never doctored something to close a case; never falsified evidence. But sometimes clients want what they want and when money was tight, I was willing to give it to them. The point is that I’ve seen falsified pictures before and even those that are very good at doing it will leave some trace that the picture isn’t 100% legitimate.
Maybe the people who did this are better than very good. They certainly haven’t pulled any punches or spared any expense when it has come to any other aspect of this drama. I sit back in my chair, looking at the pictures side by side and wonder what they could possibly mean. The woman in the photos is in the exact same pose in both pictures. The floors appear the same, though the lighting isn’t good enough, even when I fiddle with the levels, to compare the grain of the wood.
I think about the cigarettes in the drawer, lean forward to grab them and that’s when I see a shadow across the woman’s face that doesn’t continue onto the floor. I look closer and sure enough, there is just the faintest trace of a second light source being obscured by another presence in the room. In the photo that I’m in, the shadow continues uninterrupted. I wonder how much they paid whoever did the doctoring. Whatever it was, it was probably too much.

75%

2006-11-17T01:43:00.000-06:00

Just hit 37,500 which puts me squarely at 75% done with this thing. Groovy!

Slagging Normal

2006-11-16T22:29:00.000-06:00

Word count: 36707
Words to go: 13293
Percent complete: 73%

Charlie had a revelation while taking a bath, so I figured I'd take one too. Turned out to be a decent idea. Was able to work out a timeline of events of the story. Should probably write it down somewhere......Okay, that's better.

The Bloomington-Normal Area Convention & Visitors Bureau will tell you that the Bloomington-Normal area has endless amounts of attractions including historical and artistic sites, sporting and cultural events and boundless opportunities for small and large business alike. This is bullshit and should not be believed. Bloomington-Normal is a shithole and like all metropolitan shitholes, it is attempting to pull the wool over your eyes with pretty talk of being the fastest growing area in Illinois and a wonderful place to live. They all say the same things – pick Parumph, Nevada; Aberdeen, Maryland; or Derby, Kansas. It doesn’t matter much which one you choose, they’ll all tell you that they’re a wonderful place to be, a fast growing community, a safe haven away from the hustle and bustle of the big, mean cities. It’s all crap. It’s all marketing and deception. Don’t believe their hype.

Crisis of Confidence

2006-11-16T11:48:00.000-06:00

It's amazing, writing this thing, how scared I am of moving forward past the point the story is at currently. I'm spending a lot of time going back to earlier scenes and filling them in rather than pushing the story forward.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I rely a lot on my characters to dictate how things are going to go and I let them drive the story. Often, I'm surprised at things they do. Writing a mystery is tough -- you need to have some idea of what the final outcome is, and I do, but the problem is that I've set Charlie Bonnet up to be this waffling, somewhat weak fraud of a detective and right now he's having a huge "should I keep going or should I give up" crisis.... Not that I personally am -- at 35,000 words, there's no way I can stop now -- but what if he decides to give up? Story's over. And he never finds out all the secrets.....

I've been putting off the standard-issue road trip/change of scenery that I used in 2003, but it's about to happen.

Also: started reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler last night. Talk about a brilliant book. Just the very beginning is a great hook, an amazing character set up, brilliant description, great dialogue.... Damn.

Word 35,000

2006-11-15T21:47:00.000-06:00

"into"

That is all.