I have never (maybe once, probably never, and I’m too lazy to go look into it) managed to write up what happened at any convention in any detail. I considered this to be a function of obligation (don’t have to so didn’t) for a long time, but I think that it’s just — cons are a kind of kaleidoscopic experience, with the number and qualities of the elements inhabiting the object cell, the size, angle and number of the reflecting mirrors, and the rotation of the object cell all changing wildly from moment to moment. That’s hard to recount, hard even to attach anything approaching stress or even sequence to after the fact.

(more…)

They flowed over us, those dread ides and the week that followed, a dark tide with currents strange and vast, and bore us we knew not where.

Life this week has been extremely life-like, and I’d like that to stop. Shannon’s workplace began to eat her alive, and she bore this with characteristic passivity (like, “Back the hell off or I’ll impale you with your own grandmother’s still-bleeding spinal cord!”). About the time the distemper shots kicked in and she was calming, my workplace rose up and began to eat me. I saw a doctor for a moderate ailment, and had several new experiences associated with that event, some of which (if I am feeling horrid and foul and want to hurt folk who’ve done me no harm) I may share with you all in great detail later. Last night, hot on the heels of this, we stayed in town and helped Lee & Dorothy set up for Orycon, which we will begin to attend today.

Through most of this I have kept my words flowing, but day before yesterday was only 300 words and yesterday was naught but work and sleep, and was sufficient. Words may or may not happen this afternoon; I favor “will”, but will only hold me to moderately super-human standards.

I’m getting much better about that. It’s making the writing process remain fun, which was one of my goals for this year. Good.

And. Still on track for first draft. Also good.

EDIT: Better than on track. The goal I am shooting for is between 80k and 90k words (short novel length). If I perform two 20-minute stints with Dr. Wicked each day, I will be done with the first draft two weeks ahead of time.

I’m okay with that.

18,059 words, with more to come in a few minutes.  Well on track for Amazon, even if I am behind on NaNoWriMo.  I am sustaining, and having a nice time with the process.

I rejoice.

I’ve just play-tested Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die machine. I don’t like the way the tab works, but I gotta say, that was a fast 500 words….

	503
10
lab.drwicked.com

So….

Recently, I’ve been discussing NaNoWriMo with others.  The thought they have had (there were several of these) was that NaNo is a made-up sort of deadline, and thereby rendered without teeth.  

I give my NaNo teeth.  I give it teeth by telling my family, friends, you guys, my cow-orkers, posting a NaNo flyer in my cell cube … I give it teeth of Embarassment.  Worst of all will be how I feel when, a year or a decade from now, I read through my blog and note my enthusiasm, my grand plans, my optimism … and how I let it dribble away without a word.

*shudders*

The worst thing I can imagine is adding things I regret to my life.  So, NaNo has teeth for me because I’m horrified at the thought of how I’ll feel if I’m slack and let ennui or inertia master me.

This year, NaNo is going well.  I started with “50,000 words … but if I hit 45,000 and wrote well and enjoyed it, then I win, because this year I’m shooting for sustainability instead of endurance and ultimate effort.”  That’s fine, but not quantifiable.  Goals without quantifiable measures of attainment are … toothless.

I will say that, so far even with lack of sleep and several days of social activity taking the place of writing, I am writing well and much and enjoying the process.

So.  I told Lisa, mentor et ami sans reproche

I will, working daily, complete an editable first draft of Self
Sacrifice by January 19 and have a revised manuscript based on
that draft ready to be uploaded to the Amazon Breakthrough
Novel Award Contest website NLT February 5, 2009.

And, because I am a masochist, I will publish this to E&S and
install a countdown timer indicating my two deadlines.

Uhm.

I must be ready for this, because I am very aware of what I
just committed to do and it seems perfectly reasonable to me. 

Yikes.

Countdown timers will be forthcoming.

Ambercon was this weekend, which warrants its own post.  Ambercon eats wordcounts.  However, I am sufficiently recovered that yesterday I wrote a few hundred words, this morning I wrote a few hundred words … I’ll write a few hundred more at lunch, and again on the way home.  Progress is happening.

Surprisingly, I didn’t seem to feel a need to self-flagellate over not having written for three days.  Just recognized that I had enough brain power to stay awake on the commute and pulled out Jarvis.  I keep omitting drama that I used to have regularly.  You’d think I’d be used to having cut it out, but it still surprises me.

My synopsis sprung the tiniest of leaks this morning; my protag glared at me from the middle of a drunken conversation with the Victim of the story and asked me sharply just what the hell I thought I was about; wouldn’t it be better to just get on with things.  

“I mean.  I mean … listen, I’m not sht … not stupid.  [This thing] just happened, and [that thing] has been happening, so … and I’ve got more’n two brain sh-cells to rub together.  I think I should [undertake next action scheduled for three chapters later].”  I was lacking in convincing arguments, so let him go.  

Which was an odd conversation.  I’m  a little bit sorry that it will necessarily have to be omitted from the final draft.