Melonade

Word count goal as of yesterday: 40,008.

Word count total so far: 40,167.

The curse of Week Three was lifted to sunshine and angelic choruses (actually, it was kind of cloudy and Blues Traveler was playing all weekend, but you get the idea). I had at least six hours of writing-related activity on Saturday that propelled me back on track to my somewhat ridiculous goal. Somebody was thinking when they invented Saturdays.

I also reached new levels of fun from playing Donkey Kong Junglebeat, but that's a story for another time.

I have to acknowledge that one certain bookselling friend, with his neverending supply of mostly fabricated, often unbelievable stories, was a major inspiration for a nudge in the right direction in one of my plotlines. He probably hates that since he's the one person who keeps telling me I won't finish.

I shouldn't acknowledge any assistance from him because on Saturday when we went to lunch, he pushed me into a very sharp, very angry tree, and now I have a dozen or so puncture marks on the inside of my left arm.

Let this be a lesson to you all: just as soon as you start to trust a boy again, he pushes you into a tree and proudly laughs at his evil behavior.

Sigh.

Less than 10,000 words to go and only 17 days until my vacation...

Enjoy your day.

There was a time not too long ago when I only bought new cds as a reward, generally for finishing a thesis paper or big project. I also had a rule that I would only buy it if I knew that I liked at least two songs. The rule served me well; it kept me from buying on a whim and being disappointed later. Of course, that was back in college when most of my money went to club activities and Taco Bell runs.

My recent change in purchase attitude is largely due to two things: a) I needed some inspiring music for my mad writing month, and b) I recently received some unexpected cash. Put a and b together and you get a very exciting but dangerous habit. There is a voice in my head that tells me not to walk into the music section at B&N, but I don't listen to her anymore.

And so, here is a brief list of the new additions (all within the last month, I believe) in something close to purchasing order, starting with the most recent.

Rocky Votolato- Burning My Travels Clean
Blues Traveler- Travelouge: Blues Traveler Classics
Iron & Wine- Creek Drank the Cradle
Jack Johnson- Between Dreams
Jars of Clay- Redemption Songs
Travis- The Invisible Band
Damien Rice- O
Moby- Hotel
Josh Rouse- Nashville

No reviews, no suggestions that you must immediatly rush out and buy them. They're not for everyone, I know.

Next purchase: DMB's Stand Up, which arrives on May 10th.

Really, I am going to halt all cd purchases until then. I promise...I think.


Enjoy your music.

Today's word count: 2,224 as of 5:30 p.m. Total word count to date: 24,687.

I have reached the halfway point. It is day 16 of 30. If your math skills are better than mine, you will notice that I should have passed 25,000 yesterday and did not. Overall the day has been successful. Today's stuff is better than most of the last few days as far as direction is concerned. Things are getting better. I want to get another 2,000 written today, but that may have to wait until later this evening.

According to my guidebook, Week Three is supposed to be easier than the dreaded Week Two. We shall see how that goes. My un-encouraging friend ("discouraging" doesn't do him justice) is doing a smashing job of telling me that I will not finish the book. I can't blame him; he's just doing his job.

And in other news, I am beginning to hate my cell phone. People expect me to drop everything to answer it and then assume that I have vanished into the depths of the earth if I do not immediately return their phone calls.

That doesn't relate to anything else, but I wanted to put it down somewhere.

Enjoy your day.

If you are visiting the site solely for the novel-writing update and not any personal confessions, this post is for you.

I am about 1,000 words behind my daily goal. The end of week one with its court visits and bond posting nightmares put me off track a bit, as did the co-purchase of a video game system with a friend. (This friend is the person who always tells me that I will fail miserably at writing, and I am beginning to think that the Thursday purchase was merely an attempt to make me lose all focus of the novel so I will have to buy him Star Wars tickets. He's a very clever boy.) Of course, the book that inspired this whole novel thing warned that there would be a creativity slump, and I have been waist-deep in the slump. (I imagine that slumps are a combination of pudding, glue, and red clay mud, all of which make exiting the slump a tiring chore.)

Good news: I had a fabulous day at work and am now feeling a mixture of productivity and inspiration that should carry me through to my word goal for today, which should put me at 20,004 words. So when I arrive home around 9 tonight, I should be itchin' to pound out some good stuff.

And now I have to give praise to Loraine, who has been my literary confidant for several years, and is always honest and encouraging about my writing, even when it is just plain bad. She will probably be prominently featured on every acknowledgement page I ever write.

Enjoy your friends.

I am not ready to be honest.

There are days when I am constantly smacked in the face with honesty, but in a wonderfully positive way, not in the face-bruising way you may have hoped. For a few moments, hey, even until I crawl under the quilts and try to shut down for the evening, I am convinced that I love honesty and I will embrace it in all its glorious forms. I will stop lying to myself; I will stop convincing myself things are okay when they're obviously not; and I will stop believing that I can solve my own problems.

But I know why darkness is the alarm-ringing quality of evil things. It's obvious, right? Girl goes into a dark tunnel alone with no lightsource, weapon, or hunky bodyguard-type boy, I automatically want to yell at her, "Hey, are you stupid? You shouldn't go in there, it'll only be trouble, and you'll be sorry." (Of course, said girl is in movie or television show, and she can't hear me, so I feel a bit crazy for the warning.) Inevitably, the warning is justified by the appearance of some slimy creature or axe-wielding psycho or, even worse, just the sounds of her screaming followed by creepy music cues. She's toast, and there's nothing you can do about it.

So why do I keep going into the tunnel? Why do I let things overwhelm me every day-- things for which I never believed I would have a weakness? I know that I am closing in on my own destruction, but at the mouth of the tunnel, it never looks as bad as it really is.

Some people are proud to say that they have no regrets. I always wonder about that kind of statement, because I can immediatly think of 10 or 20 of my own. They're not all huge decisions, but they were all important, and I can see there are places where I was too impatient and walked into the darkness instead of waiting for the lights to come on.

Since there's no way to know who reads this, I am not going to spell things out for you. In fact, I probably won't even spell it out even if I know you personally. For now, I'll just hope it's enough to know that I have made some mistakes and regret them, and know that there may be people who can support me even while I'm being vague.

Enjoy your day.

After sitting in a courtroom for a couple of hours with all manner of scary people, my name was finally called. I explained that the deliquent violation couldn't have been for my car, but the judge didn't seem to care so much. He said I'd have to post bond and go to trial. Trial! I neither have the time nor the money to waste on this, and he wants me to go to trial. If it is not already apparent, I will say it flat out: I am really ticked off at the Oklahoma City judicial system.

On a good note, I managed to get in my words yesterday. I've officially passed the 10,000-word mark.

Still, I don't really know where it's going sometimes. If it weren't for the no editing rule, I would have already edited like crazy and probably deleted a few chunks. Lucky for me, the rules won't allow deletion, only italization.

That's all I've got. I'm very angry and am having a hard time thinking about anything else.

Breathe in....breathe out....

Yesterday was ridiculous in every possible way. Here is a brief synopsis:
1. Woke up as usual. Felt stabbing pain in eyes and extreme sensitivity to all light, but pressed on to work.
2. Worked in complete misery (sunlight+office lights+yellow paint= absolute torture), went to Walmart for eyedrops that were little help, and worked until 1 p.m., when I finally called it quits for the day, promising that I'd probably return later in the evening to attend to some things.
3. Went home to my beautifully dark apartment. Had lunch, put on pjs and sleepmask, and was asleep on my super-comfy couch by 1:30. Awoke just before 6.
5. Opened blinds to check light tolerance (It was good.). Went back to the office.
6. Did some office work and then started my novel writing for the day.
7. Made my goal of 8,335 just before 10 p.m. with a few extra words for good measure. Heard strange noise, realized intense rain shower had just commenced and was slightly disappointed in my choice of footwear-- flip-flops.
8. Geared up for latest blog post when my entire office was doused with darkness, and I was slightly panicked. My office is kind of isolated, and there aren't many people around the area after hours. The office is 17 1/2 times creepier in the dark when all the machines are quiet.
9. Panicked a little more because I hadn't saved recently, and I couldn't remember how long it had been since my last auto-save. Worried about how I would get out and if the alarm system would be funky.
10. Left about 20 minutes later, hoping things would not fall apart and I would have electricity at my apartment.
11. Went about normal routine. Watched tv, played solitaire. tried with no success to go to sleep. At 4, I decided sleep was completely hopeless, and I got ready for work. Had breakfast at IHOP and read some of The Archivist. Arrived for work an hour early. Hope I will make it through the day.

And if that's not enough, I have to go downtown to court today because the City of Oklahoma City sent my parents a letter saying I had an unpaid parking ticket. I was at dinner with my sister at the time they say the alleged ticket was issued and my car was parked in front of my apartment, nowhere near California Street or any of its handicapped parking spaces.

So that's how it was. I've been awake since 6 p.m. last night. It's now just after 7 a.m., and I have had no sleep. I do not know how to convince a judge that the ticket could not have been issued to me or my vehicle.

On top of all that, I have to find time to write my 1667 words for the day.

Wish me luck, for I shall need buckets of it.

Enjoy your day.

Weekend writing was a success. My goal for yesterday was a total of 5,001 words, and by the end of the day I came in at 5,436. This was especially rewarding because I stared at my computer for about an hour feeling quite sure that the well was dry before making the final push and getting the last 600 in a half hour.

I don't know how today will go. It will be my first weekday writing attempt. Monday evenings are usually spent reading at Barnes and Noble or watching a lot of tv, both of which I will have to forego in order to get my words for the day.

Time to get to work.

Enjoy your day.

I survived Writing Day One, which transitioned into Writing Day Two since I managed to fall asleep at 4:30 this morning and awake around 12:30 p.m. I can only blame myself for the odd sleeping patterns, which I attribute to my extreme caffiene intake. Before the late night couch-fest which included Pope updates from all the major news networks, and viewing of Back to the Future Part II (thanks, JB) , I managed to rack up over 1750 words, putting me safely over my 1,667-word goal for Day One. Hooray!

Here's where I admit something I had forgotten in the last few years: writing is hard.

To clarify, the early stages of development of a new novel are particularly difficult when I'm quite foggy about the direction of the story. When I wrote for my creative writing classes in college, I had a 1,000-word requirement for each week, which I could usually turn out in a couple of hours after class. In those hours, all creative juices flowed fiercely and consistently from brain to fingertips. I miss those days.

I've come to realize that my novel-writing process is a lot like watching tv. I see the story unfold in my mind, watching the characters move around and exchange dialogue. My job is merely to record what I have seen and heard in a way that future readers can understand. So when I only get to see part of a scene, it's as if the program directors decided to stick in a commercial break or a breaking news bulletin. And when I'm struggling for a long period of time, it's as if the President has decided to give a speech and has taken over all of the channels for the evening. Arg. Of course, with a 30-day deadline, I can't afford to have any presidential addresses interrupt me, and even an extended commercial break frustrates me.

Random question of the day: What is the most magical color?


Current Day's Word Count: 598 (but I'm just getting warmed up).

Enjoy your weekend.