I'm the guy who has to wait

Turns out I'm not getting XP because they're waiting for a program I use to be updated. Looking around the office (most everybody has got it now), I'm not that worried.

Half an hour phone call with my brother last night, because he felt a strong urge to tell me what he's brought everybody for Christmas.

And, because this is the last day of the month that I'll be able to post it:

Scenes for Home -- 39 (won't divide up into chapters until it's finished);
Words for Home -- 51007;
Words all told -- no idea;
Stories in Circulation -- 1 (The Well);
Rejections -- 6;
Acceptances -- 1 (He Missed the Sea -- now live at Flash Me Magazine).

Later . . .

I'm the guy who slowed down

NaNoWriMo, Day 27:

Not many words done last night -- 837 -- but then I can afford to cool my jets a little. Also spent a long time last night convincing my computer to save my 51 kiloword text file. It did not want to do it. I eventually convinced it of the best course of action, but it took me over half an hour. Bloody antiquated machine.

I'm the guy who thinks it could be a laugh

Elydian sent me this link earlier in the week, basically it's for something London Book Fair are organising called Lit Idol.

One thing though, is that I doubt that what I'm writing at the moment would count as 'the next big quality commercial bestseller'. I'm not entirely sure I would want it to, but it's worth some thought.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who won!

NaNoWriMo, day 26:

1741 words on Thursday night
0 words on Friday night
2944 words on Saturday
0 words on Sunday
1790 words on Monday night
2050 words last night

Woohoo! Last night I won NaNoWriMo! I passed the 50 kiloword mark last night, and tomorrow I'll bring it in and get it verified (hoping that by then I'll have gone far enough above 50000 to allow for differences in the counting methods).

Last night a made a start on Part 2 of the book; the protag has gone back home, currently unaware that the evil has followed him up there. I'm still worried that at 50000 words I've only got through a third of my loose plot, but it should be alright. A lot of the final count will be cut away and tidied up in the rewrites.

The worry is nothing though, I just can't believe that I've done it. I can't believe it's over.

I'm the guy who couldn't celebrate

Alcohol free november, day 26:

So, England won the rugby world cup on Saturday. Was very happy about this -- fucking ecstatic actually -- but disappointed, because I couldn't celebrate the win in the only way how; by going out and getting smashed. The temptation to go out and have a drink was almost overwhelming, but I resisted, and it eventually went away.

(could have been so easy, he thinks, no one would know if I didn't tell them...)

But no, I resisted. Had to turn down an offer to go out with Coops in London as well. Couldn't make it in time for the match because of my plans on Friday night, and joining them for a day on the lash wouldn't have been all that fun for me being sober. Neverwell. When I spoke to Coops on Saturday lunchtime he was already drunk.

Two days of training course on Monday and Tuesday. Also testing my resolve. How much did I want a coffee yesterday?

I'm the guy who is going to London anyway

Harmsway and Maffew are back in England this weekend, so I'm going, with another guy from back in Nottingham, up to London to meet them. Should be quite a good weekend -- always nice to meet the guys, especially now that we're spread out in different countries -- but I'm a little upset that it's been organised in my sober month. Another night of lemonade and water looms.

I'm the guy who came to the Calla

So I finished Wolves of the Calla. Don't want to say too much about this one (I got bored of doing the book reviews thing), but this book is great. Go buy it and read it now (or if you haven't read the first four, go and buy them, read them first).

Only one thing . . . Song of Susannah is slated for a summer 2004 release. I'm thinking that'll be at least six months following Wolves.... Six months! That means I've got to wait until May at least.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who punched him

NaNoWriMo, Day 20:

2605 words last night.

Now that is better. Had a worrying thought last night when I realised I've almost finished my 50000 words, and I'm not even a third of the way through what I plotted for the novel. This thing (the first draft at least) is going to be huge.

Still only have a name for one of my characters (and that a fairly minor wallpaper character at that). Damn.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who had a ruckus in a church

NaNoWriMo, Day 19:

1717 words last night.

It's getting easier. Although last night the writing was slow, I knew what I wanted to write. The characters have left the funeral and are now on their way to the interment. There was a lot of pushing and shouting and crying last night. All is not well in this little village.

I'm the guy who is lost on his own computer

Unbelievable. In a fit of . . . something (I wanted to call it generosity, but that isn't quite right), IT are updating all of the computers at work (OS gets bumped up to WinXP, Office gets bumped up to 2003).

Of course, my computer here can't handle the new stuff, but there you go. Now I've just got to spend the next couple of weeks familiarising myself with XP, and then I can get back to work.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who had a good weekend

NaNoWriMo, Day 18:

998 words on Friday night (I had an easy night because it was the last in the series of Scrubs)
4690 words on Saturday.
1919 words on Sunday (not so great because of the England Rugby -- woohoo! -- and Football -- boohoo! -- internationals).
2117 words last night.

Yay, I broke the 37 kiloword mark last night. Of course, this means I've now got to the hardest part of what I have (basically) plotted for this novel: the funeral. The characters have got to the church, and when I left it yesterday, I was wasting word count by describing everyone reacting to the various hmyns and how they're mourning. Not looking forward to this.

Update:
New Chapters -- 1;
Words -- no idea (although NaNo's up to 37323);
Stories in Circulation -- 1 (The Well);
Rejections -- 6;
Acceptances -- 1 (He Missed the Sea -- now live at Flash Me Magazine).

I'm the guy who had a bad weekend

Alcohol Free November, Day 18:

Well, I did it. Saturday night I went out on the town, stayed out until one o'clock, and didn't drink. At all. I passed the test. Spent the whole night on lemonade and water, and actually managed to have a reasonably good time.

Saturday night was the birthday of a friend from work. Unfortunately, I was the only person out representing work, but I had a good night nonetheless. Fluffy's mates got him wasted (and I say it like that because I, in sober mode, took no part in it). I have never seen him that drunk before. By ten o'clock, walking to the pub in the evening, the poor boy was falling all over the place. We managed to get him into the club, but he disappeared on us about midnight, and we assumed that he had staggered off home. I found out yesterday that he passed out in the gents, and had to be rescued/evicted by the bouncers after the club closed.

A worrying development, when I go out and stay sober: I seem to get a little sympathy drunk. I was actually wobbling a bit myself in the club, and I got a seriously bad case of beer goggles. Up until now, I wasn't aware that you could get drunk by association.

I'm the guy who lives in the reptile house

So I finish my NaNoWriMo effort, after two hours of writing, and I go downstairs thinking I'll get myself some supper and watch a little television before bed. It's ten o'clock. Downstairs all the lights have gone off and my housemate has already curled up in his basket and gone to sleep. It's ten o'clock! Milkmen keep later hours than this. I am forced to negotiate the ground floor in the dark, because the light switch is way across the room.

I'm beginning to think that Gilly is cold-blooded. Ever since the onset of winter, he's been going to bed earlier and earlier. He's practically hibernating. He's also complains of the cold non-stop, mostly when it's not really that cold in the house. I feel like I should be keeping him in a warm glass tank and feeding him insects and dead mice.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who writes thugs

NaNoWriMo, Day 14:

2224 words last night and I'm comfortably ahead of schedule. My MC's finished having a drink with his friends at the local, and now he's gone outside to kick in a couple of phone boxes. This is much easier writing :)

I'm the guy who is going to have a sober night

Alcohol Free November, Day 14:

Test: go out on Saturday night -- to a house party, to a club -- and not have a drink. This'll be the first time I've been out since Alcohol Free November started.

Here's to a night of drinking lemonade!

Later . . .

I'm the guy who is ahead of schedule

NaNoWriMo, Day 13:

2451 words last night. The awkward, rubbish, crappy scene is finished. It actually got a little better towards the end, mainly I think because I was killing the character who was pissing me off so much :) It got better when the big bad turned up and started picking off her children. The words came a bit nicer, and there were even a couple of nice turns of phrase in there. Nothing quite as good as the big bad's first appearance yet, but it'll buff up at the rewrite.

So I've started another scene. It's back to the protag this time, so here's the call for lots of meandering description and watching how people react to his being where he is. More fun.

I'm the guy who is a theobromine junkie

Alcohol Free November, Day 13:

Elydian yesterday asked me if chocolate contains caffeine. I think he was trying to catch me out cheating. Bastard. Any way, it turns out it does, but that it's not very much. I'm not going to count it :) As far as I see it the occasional chocolate bar is not as bad as my six cups of strong coffee a day habit.

The main thing in chocolate is, apparently, is Theobromine, which is like caffeine's little brother.

I'm a bit of a google nerd today.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who is writing a horror novel

NaNoWriMo, Day 12:

Reached the 20 kiloword mark on Monday night. Last night I took the count to 22924 words.

I'm happy with what I've written so far. Not ecstatic, but generally pleased that such high output hasn't turned me into a talentless fool just yet. I know that I'm going to lose approximately half of the words when it comes to a rewrite. I accept this, but . . .

But, last night, the last of what I wrote was just complete crap. The chapter just doesn't make sense. It's ludicrous, and I'm writing it thinking, What is she doing? Why are they there?

It took a lot of effort to silence my internal editor last night. I could have quite easily gone back and rewritten the relevant couple of pages, but that would have involved taking some time to think of ways to make it better. Time I can't really afford to be spending on plotting right now. So the plan tonight is to soldier on with what I've got, and worry about it in December. Luckily it's not a main character that's having these plot problems (luckily she won't even be alive come the end of the chapter).

Later . . .

He always used to say he had a new monkey

Alcohol Free November, Day 12:

I'm not missing coffee, tea or coke at all at the moment.

I have a theory about that, though. I seem to have supplemented my caffeine intake with sugar. The trip to the chocomac outside our office has become daily ritual, and since starting work on Home I've been keeping what I call motivational sweets by my computer. Thus far they haven't lasted very long. It hasn't got to the stage where I'm putting sugar on my cornflakes yet, but it can't be far off.

This isn't good. Don't want to get fat just for the sake of giving up coffee for a while.

Later . . .

He always used to say it was ka

NaNoWriMo, Day 10:

I finally have myself a copy of the book I have been waiting for all year: Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower 5) by Stephen King. Bought myself a shiny hardback copy -- with pictures and everything! -- when I went into town this weekend. So far, so good.

Any hopes I had of winning NaNoWriMo have just died a horrible death.

That said, after nine days (and I don't count today until I can actually get home tonight and work on it) my word count is up to about seventeen thousand words. I have to say I'm amazing myself with this.

Later . . .

He always used to say he liked it here

NaNoWriMo, Day 7:

. . . And I've passed the 10 kiloword mark. Yeah. Things are going a lot slower than I had planned, but that's more than fine with me, as I had no idea how what I'd plotted for at the beginning of November would stretch to fifty thousand words.

He always used to say he was happy

Thanks to all those who congratulated me on the publication of He Missed the Sea. Your kind words are much appreciated.

Oh, and thanks to Student With No Razor, who seems to have told everyone in his address book. Publicity is good.

Later . . .

He always used to say he was tired

Alcohol Free November, Day 6:

Went on a site visit yesterday to Dover Eastern Docks (although it seemed more like a school trip, especially when the guy in Port Control said of our admittedly young group, 'Are you all students?' -- Felt simultaneously flattered and insulted. 'I'm an engineer, damnit').

I began to discover just how dependent I have become on caffiene. I couldn't keep my eyes open on the minibus (up or down), and I was actually craving coffee as we walked around the docks. It was quite a struggle not to order a Coke when we stopped for lunch; it seems I'm doing this automatically these days.

Not missing alcohol at all yet, but then I've still not been anywhere.

He always used to say 'What bit did you build, Kev?'

NaNoWriMo, Day 6:

Consequently we didn't get back until late last night. I was shattered, so I made no attempt to write, instead choosing to read Neverwhere until it was a reasonable going-to-bed hour. That said, though, I've been quite productive on the first four days of the month, and my word-count is now up to 9875 words. That's ahead of schedule (not to mention amazing) so I'm quite happy.

Later . . .

He always used to say he had a problem

Alcohol Free November, Day 3:

Not going bad so far. I'm not missing alcohol at all. I don't expect I will until I actually go out somewhere. I'm not an alcoholic, after all.

Caffiene, I'm missing like a limb.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exageration; this morning hasn't actually been that bad. I do really want a coffee, though.

He always used to say he was a novelist

NaNoWriMo, Day 3:

Got off to a good start. 5651 words down over the weekend. Mostly trite, of course, but there has been some good stuff in there. No writers block . . . yet.

Later . . .