A Dozen Times None, Or How Will I Choose?

 

Oops, I did it again.

The year was 2009. I was SUPER-UNEMPLOYED, and had been so for a year, at that point. I was encouraged by some sadistic friends to try NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The premise is simple: writers are challenged to write a 50,000-word novel (that's a novella, really, but let's not quibble) in one month. I was successful, and for better or worse, I was hooked. Soon, there was a summer version of the traditional November event: Camp NaNoWriMo. A little over a month ago, I stopped writing my twelfth first draft. It's not done, but if we're being honest, are any of them?

So. I have self-imposed a rule on myself. No more new projects (National Blog Posting Month notwithstanding) until I make an honest effort to get one of my twelve babies to see the light of day. But Which one gets the call? 

November 2009. Working title: "Tiny Scars." It's a semi-autobiographical tale of a sixth-grader with a genius friend, and a cool teacher who produces plays that turn out a lot better than they have any right to turn out. There's also weeklong trip to a  camp that's oddly religious, for a public school trip, but whatever. Here's an excerpt.

November 2010 - the month I started working at Beloved Employer. Working title: "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." If you're a fan of "South Park's" first season, you know from the title that this is a zombie story. We follow a lottery-winning slacker and his dog on their new boat, as they gradually learn what's happened and try to work their way home from the Caribbean. The dog is probably the best part. I just reread an excerpt, and meh.

August 2011. Working title: "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." Same zombie apocalypse, but told through the lens of a budding semi-comedic romance in off-season Rehoboth Beach. Here's a bit. So to speak.

July 2012. Working title: "Falling Off The Universe." I like this one. It's an ensemble thing - a group of friends gathering after years apart to scatter the ashes of their gone-too-soon former ringleader. They encounter a alien with a busted spaceship, and interstellar shenanigans ensue. The ending needs a complete rework (the whole story needs a lot of work), but the elements are there, and I love some of these characters so much, they keep appearing here in the blog, sharing their ALTERNATE MEMORIES. One of them is also dangerously addicted to COFFEE.

June 2013. Working title: "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound." Not-so-young, freshly laid-off new couple befriends a hundred-year old hobo, creates a viral sensation telling his far-fetched stories online, and tries to help him take a final ride into the sunset, so to speak. The old man has an unexplained endangered black-footed ferret you may have seen on this very blog, this very month. This is the little novel that my ever-lovin' editor and fake alternate elector [Maris] thinks could make it, so it's the clear front-runner for my first publishing attempt. Still needs work, but I loved these characters, too, so I guess I kind of owe it to them.

November 2013. Working title: "Bane's Existence." What was I thinking, starting a new novel just weeks after stopping work on "Buck Mope?" This one's about a guy who questions his own existence, and accumulates a lifetime of evidence to support his theory that he's actually a ghost or something. Also, he dates a ghost. I think. It's been about ten years since I've looked at this one. I faintly remember that it had moments, but probably needs more work that most of my other drafts.

July 2014. Working title: "Undead Drunk." Another zombie thing, but this one set in Baltimore, as another group of friends gathers with their classmates for a high school reunion. Pretty sure I kept this gross horror show as funny as possible. I think I have a whole chapter (or more) with two or three of my protagonists "treed," and just watching the apocalypse and doing play-by-play. Yeah, I hear you. meh.

July 2016. Working title: "Party At Ground Zero." Stolen premise from the hugely-underrated 80s movie "Miracle Mile." A bunch of 80s high schoolers are partying their little 80s butts off, when credible news of a full nuclear exchange crashes their shindig and kills everyone's buzz. So, I love the idea. BUT... I used most of the characters from "Falling Off The Universe," and [spoiler alert]: PREQUELS ARE HARD AND THIS ONE IS DEEPLY UNSATISFYING. Might rewrite this one using new characters.

July 2017. Working title: "Plan Nine From Inner Space." An admittedly half-assed ripoff of the "Futurama" episode where Leela's in a coma and has a series of coma-dreams that turn out to have been triggered by Fry's incessant talking at her, trying to bring her back. It has moments, but yeah - a bit on the meh side.

July 2018. Working title: "Milo And The Art Of Nodus Tollens." This is more like it. Inspired by a list shared by my late cousin Mary M.. Nodus Tollens refers to the realization that the plot of one's life doesn't make sense anymore - that your "writer" might not know what the hell he or she is doing. I came up with another cute and fun couple for this one, and because side characters always steal the show, we invented Deejay Atmospheric Skip. A global wild goose chase ensues, as Milo tries to fix his story himself. This one is near the top of my list, with "Buck Mope" and "Falling Off The Universe."

July 2019. Working title: "Back To Somewhere Else." Based on my never-ending quest with [Maris], in search of the elusive portal back to the world we obviously came from that is somewhere else. I like this one, too. Portals are wily and capricious.

[Long, long pause...]

July 2023. Working title: "Songs From Later." Another rom-y, com-y one. Young "friends with benefits" arrangement turns real (I know - shocker), but one of the lovers has visions of the future. These visions are often vague and annoyingly cryptic, but over time they begin proving true - or at least semi-true (because me) - culminating with September Eleventh, or possibly January Sixth. I wrote through August and September and into October, eventually passing 80,000 words, BUT this one needs a ton of work to make it work, and I'm just not ready to tear it all down and start over, so I'm spending November doing a blog post a day, instead. 

So. When this month's over, which little book gets the nod? Oh, wait - my busy season at Beloved Employer is just beginning. 

Maybe in February, then...

Hither, Dither, and Yawn

Can you see where the weekends are?

Hither I come, returning to my cyber home, undoubtedly looking as dusty and bedraggled as I feel.  Over 27 July days (nights, mostly), I churned out 50,980 words for National Novel Writing Month - Summer Camp Edition.  I hear you - and the answer is yes.  Something is very much wrong with me.  I enjoy the pressure that these novel writing months put on me.  I'm quite comfortable being wordy.  Obviously.  And wordy I was, including 12,000 words during the final weekend.

So.  Over the past eleven days, I haven't written a word, and I haven't looked at what I wrote in July.  "Undead Drunk" is like a strange dream I had - full of booze and sex and snark - and a few zombies.  I've rested.  I've relaxed.  I've watched a lot of baseball.  I'm watching baseball right now.

But here's the thing:  What I should be doing, as always, is something else.  I now have SEVEN first-draft novels, and a couple of them might actually have potential.  I should be doing rewrites and edits, and reading "Getting Published - For Dummies."  Failing that, I should be writing something else - something new, something that, if not marketable, is at least a worthwhile exercise.  Failing that, I should be reading any of the half-dozen books in my to-read pile.  I should be finding a Jayson Werth garden gnome on eBay for my brother, who got to the Nats game too not-early-enough, on Tuesday, and missed out.  I should be working on my legal defense strategy for any of the myriad of lawsuits pending against me over that TV pilot I supposedly stole from Patton Oswalt and George Barry.  I should be trying on shorts.  I should be having someone take a look at that bullet wound.  It only grazed me, but it's awfully angry-looking - I'm worried that it might be infected.  Of course, I should also be shopping for new carpeting.  It's been over two weeks since the neighbors' washing machine flooded *our* dining room, and we ripped out the carpet in a fit of pique (And because we knew it was the only way to get us to replace the stuff.  We've been talking about it for a couple of years, now.), and there it sits.  Stupid concrete slab ghetto townhouse.  I should be figuring out what I want to do with this blog.  The Hobo Posts probably deserve their own blog, but that just sounds like work.  I suppose I could also be reading all my wonderful bloggy friends' stuff, and leaving them warm, supportive, and constructive feedback.  I should be emailing my handful of wayward friends.  I should be sleeping, perhaps.  [Baseball is over.  Stuff happened - what can I say?]

But I'm not.  Instead, I am dithering.  I think about all of the above and so much more.  And I think and think and think, and I come up with all manner of brilliant solutions to it.  It's like My Lost Revelation - gone before I can act.  It's not simple procrastination, though.  You ditherers know what I mean.  It's all there, but for the actual action.  Thinking about stuff is SO much easier than doing stuff.

Summer will end, and I'll not have even reread last year's novel - the one with potential - let alone edited, punched up, rewritten, fixed, sold, or otherwise pushed it toward publication.

Summer will end, and this wound will still be oozing, the legal team will have fired ME, and the garden gnomes will be gone.

Summer will end, and the house will still be in dire need of paint, carpeting, and if I'm being honest, cleaning.

Summer will end, and I'll not have reestablished connection with my very few friends, nor will I have rejoined the blogosphere - or even my teensy corner thereof.

yawn.

Summer will end, and that thumping in the closet will persist.  The thing that's not a bunny living under the shed will have had babies, and because I work at HSUS, there'll be nothing I can do about them.  So much for cutting the grass, I guess.  The Nats will have found a way to lose the NL East, but the O's will have clinched the AL East, and that will just have to do.  The 'Skins will have won all four of their preseason games, setting us up for the disappointment of another 10+ loss regular season, full of hypocritical bitching about the team's stupid name.  Yes - it's the 1890s N-word for native Americans.  If every non-native person who claims to be offended by it gave a dollar to a native American Nation tomorrow, we'd have the wealthiest indigenous population on the planet - but hypocrisy, as we know, is the greatest luxury.  Just ask the Disposable Heroes of Hip-hoprisy.

((YAWN))

Anyway.  Summer will end, and that's a shame.  But that's the great thing about not doing what you should be doing.  Fall will come, and all those things will be there, patiently waiting for you.  Well, my gunshot wound might not be patient, exactly, but still.  It will be there.  And if we still don't have carpeting, yet, then we can store perishables on the cold concrete floor, and save all kinds of money by unplugging the fridge.

((YAWN))

And there it is.  The second ((YAWN)).  I think it's time to tell you about another outrageously weird hobo, before you become as bored with all of this as I am.  Next time, that is - assuming that I'm not busy pitching "Undead Drunk" or "Falling Off The Universe" or "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound" to a big-time agent, somewhere...

Thanks for bearing with me, whilst I work this out...

Naturally, this post was prompted by my friends at Studio 30 Plus.  This week, our writing prompt, "Summer will end" came from a haiku by Laura at Bird Of The Forest. 

Meanwhile, Back In The Camp Journal...

I spent June in a state of self-induced torment called Camp NaNoWriMo, a summertime version of National Novel Writing Month.  The goal is simple:  Write a novel of at least 50,000 words, and do it within the span of 30 days.  I've completed four of these months since November, 2009 - two November sessions and two Camp sessions - and I have loved and hated each one.  The idea behind the summer camp version is that November is too busy for a lot of us, and that we'll have more time to crank out all those words in June or August.  Yeah, maybe.

I've been doing the blog thing, writing mostly about hoboes, for a while now, and switching gears from short-form to long is a challenge.  In blogging, efficient writing is important, and I try to use an economy of words.  That's actually a good practice in most writing.  These NaNoWriMo exercises basically demand wordiness.  To add to the challenge for this one, I abandoned the zombie apocalypse of my last two novels and instead started from scratch.  I love my undead friends, and I'll revisit those projects soon, but zombies are easy.  I wanted to stretch myself a bit.  I also kept a camp journal, because as these marathons drag on, I tend to forget who and where I am and what's going on.

I didn't really keep a camp journal.  Are you kidding?  50,000 words in 30 days.  That's almost 1,700 words a day - with a full-time job.  But if I had kept one, it might have had excerpts like these:


June 1st - Only managed 917 words.  Someone brought rum to camp!


June 2nd - Hard to write when Stephen Strasburg was pitching for the Nats and it was on TV in the counselors' cabin, but after the inevitable victory, I was on fire.  I have 4,132 words and a headache.  There are people in my book.  So far, they haven't done much of anything - except of course for Brock Swackhammer, who is a man of action.


June 3rd - Maybe rum at camp is a good thing.  Over 8,100 words, and Swack's already behaving badly.  There's also been sex-quality coffee, and apparently everyone in my book is a smart-ass.  I know!  How is this happening?


June 11th - Wait... You want another 1,667 words today?  I just gave you 1,667 words.  What is this, a labor camp?  And why are my characters making decisions for themselves?  I did not authorize any of those shenanigans at the beach.  Who's writing this thing, anyway?


June 16th - I got lost on the stupid nature hike, and had to make fajitas without a grill.  My story has wandered off and is now totally bossing me around.  I miss my wife.  I miss my blog.  I miss my hoboes.


June 19th - Didn't write.  At all.  Who knows what my characters are doing without my supervision.  I thought I saw an albatross, this morning flying over the camp from the east.  That's why I couldn't write.  Everyone knows the appearance of the eastern albatross, especially within four days of the summer solstice, signals nothing but heartache for those who type drivel at any rate that falls between 30 and 40 words per minute.


June whatever 27th or something - Why is there camp on weekdays, too?  It's stupid and I hate it.  I'm never doing this again.  And if those fictitious little buttheads make me cry in front of the other campers again, I'm deleting them.  See if I don't!  


June 29th - It's 102 degrees outside.  You iron a lot of cars but don't say why you won't call the textbook example of rotisserie bonanza fire.  My grip is fine, why are they attacking me?  I'm just a bill, and I wasn't but askew will never infield fly rule.  Right?  RIGHT??


June 30th - Okay, seriously - what is a "derecho?"  Knocking the power out on the last night of camp may seem like a cool idea - roughing it and whatnot - but it's really not.  I'm one of the lucky ones, though.  Many campers are dead, or worse - still have no electricity.  I have over 50,000 words, but my characters simply will not shut up, so I have to keep typing during the bus ride home.


I've been home for a week, and I have a Camp NaNoWriMo T-shirt, and a badge to stick on my Facebook page, and a patch.  That's the best thing about camp.  You get NOTHING for succeeding.  Nothing.  In fact, if you wanted to, you could just copy and paste 50,000 words from any source on your computer - or anywhere on the whole wide world interwebs - and paste it into their word-count verifier and "win."  You'd be a giant loser, but you could do it.  

Only then you wouldn't have the one good thing they do send you home from camp with - a rough draft of a novel.  I'll make myself crazy again for 30 days come November for another one.  Maybe it'll be about hoboes.