Nanowrimo Day 10: Nano on the Road

Look, I wrote something!



In the laptop, in the car, with the laptop plugged into the little converted thingy, and the headphones firmly on.

I managed to generate two new chapters, and for those of you keeping track, these were two chapters of completely separate material, not connected at all to the Scene That Must Not Be Written. So, the Scene That Must Not Be Written has to be written NEXT. There is no other detour to be taken. It's just next and that's it.

I'm going to try and hit 10,000 by the end of tonight, after we go see this rocket launch that NASA has cooked up solely for our family entertainment. Nice of them. I am not goign to write that scene tonight though. I'm going to go back and beef up what I wrote today. Because, obviously, that scene must not be written so how can I write it?

Take the Books to Disney World: Disney Eve!

Some time ago, I decided to take some books to Disney World. I asked for help in narrowing down my guest list, and now I've made my final selections. I've narrowed it down to twelve, and here they are:



1. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (Wanted specially to go, to see Cinderella's castle.)
2. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Look! Already wearing mouse ears!)
3. Anxious Pleasures by Lance Olsen (To make up for not reviewing it sooner.)
4. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard (Because he deserves it.)
5. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (Must see Flying Dumbos.)
6. We the Living by Ayn Rand (A smile means friendship for everyone!)
7. Zzyzzyva (This is a literary magazine, sent to me by the publisher, to thank me, or scold me, or inform me after I wrote my screech about how literary magazines are dead.)
8. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus (A reader suggestion, thank you.)
9. One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse (For help in staging protests at gift shops.)
10. On the Way to Language by Martin Heidegger (For interpreting words like "Imagineers.")
11. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Because it is my favorite book ever.)
12. House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Because Moby Dick wanted him along.)

If you aren't on the list and you expected to be, it was because I didn't have a paperback copy of your book (Joshilyn Jackson, looking at you) or because I couldn't find my copy of your book (Sylvia Plath, hello). There you are. Tomorrow we start our trip. May we all have a damn good time. If you can't wait to see where we are and what we're doing, you can follow us on our mobile blog. I will try to write while I am away, but if the internet doesn't smile on our timeshare, I will see you when I get back.

Nanowrimo Day 8: An Important List

1. NBC's Thursday night comedy treatment of the green theme has been very, very satisfying. Self-referential, flippant, morbid, and delightful. Applause. It is also totally funny that the PSAs are paid for by Walmart.

2. Tonight I am going to write the next chapter of my novel.

3. Tomorrow I am packing my gay little bag with ten lucky books to accompany me and my family to Disney World. There's still time to get yours in the bag! Well, really no. Not really. I will announce lucky travellers tomorrow.

4. I have a very strong feeling that I am going to get to 10,000 words tonight. You heard me. Tonight.

5. There are really lots of things to do tomorrow. Apparently I need to pack more things than just books I plan to photograph in surprising locations. Like ears, different shoes for my children, my phone charger, and peanuts.

6. This is the time to write that difficult chapter. Right before a big long trip. Because after I write that difficult chapter, I'm going go bangass on the laptop in the car on Saturday.

7. Last year on the way to Disney World I knit a whole sweater. It was an ill-fitting sweater for a two-year-old who hates sweaters, and while it looked white-and-blue on the skein it actually looked urine-and-blue on the garment. But.

8. I am going to give away my first Bookbeast soon. Scroll down for Bookbeasts.

9. And yet, my children are not yet asleep. It is after 10:00. What can they possibly be doing.

10. I appreciate NBC trying to change my mind, but I am happy to report that I'm able to resist it. And drive a minivan a zillion miles to prove it.

Nanowrimo Day 7: Let's Work on a Completely Unrelated Novel!

Today my writing group met and discussed my Nanonovel from 2005. It has been revised somewhat, and it now has an ending, but mostly it's the same as it was when I banged through it two Novembers ago. The meeting was helpful. I got a lot of feedback as to what needed beefing up, what was unclear, what scenes were working as I had hoped.



I had a massive plot hole, just a giant gaping chasm of a plot hole, which they did identify, and I was able to work out what to do, to fix it, right there in the meeting. Someone made a suggestion, someone else added a thought, and I had an idea, and then the problem was solved. This was amazing. I'm so relieved.

Am I supposed to be writing some sort of other novel, right now? Or something?

Nanowrimo Day 6: I Did Not Vote for Steve Heretick

This bus was driving around Norfolk when I took the kids to dance class this afternoon. It was empty. There were STEVE HERETICK! signs taped all over it. And after all of this bus marketing, he lost the election anyway. I'm glad I didn't vote for Steve Heretick today. It's not that I begrudge him that vote, or revel in the possibility that my one small vote could have been the one vote to put Steve Heretick into the state senate (or whatever). It's just this: voting for a man named Steve Heretick and then having him lose the pissant little invisible election anyway would just too deeply epitomize my general feelings of despair and absurdity today. At least I can say I did not vote for Steve Heretick. There is always that one brittle rod to which my failing fingers can cling.