"To some people the church is their ticket to respectability, a certain bourgeois point of view, a safety net for when they go to bed. My idea of Christianity is no safety net, a scathing attack on bourgeois values, and a risk to respectability."

-- Bono

It is Finished (For this year at least)

Sometime Sunday morning, I forget the exact time, but I copied and pasted my latest manuscript and pasted it into the magic word counting machine on NANOWRIMO's website and cued up Queen's "We Are the Champions".

I clicked send.
I clicked play.
I saw the rather large "CONGRATULATIONS" message and laid back on the bed luxuriously bathing in the glory of Freddie Mercury's vocals and my own insane literary glee.

It has been a rather insane month that I only vaguely remember. A few of you were there to encourage me, to pick me up when I fell out of my desk chair weak from too much caffeine and too little food, you were kind enough to flatter me as needed and then threaten me with death when that was not enough. You saw past the grammatical issues that I still do not understand (The day I actually understand comma splices, the actual use of semicolons and how to properly pronounce hyperbole will be a key sign of the apocalypse; you have all been forewarned.) and saw a cause worth pursuing.

You were all godsends and I have to thank you all, every word of encouragement is worth more than the lower gasoline prices...

((crikey i have to finish later...stupid work ~_~ ))

Even more reassurance that hating all of humanity is the right choice for me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?bl&ex=1228107600&en=95e0984e8f92cc7c&ei=5087%0A

America

Only in this ridiculous country would THIS be considered top news:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081128/ap_on_bi_ge/holiday_shopping_black_friday

People can't buy as much useless crap as they normally would?

Boohoo.

It is nice to know I don't believe in love, in fact I think it is ridiculous and stupid. One of the most outlandish illusions we use to shelter our feeble existences so that we do not simply die outright from the shock wave of reality crumbling our futile lives.

On the plus side I'm not dead.

Woo.

So, okay, it goes a little some thing like this:

The pain I feel rips me from what false sense of security I had. The false pretensions, the false ideals and the fears I have had about life.

Every last idea I thought was mine gets taken away, every wayward thought gets ensnared within this odd shaped puzzle.

I'm exhausted and I feel so much pain right now. I wish there was some sort of relief I could get but right now, I just feel this huge hole I'm falling into and the darkness consuming me.

It's like this false metallic taste in my mouth,
my realization of your fake life
running parallel to mine.

You are wearing it all like some sort of dirty bird,
covered in black grime.
Alone with everyone except yourself,
this madness you love to wear and flaunt.

With all the substance of a gray mist
you are falling quicker than your wings can stand.
Stained with life and this lack of gain
that you love to hold so dear.

I'm firmly convinced that anyone who does a poor cover of a John Lennon song should be put to death on the spot.

Sadness.

Humanity exacerbates my lack of patience far too often.

Day Seventeen Nanowrimo '08

Week three, ideally things are downhill from this point, however idealism only stretches so far when you have a deadline beating on your head and a word count that STILL is not as high as it needs to be.

So the battle plan for this week is to impose myself on my best friend and live in his kitchen so I can stay away from any distractions and get my word count over 30k by this Wednesday. Thankfully the word count I do have will only mean that I need about fourteen thousand wordsish (does that word form/tense even exist?) and assuming I don't loose my mind or am kicked out I will make this goal.

The plot is there, I just need to find it. Possibly by beating my muse with a burlap sack full of door knobs...but uh...we'll see about that...

To me some of the absolute sweetest moments of my life can be found in my childhood in the 16-bit and 32-bit era dream machines called the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sony Playstation.



I was originally told I could be anything I wanted to be, then I was made fun of for what I wanted to be. Made to feel shame for just enjoying what I enjoyed in life...reading books and playing video games...but they were both so much more to me. They were escapism from a childhood that at times borderlined on absolute insanity.

The details are trivial and somewhat useless because I did survive childhood mostly intact but I did loose a few things I once held precious...the ability to try and fail, the ability to simply do,

Day 14

Rather then try to come up with some fancy metaphor for my writing I'll just come out and say the word count is a bitter but sweet struggle. Even though I'm struggling with feelings of inadequacy and despair, there are still these bursts of creativity that remind me that this novel idea isn't as stupid as I may think it is, in my weaker moments that is.

Although part of me wants to make a career out of writing, the reason I write is for my own sake. There is an almost redemptive element I can find in NANOWRIMO, The ability to loose myself in the creative process and know that no matter how poorly received my ideas are they are still my ideas and no one can ever strip me of them.

So yeah, writing isn't any much easier than yesterday but I suppose the difference is that if I push myself hard over the next couple of days I can hit 25k and then be on the downhill side of this novel and also the fact is that no matter what happens this is the best way I could have spent my November.

Boy do I feel like crap. Oh well.

Again I must ask...why am I here? Why am I even here? What is the point?


Seriously?

Day 13

Day 13

You know honesty sucks, a lot.

If I was to be honest I am having a lot of trouble with writing and just between you and me, I honestly think I should stop writing.

I am not a writer, I cannot write, I am a terrible writer, I have no talent, no skill and have no idea just what is going on.

I'm staring at a large black hole that is currently sucking all of the hope concerning my writing away. Oh, there went my dignity too. Oh well.

The theme song for this novel has been 'Creep' by Radiohead. I keep asking myself "Why am I here?" and "What am I doing this?"

I have no talent at writing. I suck at this. I profoundly suck at writing and have no right to even try to flirt with the possible idea of me being a writer. I suck so bad that if there was such thing as a death penalty for horrible writing I would gladly walk up to the chopping block so I could have the agony of how terrible of a writer I am end. Promptly.

All the same I'm not giving up. I am not exactly sure what sort of hope I am clinging to as this point but I have always had trouble knowing when and how to quit. So at the very least if I'm going to die I'll die with a horrible manuscript in my hand.

I feel sick. Not 'so' sick I suppose, because that would imply this is some deep and new form of illness which has not been seen before...however I do feel sick, ill perhaps. But that doesn't begin to match up with the level of anxiety and stress I feel at being here, knowing I will soon not be able to return, knowing there is no home.

You know?

If David Bowie was any more awesome I think hearing his music would cause me to burst into flames.

Day 12

"Show me don't tell me."

One of the single most helpful tidbits of writing advice I have ever been given. If I remember correctly this was gleaned from Stephen King's book on writing, which was quite shrewdly called "On Writing".

We have all read works of fiction which read as a 'Tell Me' work. "So and so did this and then they did that and ran over there", I personally find that sort of writing a bit dry, it is almost like reading a plot summary rather than an actual story.

Besides being a pet peeve I try to avoid, by actually 'Showing' the reader what is going on instead of simply 'Telling' them you get to delve deeper into the story while increasing that ever vital word count...or at least this is what I am telling myself as I try not to think about how behind I still am in word count.

Day 11

Something about killing new characters with a huge explosion because of frustration about where they are not going yet.



** ** ** **


What do you do with new characters?

To be more specific, what do I do with those new characters that have become nothing but problems?

In order to fix the problem of a plot that has hit a few hiccups, I decided to introduce a few new characters. Honestly I do not know if this has helped because I have the sudden urge to have all of the new people tied up and placed in a room with a very large explosive device.

Taking some time to think about this a mass explosion may not actually fix the problem. My other solution would be to let them run wild and see what exactly it is they want to do...I mean worse case I can always use the backspace button, right?

So I guess this just means wait and see, maybe letting them run about could be the best thing for my story. Who knows?

11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month...at least according to my watch

Ah...I had almost forgotten the feeling of my insides being on fire...the balance of life has been restored...

If I was anymore cynical I think I might cause some people's heads to explode.

That actually sounds like a cool super power...

Day 10 - Noveling

Day 10

The past few days have been odd and sadly unproductive writing wise. Friday my doctor put me on a new medicine and so far the only effect I've felt from the medicine is extreme drowsiness. Which obviously would make accomplishing my every day life difficult, much less the writing aspect.

I'm forgoing as much human contact as possible today and cutting this short so I can hopefully bring my woefully low word count into the lower ten thousands today.

Here is to coffee, writing and medicine that makes your head feel funny! Hooray!

I suppose this is all the drama of the moment but I really have no clue what I'm doing.

Why am I even trying to write? I feel like such an abysmal failure and that there is no sincere reason for me to write about something so stupid and pointless.

Bah.