supplicium post mortem

Kids, I apologize for the traffic jam of unwritten blog entries which you can surely sense from wherever you repose. I’ve been trying to finish:

1. A follow-up to Friendship, and Play, inspired by the wonderful comments you have all left and by the discussion which continued on other people’s blogs.
2. Bookends for this week
3. 3F for this week

And now, in the spirit of throwing yet more balls in the air, I have decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. I did it in 2007 and “won” (i.e. wrote 50,000 words in one month). I wound up liking that novel a lot, but I have not finished it. Why? First off, NaNoWriMo 2007 was followed by a massive, over-time work season for me, lasting until Easter. Then, M died. Since that time, it has been hard to write anything at all, and the growth of this blog has served, as I think I’ve mentioned, as a type of CPR.

In my regular life I also write fiction, and I have yet another half-finished novel that stalled like a car with a dry tank a few months after M died. Curiously, I wrote quite a bit on it in the 3 months after his death, but then it just…dissipated. You know how a laptop power block stays green for a few seconds after you unplug it, until the residual electricity drains from it? That was how it was for me when he died. It took me a while to realize just how dead I was, too.

But that was seventeen months ago. This blog has been pumping and blowing since the end of January. And I have been working on that stalled novel in slivers for the last couple of months. I’m beginning to think I may have enough wherewithal to write seriously again.

Herein lies a slight problem: NaNoWriMo clearly states that you must start a brand new novel, not carry on with an old one. In 2007 this is what I did, and it was freeing, fun, and exhilarating. However, I have too many unfinished projects lying around. I want and need to finish something again. Therefore, I have decided to do NaNoWriMo but to do it on a work-in-progress. And, wouldn’t you know it, there is a whole sub-group doing just this. Somehow, I think you won’t be too shocked to read that I am officially a NaNoRebel. Hear me roar.

The 50,000 words will all be new, forward-moving words. The novel is at a point that it needs exploding, needs moving recklessly forward, needs–to put it bluntly–a kick in the arse. I have lost so much in the last two years. It feels like I don’t have much more to lose. This book isn’t going to get moving if I refrain from NaNoWriMo, and it won’t get broken by 50,000 reckless words. [Note to self: remember that.]

So, I am hereby doing NaNoWriMo the wrong way, the prohibited, unadvised way. I hereby subject my novel-in-progress to chaos, irrationality, impatience, and headlong rapidity. I fully and unconditionally subject it to bad writing. Really bad writing. Embarrassingly, time-wastingly bad writing. With crap on top.

To this end, Bookends will be suspended for the month of November. 3F will continue, so long as there are writers, but I probably won’t be posting a story for it. In the interests of clearing the decks, I will finish the aforementioned incomplete posts tomorrow. Promise!

There are a few NaNoWriMo widgets in the sidebar. I believe they will soon display nifty graphs and things, but we’ll see. I’d love to hear from other NaNoWriMo-ers, particularly if you fancy some word wars.

Wish me luck, friends. If this works, it could mean… well, at least a green blade rising from the buried grain.