This is the end, beautiful friend...

Take that, Arts students and former Gatewayers!

My goal was to write a novel about a flying instructor who loses his medical and is deemed unfit to fly and the ensuing life crisis. It was meant to contain some existential themes. That was probably my first mistake: attempting to have a point, or a message. I also wrote the story in first person narrative which might have been another mistake as it handcuffed me to telling the story through only one person's point of view.

Making the 50,000 words was fairly difficult. There are quite a few parts that are obvious filler, such as several instances where the characters sit around and tell jokes, and the hitchhikers long-winded lecture on quarter-life crisis. I also ended up throwing quite a few pieces from my own life; so much so that people who know me well would probably consider this a roman à clef, and would have no trouble figuring out who each character was in real life. I also resorted to filling in almost the entire backstory and at the end, I cram the existential themes I was going for down the reader's throat instead of letting the reader figure it out on their own.

At one point, I was so desperate to fill the word count that I attempted to write myself into the story (similar to Adaptation.) This might have made the novel considerably better (more funny, anyway) even if it meant sacrficing any scraps of originality I still had left. I decided against this because I would have had to chop out a substantial portion of what I'd already written and this probably would have sunk me in the end. By the third week, I was thinking of about six stories that I would have enjoyed writing more than this one, but it was far too late already. Maybe I'll save those for another NaNoWriMo, if I'm stupid enough to attempt this a second time.

Will I complete a second draft? Not likely. I'd have to rewrite a fair chunk of it and probably double the length of it just to back up all the points that I tried to make. So here's what we're left with:

Broken Wings, by the numbers:

Words: 50,122

Characters without spaces: 212,650

Number of days spent writing: 19

Most productive day of writing: 9,654 words (May 30)

Least productive day of writing: 312 words (May 14)

Usages of the word "fuck" or its derivatives: 86

Usages of the word "shitty": 9

Usages of the word "Albuquerque": 10 (note that the bulk of the story was set in Edmonton)

Number of Big Lebowski quotes: 1, sadly. ("Mind if I do a J?")

Number of titles stolen from songs written by Mr. Mister in 1985: 1

Number of quotes stolen from books or movies: 9 at least

Number of conversations stolen from Facebook wall banter: 2

Number of sex scenes: 3 (possibly 5, depending on who you talk to)

Number of characters whose names are anagrams which form a description of that person: 4

Number of hours I worked (at a job) in May: 187.5

Number of hours worked at a job by some (nameless) people who didn't finish: 0

"50,000 words? Piece of cake. Count me in."

Whoops! Guess I should think before I type something like that on a Facebook event wall. Now that it is over, what a relief.

I cracked the 50,000 word barrier about 10 minutes ago, but kept going, just in case some people choose not to count the title page and chapter headings as actual words.

Since I have to be up for work in a little more than four hours, I think I'm going to call it a night. I'll put up a "by the numbers" post and a self-review tomorrow.

For everyone who's still in the game, I hope you keep up the work, or else it's going to be awfully lonely in the winner's circle twenty three hours from now...

The Last Quitter is the Unkindest Quitter of All

Not that I'm likely the last quitter. But I am a quitter. Given another week, I think I'd pulled enough together to make it happen, but I just started the novel too late in the month.

But I did write more than fifty thousand words of novel in May, so I'm sort of a winner.

No, I'm not. I'm a failure and I hate myself.

Best of luck to the rest of you, though.

The Stretch!

I was perusing this blog's archive looking for something to motivate me and thought that this might be a good idea. Judging by the most recent word counts, my guess is there are three people within striking distance of being done. I don't include myself among them...still a long way to go.

Post your word count in the comment section of this post until you are finished and I will update this post periodically. Four days left now. I don't know about everyone else, but I can't wait to never have to look at my novel ever again.

• Adam Demaniuk: 50,122 words as of Thursday, May 31 at 1:13 AM; WPDNTF = DONE!
• Amanda Henry: 50,624 words as of Thursday, May 31 at 11:29 PM; WPDNTF = DONE!

*in case you don't know or haven't guessed, WPDNTF = words per day needed to finish.

I've Restarted!

This is been most of a month coming.

New first sentence:

There did not seem to be any compelling reason that I could suddenly wander in and out of other people's dreams, but then I'm not really sure what such a reason would look like, or exactly how it would compel such an ability.

I swear, this novel's got it all: Lame premises! Awkward sentences! Numerous dream sequences! Sex scenes! Sex scenes that take place within dream sequences! Awkward, lame sex scenes that take place within dream sequences, described using sentences! One twentieth of the required word count!

Oh, and I need dreams. Lots of them. If you have any, please send them my way.

With one week to go...

The following people have quite since the last update: Michelle Kelly, Erik Jacobs, Justin Benko, Natalie Climenhaga, Shawna Pandya, Tim Peppin, and Chris Schafenacker. Additionally, I've arbitrarily disqualified the following people for excessive delinquency, although any of these people can be re-qualified by sending me a word count: Chris Samuel, Mike Larocque, Kim Misutka, Ian Cole, Thabo Miller, Michael Ng, Greg Overguard, Michael Smith, and Iman Verjee.

All of that accomplished, here's where things sit among people who have sent me a word count. At this point, everybody should be done 38709.68 words:

Jenna Greig: 38833
Amanda Henry: 36026
Adam Demaniuk: 25015
Steve Smith: 20763
Catrin Berghoff: 15035
Nadia Rushdy: 5647
Bryn Cox: 2256
Richard Casey: 1566

Nothing new to report from Scott Lilwall, Nicholas Tam, Matt Costello, Ashley Geis, Heather Smith, Elliot Kerr, Dave Cournoyer, Ashraf Rushdy, Erin Reddekopp, or Chris Samuel.

On a personal note, I'm quite astonished to discover how, even when allowing myself to define my world however is most convenient for the advancement of my plot (Do Department of Fisheries and Oceans vehicles have sirens and flashing lights? Of course they do! Why? Because my story needs them to!), I'm still having a lot of trouble advancing plot.

Word count - thirteen days in

Some shocking developments this week. Since these developments fall mostly under the category of people who dropped out, we'll start with them:

Daniel Kaszor, Jake Troughton, Janet Lo, Steph Shantz, Josh Bazin, Heather Olah, Krystina Sulatycki, Erran Rilkoff, and Chris O'Leary are all out. This just goes to show how tough Week Two is. As for the actual counts:

Scott Lilwall: 25786
Jenna Greig: 18513
Adam Demaniuk: 17696
Steve Smith: 16008
Catrin Berghoff: 15035
Amanda Henry: 13163
Michelle Kelly: 9652
Nicholas Tam: 6535
Matt Costello: 4400
Nadia Rushdy: 4230
Erik Jacobs: 2514
Ashley Geis: 2241
Justin Benko: 2106
Richard Casey: 1565
Bryn Cox: 1113
Heather Smith: 527
Natalie Climenhaga: 136
Elliot Kerr: 1 (It's "I")

The mathematically-inclined among you will no doubt have noticed that absolutely none of the above people are on pace to finish (said pace requiring 20967.24 words) (NOTE: I wrote this before Lilwall sent me his total). But hey, like I said, Week Two's always rough.

Incidentally, none of the below of reported to me, so I'm just reposting their week one totals:

Ryan Heise: 7000
David Cournoyer: 3113
Erin Reddekopp: 1278
Ashraf Rushdy: 900
Chris Samuel: 565
Mike Larocque: "so close to zero that I might as well have not started"
Kim Misutka: 0

The below people haven't reported either week, so I think it's likely safe to say that they're out:

Ian Cole
Thabo Miller
Michael Ng
Greg Overguard
Shawna Pandya
Tim Peppin
Chris Schafenacker
Michael Smith
Iman Verjee

Once again, updates will be forthcoming if anybody provides me with any new information.

Update: Natalie Climenhaga and Krystina Sulatycki have provided updates.

Date, Upped Good: Scott Lilwall, Richard Casey, and Erran Rilkoff have updated me on their progress.

Failure most egregious

So yeah ... the novel isn't happening this month. I tried to be as large of a dick about it to everyone to increase the shame of dropping out, but it simply isn't going to get done. Next time I think I need to spend more time thinking about my plot before the month starts. Having a whole bunch of characters in your head and nothing for them to do really makes getting beyond 5000 words hard.

Good news!

My novel's stalled. It looks like I'm setting myself up nicely for another week four comeback. Expect me to become so depressed that I stop collecting word counts from people shortly.

This does not bode well for my waistline.

I am 45 words into my novel. I picked up a dozen donuts from Krispy Kreme yesterday on the final leg of my massive, 8-state road trip. And my novel already blows.

Word Count - Six Days In

Well, a trmendous number of participants have neglected to send me their word counts as they promised. Fortunately, NaNoWriMo's Central Office has lent me some of their guilt monkeys for unleashment on these people, so they'll be feeling the wrath shortly. Here are the rest of the counts (bear in mind that a thirty-one day pace means that participants "should" be done 9677.42 words by this time):

Update: Nick Tam and Jake Troughton were less than half an hour late. We forgive them. But will the guilt monkeys?

Upperdate: Scott Lilwall reported on time, just to the wrong e-mail address. The guilt monkeys have been called off.

Uppest (for now) date: Richard Casey, Barrett Klesko, and Chris Samuel chime in in the middle of the night.

Upper yet date: The guilt monkeys bring in their first victims: Matt Costello, Dave Cournoyer, Caitlin Crawshaw, and Kim Misutka.

Some variation on the word "up", followed by the word date: Mike Larocque and Krystina Sulatycki succumbed to the wiles of the guilt monkeys, while Natalie Climenhaga and Ryan Heise wandered into the office in which we all work.

Date. Very up: Janet Lo, Donald Heitzman, and Ashraf Rushdy chime in.

Steve Smith: 11817
Scott Lilwall: 11500
Adam Demaniuk: 10188
Catrin Berghoff: 9705
Ryan Heise: 7000
Jake Troughton: 5500
Nicholas Tam: 5133
Nadia Rushdy: 4230
David Cournoyer: 3113
Jenna Greig: 2639
Daniel Kaszor: 2400
Amanda Henry: 2366
Matt Costello: 2265
Erik Jacobs: 1959
Richard Casey: 1511
Erin Reddekopp: 1278
Erran Rilkoff: 1156
Bryn Cox: 1113
Justin Benko: 1080
Michelle Kelly: 1028
Ashraf Rushdy: 900
Heather Olah: 887
Ashley Geis: 633
Krystina Sulatycki: 572
Chris Samuel: 565
Josh Bazin: 400
Natalie Climenhaga: 4
Mike Larocque: "so close to zero that I might as well have not started"
Janet Lo: 0
Kim Misutka: 0
Steph Shantz: 0
Heather Smith: 0

So last year at this time, only I was on pace to finish. This year, a whopping three people are (and I think Scott Lilwall is as well), so my prediction of forty new novels seems well on its way to fruition. Go team!

Uzma Rajan, Stephen Beckman, Caitlin Crawshaw, Donald Heitzman, and Barrett Klesko have dropped out, but, as you might have gathered from the above list, we have two new participants: Amanda Henry and Jenna Greig.

The following people haven't sent me word counts, and therefore should not be trusted about anything ever:

Ian Cole
Elliot Kerr
Thabo Miller
Michael Ng
Chris O'Leary
Greg Overguard
Shawna Pandya
Tim Peppin
Chris Schafenacker
Michael Smith
Iman Verjee

I'll update this post if any of the above people update me in the next couple of hours.

I'm dying

I've decided that my novel shall be the best of all the novels. That is all

Unremarkable Beginning Indicative of Rest of Novel

"Every day, on her way to and from work, Audrey would listen to the radio."

On the other hand, I have already invented four fantasy animals: A calven, a Phoebix and an unnamed prey animal.

As for the word count, I have managed to do slightly more than required every day. I go to work half an hour early to write, then I write on my lunch break, and then if I'm still not up to pace, I finish off the few hundred words missing in the evening.

I'm showing much less regard for quality this time around, though, which might help.

New beginnings

Like Steve, I was entirely unsatisfied with the way my novel was going. Unlike Steve, I hadn't got very far, and was entirely certain that I would not be able to finish that utter tripe. So I started over. Yay for me! That was on day 2, and now here we are at the end of day 5, and I still haven't made much progress, but I'm liking it a whole lot better, and today was my first productive day. I expect even better days to come. And by "expect" I mean "need."

Anyway, to answer Dan's question: yes, I was finding it harder. (That's what she said.) But now I think I'm starting to find it easier. (That's what she said.) And I'm planning an entire chapter of "that's what she said" jokes. It'll be fantastic.

After five days, I've now written slightly more than two days worth of material. I've got some catching up to do. How are y'all's word counts progressing?

Also, my new opening line: "Joey Bergman sweated profusely as the harsh floodlights burned into his eyes."

A Question for returning novel writers

Seriously now ... is this harder than it was last year? Because am I having a tough time pushing out the 1700 words a day I'll need to finish.

That being said, I think what I've written so far is already better than what I wrote last year so who knows, maybe I just need to turn up the suck.

My first sentence

"If you were to rate Cadillacs on a scale of one to ten, where ten is gentlemanly and one is geriatric, this one would score a solid 3.8."

Now I just need 49930 more words.

Insane Scheme

So here's the deal: I'm about seven thousand words in. I've created three protagonists. I don't have any idea how these protagonists are going to meet each other or what they're going to do when they do, because I don't really have a clear idea of my antagonists' Evil Scheme (it apparently involved exploding boats, though). Instead of working on these issues, I'm introducing a fourth protagonist. In short, my novel is a train wreck, and I have the urge to restart. But one of the foremost rules of NaNoWriMo is "Thou shalt not just throw away seven thousand words, you dumb bastard."

So here's my plan: I'm going to finish this novel by mid-month. I will motivate myself to do so with the promise that, if I succeed, I'll then get to write a different, much better (or so I tell myself) novel during the month's back half.

Who's with me?

So, as many of you know, I have recently entered the "unemployed" stage of my career. I completed my Ombuds term at the Students' Union, and rather than find a job, I thought, "Hey! Why not try writing a novel instead?" I mean, ostensibly, writing could be considered a job, so maybe I'm not even technically unemployed. "Plenty of time," I thought mirthfully. "Plenty of time to write a novel! Why, I might even write TWO! Mwahahaha...."

Now here's the rub...I have the attention span of a two year-old ADHD chihuahua that's been drinking Red Bull and vodka (which someone slipped a pill of ecstasy into while he was using the bathroom). I am getting distracted by damn near everything. Wanna play a game of Caylus? Sure, I've got time. What's this? A comic book? Let me read it! Ooh...a new DS game! Shiny! Hell, even in the time spent composing this short blog post, I've looked up two articles on the NBA playoffs and started a game of Settlers online.

My word count is nothing short of a train wreck. If I'm not at 5,000 by the end of today, I'm hanging myself with my head phone wires.