Batting .400

So, another November has come and gone with YT falling short of the mark. Trouble is, Sebastian Lock and Liz Macaulay started sniffing around the problem of cars stalling in the rush hour, always in the middle of the block, but they never took off. Couldn't figure out how to get them on the trail, and they didn't hit it off into some kind of recognizable partner relationship.

So, your Bricoleur has gone two wins in five tries. Perhaps having an artery opened in real life, twice in the two months preceding NaNoWriMo, trumps the old epigram:

Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.

Just as with his teleporting drunkards in Year Two, or the dot-commers on the make in Year Four, your humble author thinks there's a good plot to be fleshed out into a real book with Twenty Three Slow. Trouble is, doing so requires inspiration and real work. YT is obliged to point out that the current best-selling Sara Gruen novel, Water For Elephants, started life as a NaNo novel. No doubt Ms. Gruen would say that a) the first draft, done during NaNo, was something she had to write, and b) not anywhere near the level of construction and polish of the published version.

This has been YT's lucky year. No, really, heart attack and all, this year has stood head and shoulders above the run of mostly mediocre years stretching back to when YT didn't even think of himself as middle-aged. So, not winning the lottery, and relaxing into NaNo instead of charging full speed ahead, those aren't such bad things.

Resolution for 2009: remember the First Rule, write something every day. YT could have hit the goal, even with achingly pedestrian prose, had he followed this simple rule. Ah, well, onward.

Word count after 30 days: 26,811

Writer's Block, Block, Block

YT has truly lost momentum. There were a stretch of days where he did nothing except nurse his ear infection (not much of an excuse). Last night, though, nearly 3,000 words flowed in just a few hours. Trouble is, YT will need many more nights like that to hit the target.

And the main character is only just now at the point of meeting his sidekick...

Word count after 19 days: 12,227

Obligatory Political Post

Well, as if there were much doubt these last few days... As this is being written, Sen. McCain is giving a very gracious concession speech. American politics has turned a corner, moved forward to a new generation, the generation beyond mine. Our politics has turned away from the tired, old themes of the wrestling match of the last 16 years.

Oh, finally Republicans are winding up owning their mistakes.

No noveling today, but YT did crank out a scene list for more than half of the plot.

Annual (Re)Introduction

Here is the very first posting in Free Range Novelist, updated for 2008.

This is the National Novel Writing Month weblog of Wes the Bricoleur. Or, for short, NaNoWriMo and YT (yours truly). The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. That's it! 1,667 words a day, every day, quality not even a consideration. Free Range Novelist chronicles my experiences during November, 2008. It will center on day-by-day writing plus a few excerpts from my novel-in-progress. Maybe 10% of postings will ramble off into other topics.

Why a blog on top of daily pages of novel to write? This is a way to let some "I-ness" out in the midst of so much "they-ness" writing in the characters' voices. If my Inner Editor gets too restless pacing in its month-long cage, it can exercise on a very short leash here.

Here are my rules for November: this blog is a place for honest observation and reflection. Like, or don't like what YT writes? Feel free to comment, all considered opinions are welcome. I'll write about other WriMos here, and in return expect to be fair game.

As for the noveling experience, well, other entries can wax philosophical or turn practical. See the "three rules" posts, for instance, where the three rules seem to change from year to year.

So. Here we go... enjoy November! Yours Truly must surely enjoy it, since this is the fifth noveling November in a row for your enthusiastic Brico.

NaNoWriMo Begins

Off to a slow start, YT spent some time today to get organized. Decamping to the write-in at the Troy Public Library helped. YT is still not sure how to really get this novel off the ground, but he has a few scenes sketched out. Maybe that will be enough.

NOVEL TITLE: Twenty Three Slow

SYNOPSIS: Many city dwellers have given up owning private cars. They hire electric vehicles by the hour. When these rental cars begin stopping at random during rush hours, an engineer on the fringe of the industry searches for the reason why.

Now, to get into the flow of words...

Word Count after most of 1 day: 1,089

Taking Stock

Now it can be revealed... 2008 is YT's lucky year. Lost a job last Christmas, but with a decent severance, got a better job by the end of January. Not bad, but by May had an even better job, and they called YT. So now YT is off determining the future of the driving public.

Well, maybe not so grand a role in automotive culture, but YT is delighted to find there are decent employers in the auto industry. There's more, though. On September 13 YT had a heart attack. Half an hour from onset, the doctors were poking holes in convenient places, and soon after, YT had three stents in his chest and a new lease on life. Tomorrow is round two, more blockages to be cleared, more metal to go into YT's chest via the femoral artery.

That comment from mid-November last year about napping and zoning out in front of the TV, that should have been a clue. Now, the weight's going down, YT feels rested, many things are changing. All this and a good plot for NaNoWrimo... Gentle Readers, you might not believe this, but life is good this year, and about damn time.

Kickoff Party!

Well, sixteen people showed up for the Detroit kickoff party yesterday. The scary thing is, YT remembers most of them from previous years. So this year it was the hard core partying, a full six days before the start of NaNoWriMo 2008.

Lots of enthusiasm comes through on the forum, and certainly came through in person. The timing is odd this year, with the kickoff so early. Good news, though, November has five weekends.

Six Throwaway Novel Ideas

With a full season to go before NaNoWriMo, YT has been thinking of ideas for this year's novel. A good idea, expressed in a couple of sentences, can become the kernel of a good plot. Here are six of them that didn't make the cut, most in the science fiction genre. Faithful Readers, fellow WriMos, use 'em or laugh at 'em, your choice.

1. Because the code of public manners has become so strict, some people wear masks in public. Each mask shows the wearer's image, but is animated by a computer "agent" to mimic the wearer's personality. Inside the masks, people can think their private thoughts without fear of their faces betraying them, but the price is permanent divided attention.

2. In a world with teleportation machines, jumping to random, underused destinations is the cheap way to get a vacation. This is similar to last-minute airline ticket sales today. Then something goes wrong, and people disappear...

3. A man kills a rich man's automaton "double," then gets charged with murder. The charge is that the rich man lived more in the automaton than in his original body.

4. A man kills a business associate so the associate's heir will end up with a larger share of the business than him, and thus will take his place at the end of a list of suspects in a fraud investigation.

5. A guy steals an extremely rare bottle of champagne from a restaurant, then tries to sell it. A comedy of errors.

6. A man time-travels forward 80 years and cannot figure out how to get back. He sees the political situation as ripe for change toward his turn of the century neoconservative views, and to his advantage.

YT has stumbled upon a serendipitous combination of tech news and business trends... The leading contender for his 2008 NaNoWriMo novel is a mystery where the crime is committed with - wait for it - car electronics.

Noveling? What Noveling?

Hmm, it's a long way from December, yet YT has written nothing new in his blog. Funny thing, writing month starts with a bang, finishes in a rush, and three days later, everyone puts away their wild inner novelist for about 10.5 months. Same here.

So: how did it all end, Brico?

Well, friends and faithful readers, YT skipped several inner chapters, you know, the relationship stuff, and got right to the denouement and its aftermath. Mysterious types skulking about, fire, romance, narrow escapes! Ironic epilogue! 50,000 words with hours to spare!

If YT's first year effort was a third of a novel in 50K words, this one might have been half of a novel. It gets easier with practice, and some forethought, just a wee bit of scheming before November 1 and a few minutes of planning each day during the month.

The urge to drop the novel cold in early December has proved irresistible again, though.

YT has given some thought to more work on his third year novel, Drunkard's Leap. The universe it's set in has a few more wrinkles, the third act is stronger, though still not strong enough, and YT has noodled with an "origins" story set decades before. There may yet be some good thing coming out of the concept.