Shutting Down

 As any reader (are there any?) can see, it's been a long time since my last post here. I have not attempted NaNoWriMo in several years, and NaNoWriMo itself shut down in April 2025. Because of this, I am shutting down this blog at the end of September. It's been fun, but it's time to move on.

-- Wes the Bricoleur 

Aaaaand They're Off!

Seven of us made it to Col's Place in Madison Heights, gabbed up until midnight, then wrote! I got my opening scene out of the way.

• Davis Nucci owes $36,000 to the Philadelphia mob. But the enforcer sent to make him pay instead dies by accident. Now Davis hits the road west, but pretending to be Nicholas White, cold-blooded collector of bad loans and sweet protection money.

Well, sort of. I did my novel planning in September and then at 9 PM on October 31. Not the most methodical approach this year.

The night shift manager was very interested in what we were doing, and wondered if I was an English teacher. The waitress treated us very well, considering we camped out for two hours, didn't eat all that much, and all had separate checks. On the other hand, we were half of their customers over those two hours.

I misheard the youngest WriMo saying her name in the NaNo forum was "Winnemucca." Not even close, but now I know where Davis will be brought down low, far into his journey. At least, that's today's plan. After the write-in broke up, I plinked out a few more words and saw the time change back to Eastern Standard. All in all, the last 24 hours have been good, and I get to say:

Word count after 1/2 day: 778

At the Starting Line

Hmm, no posts since August... October has been a busy month. Detroit Co-ML Owen and I have figured out how to work together, and gotten our preparations made - we hope! - decently well for noveling month. This year we have more members but perhaps will wind up with one third fewer write-ins than last year's 14 regular dates.

Today was the kickoff party. Surprise! 50 people showed up, 40 of them WriMos. This year about one third of our regional WriMos are new, which was reflected at the party. Both these are high numbers. Got many compliments on the goodies, including two handouts written (adapted?) by me. I was pleased to see the new faces included a scattering of teens and some folks more my age.

They laughed at the right places in my speech, always a good sign.

On to the midnight write-in in a couple of hours.

Oh, preparation for this year's novel? Hah! At this point I'm winging it far more than I wanted to, though Interstate 70 is firmly in the picture.

Rules for NaNo Novel Writing

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

- Red Smith, Philadelphia and New York sportswriter

Well, that's one way of looking at writing. I think I first heard that on the old TV show Thirtysomething. We're here to look at the peculiar demands of NaNoWriMo, though. 50,000 words in one month! These rules have served me well, and ignoring them has cost me forward momentum.

• Write every day. Seriously. Taking a day off can and has led to two, three days, a whole week, and a word count hole that's impossible to fill. Even one sentence on an off day can help maintain momentum. Writing in the same time and place most days helps build up a good writing habit.
  
• Just write. Let the words flow. Indeed, seek out the state of "flow," where the writer is just taking dictation from his characters. It's an amazing feeling. Even short of that, turning off all internal writing filters yields higher word count and occasionally some surprisingly good prose.
• If it's scrolled off the screen, fix it in December. Sure, fixing that typo in the previous sentence is fine. Going back to fix some writing flaw, rethinking a scene that's already written, even changing a character's name with find-and-replace, all destroy forward motion and waste time.
• A little planning beats no planning at all. Chris Baty's book is No Plot, No Problem, but there's a difference between not plotting out the whole novel, and having no organization. A 100-word blurb, a list of planned chapters, a couple of paragraphs describing each major character. All these help keep the writing going, rather than stopping often to figure out the next plot turn or whether George and Lula need to drive north or south to reach the haunted cabin. At the end of a writing session, a few words about what to write next can help getting started quickly at the beginning of the next.
• Never write a sex scene on deadline. This requires a delicate touch. The writing can get too mechanical or too elliptical. In real life, sex is all sensation and no thinking. On the printed page, the author must evoke those sensations in the reader's mind while his intellect is fully engaged in the story. Writing about sex at breakneck speed just washes away all imagination in a torrent of words.

There's more I could add, but, gee, in previous years there were only three rules. So let's not get too complicated.

Annual (Re)Introduction

Here is the very first posting in Free Range Novelist, updated for 2009.

This is the National Novel Writing Month weblog of Wes the Bricoleur. Or, for short, NaNoWriMo and Brico. 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, 2009, as it (sort of) has for five years running. It will center on day-by-day writing, life as a Municipal Liason, 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 you see here? 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 "rules for writing" post, for instance.

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

I Makes An Appearance

Goodness, where did eight months go? It is now 83 days to the start of NaNoWriMo 2009, and things are different this year. Your humble blogger has agreed to be co-Municipal Leader for the Detroit region, along with Owen B.

So, first, let's drop the Yours Truly. This was a small conceit so I wouldn't be writing "I" in every other sentence. But I expect to see at least a few more readers drop by this year, so all the cutesy stuff has to get swept away in favor of clean, direct writing.

This blog started as a way to let the Inner Editor walk on a leash occasionally during the noveling month. It'll still be that way, except now, Mr. I.E. will be harnessed to the yoke of clear reporting of the amazing and the mundane during November, and in the lead-up to the NaNoWriMo contest.

There will be no changes to the archives, so anyone who cares can see what the old, "YT" style was like. From now on, though, I is here.

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.

Finished!

With much encouragement (ouch! that whip stings!) from the redoubtable Tiffany, welcome distractions from fellow WriMos G, M and K, plus a good bit of Irish coffee, YT has finished his novel for the second time in four years. Long live NaNoWriMo! More excerpts after this novelist, emptied for a while of words, catches up on his sleep.

Word count after 30 days: 50,735

Thundering down the home stretch

Writing still goes in fits and starts. YT will have a 500 word day followed by a 4,000 word rush. It turns out to be no problem at all writing a thousand-word scene when in the flow. YT gave 12,000 words to the tumultuous weekend when Ron and Tamara go too far, too fast. Yes, your humble author has followed his own rule and written a sex scene when blissfully not on deadline. Well, there's a little sex and a lot of sensual impressions, followed by the traditional morning after breakfast of omelets (him), biscuits (her) and second thoughts (both).

Next scene is probably where Ron and Tamara see each other on Tuesday, after a lost Saturday, tense breakfast Sunday and make-up phone call Sunday night. YT has no idea what they'll say. At least that's the plan -- YT has pumped up the word count by writing scenes out of order, and damn the plot holes! Excerpts from this, uh, fine artistic flow will be forthcoming in the blog.

A note on word count. The number below is the "official" count from the NaNoWriMo web site. yWriter is more optimistic by about sixty words. Weird. Microsoft Word give the author about twenty more words than the official number. It's hard to say what would cause this, but YT will use caution and go over the finish line with a few hundred words to spare, just in case.

Word count after 27 days: 43,207

Novel Excerpt, Chapter 5

Excerpt from Grand Theft Cambridge, Chapter 5. Ron Russo's employer sends everyone home on the first really nice Friday afternoon in April. Ron is sitting at an outdoor cafe table off Kenmore Square, enjoying the day, when a lithe, attractive woman walks up. With a little reminder, he realizes she is Martha Soares, a stripper from the Pussycat Club. The club doubles as venture capital meeting room for Silvio Carlini, whom Ron is advising on the side. Martha was to have delivered Ron's "bonus" at the club, which Ron turned into a thoughtful favor after a few confusing moments. Now Martha demands a real-life favor from him.

Martha said, "Oh, I'll order for myself. You're going to return a favor, though."

Ron was surprised again. "I don't understand. Weren't we even back at the club?"

The waitress, sensing a lover's quarrel, took Martha's order with alacrity.

"Oh, you are so naive, Ron. I couldn't take your gift any more than I could stuff your card in my pocket. The rule is customers don't touch, though possibly I wouldn't have minded you. It also means cash business only, no favors, no gifts. Silvio or even Helen would have fired me for getting involved. I know you didn't mean anything but good. That was a nice gift, but one I couldn't take. I've gotta tell you, I have been real tempted to call your office number since I realized you wouldn't be doing regular business with Silvio. But this means we are just two friends who happened to meet on the street."

"Oh. Wow. I don't know where to start. I'm sorry if I got you into trouble."

"No, you didn't because I stuffed your card in my bag, then went back and laughed about you with Helen."

"Ouch. But nothing came of it?"

"Well, I think some of the dancers were talking about the wimp techie who came in, and trying to figure out how to make easy money off of guys like you."

"So, you're right. I owe you at least a coffee, and maybe dinner."

"No, that was a sweet gesture you made. Giving something to me, not taking. But remember the thing I did give you."

"Well, I have to say I liked you leaning into me back then."

"No, dummy. My real name. That probably would get me fired. I know I look different in civilian clothes, but still..."

Ron looked around with worry. "Uh, you're not in danger now, are you?"

Martha laughed hard enough to draw attention. "You are so out of it! Look, none of the letches coming down from the neighborhoods or even the good suburbs are going to be down here today. And the frat boys that find their way out to Revere aren't going to recognize me dressed. So, no, like I said, we're just two friends talking without a care in the world."

"Okay, especially today." Ron swept his arm toward the sky.

"Yeah, it is a nice day to be walking around down here. But the thing is, I gave you the gift of my name. That's a huge no-no. Look, how do we tell someone's not a stalker, or thinks what I do is real?"

"It looks real enough."

"Liar. I know who was out there with all you tech boys. I know I do it better then Shera -- I mean, Char -- uh, let's just say the other one. But it's not real to anyone not hooked on fantasy before he even comes in the door. So, anyway, you know a secret, and you're clueless enough to maybe, possibly cause me a little danger. So I want something back from you."

"Uh, Mr. Clueless can hardly imagine what. But I'm game, and I'll honor my debt."

"Okay, then. I would like a favor. Look, out of high school I've worked fast food, then bartending, then a year of, uh, dancing." With wholesome college students on every side, Martha dropped her voice at her latest job. "So I could clean up for a few years. I've already put away $14,000 out of my tips." Ron whistled at that number. Martha said, "Yeah, I know what I'm doing. But, Jesus, it's not real. It's fantasyland on and off the stage, and in the back rooms, and I'd give up a lot to have conversations with normal people like you every day."

"You called me normal. That's an improvement."

"Shut up. So, anyway, I'm not dumb. I can read the Globe want ads. Tech is going crazy right now. And they can't possibly be a hundred percent wizards like you. So I want your help getting a job in tech. Electronics. Software. Internet. Biotech. There have to be hourly jobs you don't need a PhD for."

"Well, high school diploma... I'll be honest, just guessing what you make from what you've put away, the money would be a big step down."

"I live in a three-room apartment that's clean only because my Korean landlord won't let it go to hell. I live clean and I don't spend my money on crap. My damn cousins gave me furniture because my family doesn't want to know about my life. So having money is only a little part of the picture."

"Well, okay, what can I do for you?"

The waitress, still sensing a quarrel, set a large cafe au lait in front of Martha, then hurried away.

Martha said, "Well, you're clueless about my world. I'm not into yours at all, and I want to learn."

Ron said, "All right."

"And the real favor is, I want you to get me in to talk with a couple of people. Not get me a job, but get me to where I can get a shot at a job."

"Well..." Ron thought about it. "Seems to me the problem breaks down into three parts. You need to look and act the right way, one. Two, you need to know what jobs you might be good at. And three, you need to get in the door somewhere."

"Do you do this kind of thing all the time?"

"When I heard this quote, 'Every engineer looks at life as a series of problems to be solved,' that was a lightbulb moment. Yeah, I do. That's part of who I am."

"So you're saying I need to do more than just try my luck."

Another outpouring

So, this year is turning out to have a very uneven pace. Yesterday and today were both 4,000 word days, following a drought. How'd that happen. YT's sleep patterns are still screwed up is one reason. ML Tiff and the amazing duo of M and G dragging this author into word wars accounts for some. Finally getting to write the job seeking advice scene accounts for a lot! Even so, there's still a good sense of forward motion this year. Onward.

Word count after 17 days: 24,273

Television is the imagination killer

Well, TV and the hard slog of work, trying to figure out tests for software that has no specification. Man, YT had a great first four days, and then nothing, just staring off at the idiot box, or sleeping.

Made up for it tonight somewhat, despite hilarious distractions at the Friday write-in. Solid sessions this weekend, that's the plan. Shake the wood out of those characters, author!

Word count after 9 days: 12,202