In which some penguins explode

I used some of the NaNo "dares" to help pad my wordcount at the end. One was to have a character describe the plot of the movie "Exploding Penguins II" which I didn't do. Instead I had several characters describe the plot of "Exploding Penguins."

This is for you, Sal!

But tell me about Exploding Penguins. What happened?”

“Well, it takes place at the South Pole, obviously. The evil guy, I think he's called Tastee Freezee, is played by Arnold Muscular. He does it up like an evil genius. He goes around looking like the Cold Meister from that TV show, or one of the Frostee twins. So the Tastee guy knows he's coming, see, because he's hacked into Gervase's onboard compumotor. He rigs the thing up to crash Gervase into the arctic wilderness.”

“Antarctic wilderness,” corrected Sheridan without thinking.

“Yeah, yeah, you're Mister Know-it-all,” grumbled Joe. “So anyway, he crashes, and meets this other guy who was stranded there when the scientific expedition he was on vanished into the crater. The guy was getting ready to saw off his own limbs for food, but Gervase stops him just in time and gives him one of the readi-meals. They become friends. This guy, Scientist Dan, he's a paranoid type, and he's always thinking the penguins are chasing them, and are plotting to destroy him before they reach safety. Turns out he's right, too. Tastee has genetically engineered the penguins to be stalkers, and to explode as soon as they taste Gervase's DNA.”

“No way!” Sheridan was bouncing as he listened. “Killer penguins are out to get me! Akkk! Aaaaak!”

“Yeah! It was great. They'd chase the guys around with those beady eyes and crazy waddle. You've got to see it, Sher. Maybe your mom'll let you come over on the next half-day or something.”

“Yeah, that would be great.” He waddled around like a penguin. “I'm going to taste your DNA! I'm going to blow you up! Aaaaaak Aaaaaak! Aaaaaak!”

and later....

So Sheridan, who had finally managed to see Exploding Penguins, told Amabel and Merkos all about it. He acted out the scene where the exploding penguins were chasing Scientist Dan into the ravine. Scientist Dan was frantically trying to beat them off, knowing his DNA was not what would trigger their explosion. “And then,” said Sheridan, “Gervase came swinging in on some sort of rope.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I have no idea what the rope was attached to. How odd. I never thought of that when I was watching it at the time. Anyway, he came swinging in, and lifted Scientist Dan out of the penguin mob and carried him over the ice crevasse. And of course the rope breaks at the top of the swing, and they plunge into the crevasse, but Gervase is able to stop their fall with his expando-boosters. He hovers over the mob of penguins and drops some hair in there, then shoots up to watch the fireworks. The crevasse collapses, and, coincidentally, buries Tastee's fortress in a pile of rubble.”

Alas, I'm afraid I can't say I was half asleep at the time....

In which I do a victory dance!

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the snark, said she...

Much more later, when I'm not about to rush off to work.
There are 50,018 more words in the world because of me. Now to cut that all back and make a decent novel out of it!

In which I aim high

Total Word Count: 33,169

Wrote over 3,000 words today, which will catch me up some. I hit 30,000 yesterday, but was far too tired to blog about it. I can barely blog about this one, but I know people are checking it for the word count ;).

Nothing really interesting to share other than that. I managed to stop before I fell asleep....

In which I fall into a stream of consciousness

Total Word count: 29,037

I actually have more than that, but I haven't uploaded my stuff from the car into the main file yet, so the official count is still just over 29k. Been travelling, which is why I'm behind on updates. Been working, which is why I'm behind on word count. Oh well, I'm catching up.

I write just before bedtime most days, even if I write in the day. I've shared some of my sleep-writing passages with you before. Here's the one from last night. Mind you, I realized I was going all sleep-induced, so I tossed in a sentence to have the character dream, and just wrote what came. I think, too, that the words I wrote weren't the words I was thinking I was writing at the time. Which to me is an interesting phenomenon. I swear what I thought I was writing made more sense even to my conscious mind than what came out. And when I jerked out of it, the words I'd written didn't really match the words I thought I'd written. Anyway, that's for those scientist-types out there who are curious about it. I may try to do more. I ended up, for the sake of upping the word count, incorporating it into a story. The char is being hypnotized and asked to remember something. Just in case it's not obvious where I was sleep-writing and where I'd managed to wake up long enough to be coherent and on topic, I've emphasized the sleep-writing bits.

“The building, Mr Elphineus, describe the building.” Merkos knew that if Darius Elphineus were introduced this way, his father would. But no, Mr Elphineus was with the Army a long time. He said, “They took me through a maze of twisty little corridors all alike, dumped me into the middle, and left. It stopped ceasing to be a passage, and it just injected the boost for the competition! I mean, it became my holding cell. I think they pushed a button somewhere, but I could never find one when I was inside. I couldn't find any doors either. I sat there a long time, wishing I'd been born across from a bathroom because I didn't want them to see me and because I needed to go. They laughed. 'Not yet,' they said, 'we need our fun too!' but I think he's the best dog. If there was anything to find, he'd find it.”

Merkos nodded. “What else do you remember about the cell?” He cut off Mr Elphineus's strange statements, not wishing to embarrass the master any more.

“It had a bed, a bit of a latrine or bathroom, and the rest was smooth. Sometimes music would be pumped into the room, sometimes not. I went to sleep, and I dreamed of... something, let me think. I dreamed I was in the kitchen with the soup glass, and I did say lass, so that's something of your right here, I don't bite when I'm asleep, because my real body thinks I'm in terrible trouble and blow the horn for me. Save it for that one blow like a treasure. It would serve them right for missing this beautiful in that color. Ropes I think it was, and all sorts of stuff. Did you ever get into the car?? No? Well that would explain where I'd never seen you before. Our picture will go home if one can but lead them.”

“What's he talking about?” whispered Amabel.

“I'm not sure,” said Merkos. “I think the hypnosis is having a strange effect on him.”

Uh, yeah, it's the hypnosis. Right.

In which I am half way there

Words Today: 1,662
Total Words: 25,011

'Nuff said. Far more than 'nuff said, come to think of it. I was falling asleep again towards the end there, and I know I only needed another 38 words, but the thought of what would come out of my subconscious this time scared me off, and I went to bed.

My NaNo report card seems to think I'll have no problem finishing on time, though, if I can crank up the daily word count slightly. I'm counting on the weekend to get ahead (again). Hopefully it will work better this time than last weekend...

In which I discover the hazards of exhaustion

Yeah, I'm backdating this to yesterday. Get over it ;) The time reflects when I finished, with 1701 words. I was half asleep. I offer the following set of paragraphs as proof.

Background: At this point in the story, the MC is in a sterile prison like place. He has been let out into an equally sterile common room for food. The food is on the tables, and all that is in the room are tables and chairs. He sees someone there he has met previously, and joins her at the table. There are no carts, courts, entertainers, drops, or computers anywhere in this scene. This is important ;).

“Nonsense,” said Mrs Hevard. “You had the right to know the situation. If no one around you lets you know what's going on. I think, you may end up with fewer drops,” here she swept her hands over the entertainers at court. “If we let that sort of thing in,” and here she particularly meant the cart on wheels, “you can't go as fast.”

“Mrs Hevard,” said Sheridan, “you aren't making much sense. If I didn't know better, I think you were pulling my leg and joking about the bandwidth. But right now, no one is doing anything.”

There's probably something very deep going on there, since the entire conversation seems to have bypassed my conscious brain...

Just wanted to share before tonight's enhanced interrogation technique session.

In which I get back on the horse

Words Today: 2,335
Total Words: 21,648

Sorry, didn't manage to post here the past few days. Yesterday was a total washout (sick, sick, sick, 0 words). If you must know, my previous day's word counts were, from Thursday to Sunday: 552; 1,186; 2,001; and 0.

So I'm about a day behind if you go by the minimum word average, and a day and a quarter behind if you go by my goal/day.

Not too bad, considering how hard the weekend was.

I've moved into some of the action, so things went pretty well tonight. I get stuck on having the characters sit and think or talk or other stuff that just isn't very interesting if it goes on for pages on end. I feel like I'm writing too much like Terry Brooks. I dread editing this....

I also have been feeling the overwhelming urge to just go read.

But on the very bright side, it's only mid-November, and I've already exceeded last year's total!

In which I forge ahead

Words Today: 1,786
Total Words: 15,574

Ok, the words are down. For better or worse, the words are down.
I had something inspiring to say, but after writing lots of bad writing (wordpadding at its best!) I'm not in the mood to switch gears and write good writing ;)

In which I ignore my inner critic

Words Today: 1,788
Total Words: 13,788

Ok, I try hard to keep my self-loathing about the story to a minimum (yes, I really do! I think about 50 times more worse things than I mention, or repeat...) I try to minimize it because I think the more I tell myself I hate what I'm writing, the more I actually hate what I am writing. But... I will never believe this first draft will be anything other than a shitty first draft. Of course I want it to be perfect prose off the bat. But that's not the nature of NaNo, it really isn't. The problem is... that's the nature of ME. And I do NaNo every year, hating my cliched tripe, because I need to get out of perfectionist mode.

I'm very proud of myself. Not for what I've put down (not yet, anyway) but for keeping up my pace, and getting in writing time that actually goes towards finishing this thing. I don't know why I'm not so good at doing this without NaNo, but there it is. I view NaNo as anti-perfectionism training. If I can slog through the self-doubt this year, and make the word count, then I think just pushing forward with stuff the rest of the year will get that much easier. Between the snowflake method and anti-perfectionism training, maybe I'll eventually get the story I want out of me.

In which I slog onward and upward in word count

Words Today: 1750
Total Words: 12000

Whew!
Big shout out to Deo for helping me get through this evening. This was a tough one. But hey, the words are down, and the words are all that count this month. I'm holding on tight ot that thought.

In which I am one-fifth of the way there

Words Today: 2,169
Total Words: 10,250

Go me!
I managed to catch up. My current average number of words per day is 1,708, just a few words over my goal. I'd hoped to get ahead this weekend, but I'm pretty happy just to be on track after Friday's slip-up. I confess today was full of word padding that will probably have to come out later, or be reworked, or something. Some of it was a little silliness to get through the chore, but some was very useful in cementing world rules and world building. It can't stay as large chunks of dialogue, but it's very useful to have down.

A snippet I don't mind sharing from today:

“Tell me a joke,” he said to Amabel. “So I don't start feeling all miserable again.”

Amabel looked around, alarmed, but the car was still empty. “A joke? They're illegal. They cause too much laughter.”

“Laughing is illegal?” Sheridan was shocked.

“No, but laughing too hard is.” She changed her voice, obviously imitating someone. “The right to pursue happiness does not include the right to pursue excessive happiness.”

In which I catch up a little

Words Today: 2895
Total Words: 8081

If you want to know my word count for yesterday, you can figure it out for yourself. I didn't have much time to write, and was totally wiped by the time I sat down to it. I considered any words at all yesterday an acheivement.

But I'm almost caught up, and very much on track to finish on time. If I can churn out as many words tomorrow as I did today, I should be in pretty good shape.

I'm still wiped, though (I think I'm not well), so I'm off to bed now.

In which I bemoan the fickleness of caffeine effects

Words Today: 1374
Total Words: 4795

Well, Nescafe used to keep me up all night if I needed it to. Geesh. I am quitting now, because it's almost midnight, so technically any words I write will count for tomorrow, and because I'm falling asleep at the key board. Despite 2 cups of coffee recently.

Ah well. Today was slow, but I got enough done I can pretty easily catch up on the weekend. I'm only 400 words or so behind ;)

In which some character development occurs

Words Today: 1709
Total Words: 3421

Ah, the good ol' inner critic. I wrote something that I wasn't so happy with. I shared it with Deo, and she told me it wasn't silly (as inner critic had proclaimed it) it was character development.

Perhaps.

But here it is, and a little bit more of it too. That way you can judge for yourself. If you agree with my inner critic, though, no need to let me know ;) My inner critic is loud enough for the both of us.

The pizza was perfect. He pulled it out of the oven and cut it into seven slices. Seven, because he liked the number seven, and it was a challenge to cut it that way. He ate in front of the television, watching The Animated Gervase Gerald Show. Gervase was never at a loss for words. Though Sheridan had to admit his vocabulary tended to be limited to phrases like “Freeze, Blergman!” and “Drop it or I'll paralyze your kneecaps.” Sheridan wondered what it would be like to go through life answering questions with a high-tech blaster barrel. It might not be better than answering questions without one, but then again, it might.

Sheridan's homework did not, in fact, get finished. It was too easy to put off his algebra problems. He watched television until he fell asleep on the couch. He was vaguely aware of his father pushing him up the stairs into his bedroom. He dreamed he was Gervase, blasting his way through algebra insurgents. Take that, you inequality! Drop it, or I'll paralyze your denominator!

In which the fun begins

Words today: 1712
Total Words: 1712

Wow, made my quota today. I'm still having trouble shutting up that inner critic. Big trouble. I've started this story from scratch. I don't know if I like this beginning better than the old one, but it's certainly wordier! I think for my age range, it's a better introduction, and sets stuff up better.

I'm pretty happy with the snowflake thing so far. I do wish I'd gotten around to working out that prison break scene, and dug a little deeper into the characterization, but such is life.

Ok, off to bed. That half hour of writing in the morning is pretty critical, it looks like. I need to remember to bring in lunch tomorrow so I can sneak in a half hour there too. And Inner Critic? Shaddup already!