The Finish Line (Numerically)

I get to say it again - I did it! This time, though, I'm referring to NaNo. I made 50,132 last night. Yes, on Thanksgiving.

The novel's not finished yet; I'm guessing it will end up around 60k or 65k, but we'll see.

“Casey,” I heard a voice hiss, and was startled to see someone appear suddenly by his side, with no warning. The man was several inches shorter than I was, with greasy black hair that hung in his face. “Hey, Casey.”

Casey stood up straighter, clearly trying to get as far away from the guy as he could, the look of disgust on his face very thinly disguised. “What, Larry?” he asked shortly.

Larry looked up then and caught sight of me and Marielle, and flinched like someone had slapped him. Without saying another word, he ducked away from Casey and slunk out of the room. His gait was strange, weaving back and forth in a very deliberate pattern.

Casey’s face held comic disdain. “Oh, dear Larry,” he said with a dramatic sigh, and made a show of brushing off any part of him that might have been near the guy. He obviously liked to be sparkling clean all the time, possibly to the point of obsession. I wondered idly what would have happened if Larry had actually touched him, and laughed to myself at the resulting mental image.

“What?” asked Marielle, and Casey grinned.

“What?” I asked back, confused, then realized I must have laughed out loud. “Oh, nothing.”

“I know, Larry’s worth laughing at,” Casey said. “One of these days someone should teach him to shower. I keep telling the boss to hire a dog trainer, but he keeps saying no.”

It was a cruel thing to say, but I laughed anyway. Marielle didn’t; in fact, she was looking distinctly unhappy.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked her, patting her arm. She flinched away from me, and I frowned. “Do you want to leave?”

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”




Wheeee!
In other news, the Turkey-Day pies were a big success. The apple recipe turned out great, so I made it again for the party at Mom's on Thursday (after borrowing a couple of pie pans from Kathy, since I left my good glass one in Keene). I got a little creative with the pumpkin pie, too, breaking tradition to add a layer of chocolate on the bottom.


The chocolate ganache that I used was from a recipe for black-bottom cream pie, which is chilled instead of baked, so the chocolate layer stays on the bottom and doesn't mix with the cream layer. A pumpkin pie, however, has to be baked (and for a long damn time), so the ganache melted. What ended up happening is that it mixed just a little bit with the pumpkin filling, not entirely, so there was a nice layer in between the two of chocolatey-pumpkin. It was really tasty...and the apple pie got finished for breakfast. There is no better breakfast than leftover fruit pie!

Pie and T-day

Made 47,905 last night. Wanted to make 48k, but I got pretty close, so no big deal! After that, I was planning to make 50k tonight, but it hasn't quite worked out so far.

After getting out of bed at 11:15 this morning feeling like I'd just come out of a coma, I had to make coffee and ingest said coffee before I could even think about making pie. Then I had to find my pie bible. It turned up on top of the fridge (I would never have found it if Craig hadn't pointed it out). Crusts alone took a couple of hours, then I put together the filling and finished making the pie for the get-together at Kathy and Ron's place tonight. It's baking now, and as usual, I'm having a fight with the oven. Hopefully this one won't burn, or at least won't burn as badly, as the last one did.

I'm excited about this particular pie, though. There was no recipe in my book for a basic double-crust apple-cinnamon pie, so did I find another book? Look up a recipe online? Nope, I wung it! (Winged it? Wang it? ...that last one didn't sound right.) I put cinnamon in the crust and nutmeg in the filling, plus a little bit of lemon juice. I also didn't have any plain white sugar, so I made the crust with some packets of Sugar in the Raw that I found in the cupboard and the filling with brown sugar. I'm thinking the brown sugar will probably caramelize in the oven and make a nice thick filling...in which case, should I not have added the cornstarch? Ugh, I hate second-guessing myself. I'll just have to report back on how it comes out.

Likelihood is that I won't get to blogging tomorrow, so I'll say it now: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your turkey (or tofurkey, if you're one of those).

Day Twenty-Five

Last night's wordcount: 45,091. Yes, 2,500 words over my goal! I don't have a specific goal for today/tonight, just that I want to hit 50k as soon as possible. I want to finish early. I can do it.

I can't post an excerpt, though, because everything in the last 5k has been essential enough to the plot that I would give things away. Yes, even though I haven't posted the whole story. Perhaps because I haven't posted the whole thing.

Day Twenty-Four

Last night's count: 41,038! Today's goal: 40,008 42,500. Yay, getting ahead!

In front of us was the counter, where a crowd of customers were ordering, paying for, and receiving various drinks. Through a large open doorway to the right was a room with scattered tables and chairs, and a sofa at each end. Out of maybe fifteen tables, only two were empty. Fin and I got in line at the counter, and I looked up at the blackboard hung near the ceiling. The Coffee Bug was written across the top, and various pastries, coffees, teas, and specials were written beneath the name in neat, cramped handwriting, with various colors of chalk.

Arbitrarily choosing a coffee from the list, I used the time we spent standing in line to look at everyone around me, carefully inspecting each male face to try and guess which one was Billy.

“Is he here?” I finally asked Fin, who as usual looked something between bemused and stoically calm.

“Not yet,” he said.

“You didn’t even look!” I accused him.

“Don’t need to,” he said. “I’ll know when he’s here, don’t worry. We’re not going to miss him.”

I fidgeted my way to the front of the line, paid for my coffee, and then got in the line to pick it up. By the time Fin and I had claimed what was now the last empty table in the other room, I was beginning to think that perhaps coffee was a bad idea, since I was already so jumpy.

“He’s here,” said Fin, seemingly out of the blue. I whirled around in my seat, but a hand on my shoulder pulled me back to a normal sitting position again.

“What?” I demanded, annoyed.

“He doesn’t like to stick out,” Fin explained. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”

I glared at him in frustration, but couldn’t really say anything. I had no idea who this guy was or what he was like, and I didn’t want to screw up the meeting. Gripping my paper coffee cup so hard I nearly squeezed the coffee out all over the table, I sat and stared determinedly at Fin while we waited for Billy to come sit with us. The minutes seemed to take years until finally Fin looked up and smiled at someone behind me.

“Hey man,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Day Twenty-Three

Last night's final count: 38,005. (It shows up as partly today's work in my NaNo chart, because I posted it at 12:30am, but I consider that yesterday.) Today's goal according to the 1667-words-a-day calendar is 38,341, but I'm already well past that, so I changed the goal to an even 40k. If I make that, I'll have Monday complete tonight.

I also posted that cool little counter widget - see it up there on the top right? It takes my word-count data straight from the NaNo database, so if you want to know where I am RIGHT NOW, that will tell you. (Provided you press ctrl F5, because sometimes it's a little reluctant to update.)

“Why do you think he’ll be helpful to me?”

“He was helpful to me,” he said simply, and didn’t elaborate.

I wasn’t convinced. “About what?”

Though I wouldn’t have quite called it a death glare, the look Fin gave me told me I should shut my mouth immediately if not earlier. Wondering what I’d poked my nose into, I faced the seat in front of me and didn’t say another word.

It must have been pretty serious, I thought to myself, to bother Fin so much. I’d been impressed more than once by how calm he was no matter what was going on around him, whether he was pulling me out of the pond after I’d been attacked by crows, or explaining himself to me in the cafeteria after my friends had been so mean to him. The thought of something awful enough to alarm Fin scared me.

I risked a quick sideways glance at him through my hair, but he looked completely calm once again, like nothing had ever happened. I was reminded of a pond when a rock has been dropped in – it ripples, but once it stops, you would never know there had ever been a rock. Of course, you’ll probably also never see the rock again. I had dropped that rock in with my eyes closed, and now I wanted to know what it looked like, but I didn’t dare go searching for it.

Day Twenty-Two

Yesterday's word count: 35,304. Today's goal: 36,674. Almost to the 3/4-point! (That's 37,500.)

I got my packet from UMass today. The majority of it was useless information about living on campus, but there was also essential information pertaining to fees, classes, orientation, and so on. Every time I look at that red-and-gold folder on the floor I can't help but grin.

Also, although I don't expect anyone else to be as excited as I am, my one-year anniversary with Craig was yesterday. I'll have to post a photo of the picture-frame thingy I made...when I take one. In the mean time, here are some other interesting pictures, since I finally installed the software for my computer's memory-card reader and offloaded everything that was on my camera, which is all the pictures I took over the summer.

A tractor seen in Deerfield:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2230.jpg

I Kant...park, apparently:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2240.jpg

A true ham car (on the way to NEARfest):
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2241.jpg

Palm trees in Northampton:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2245.jpg

Craig at the outdoor range in Northampton:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2246.jpg

Me at the same range:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2266.jpg

With the 7mm magnum. My shoulder hurt for a week after firing that damn thing:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2270.jpg

No tailgating:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_2286.jpg

OCD Happy

I just hit the end of a chapter at exactly 33,000 words, at exactly 9:00am. This makes my OCD side extremely happy. The unfortunate part is that it also makes it harder to get going again, since writing another word will make the count no longer even. Then again, I really want to hit 35k today.

So I guess I lied about not posting any more excerpts. I wrote a paragraph I just love for some reason, and want to put it up somewhere. Here it is.

My phone rang just then and I answered it, even though I knew it was only my alarm. Distinctly uninterested in watching Jen work her boy magic, I had set it to go off at noon to save me from an awkward situation.

“Hi mom,” I said, loudly enough that they would both hear me, and started sidling away. “What’s up? Oh, really?” I continued to fake a conversation until I was out the door and well away from the building. When I reached the edge of the parking lot, I took a quick glance over my shoulder to be sure they weren’t following me, and broke into a run. Some part of me felt inexplicably guilty for doing what I’d just done to Fin. I knew Jen wreaked havoc on boys, and I probably shouldn’t have handed her one I was actually friends with; at least, not if I wanted to stay friends with him. Wishing I could undo what I had just done, but knowing it was already far too late, I went to lunch by myself and tried to drown my guilt in pizza.

Finally, Good News

I did it I did it I did it!!! Sorry to shout in your virtual ear, but I'm too excited not to. I got into UMass!! The really awesome thing? That's not even the best of the news. The BEST of the news is that I got invited into Commonwealth College, which is UMass's honors program for super-awesome students.

I had hoped that would happen but figured it probably wouldn't. Hey, self-deprecation worked out: I got a great surprise! I'm not in the Computer Science program yet because I don't have all the pre-req's, but the admissions counselor I talked to told me that would probably happen. So next semester I'll take Calculus I and Assembly Language, then take Calculus II over the summer. I'll make some friends among the faculty of the CS department, get my current programming professors to write me a letter of recommendation, and everything should work out.

*does the happy dance*

Also, I hit 30k in my NaNo! 30,102, to be exact. Today's goal: 31,673.

I Stand Corrected

It turns out that my claim to December being National Novel Editing Month was incorrect; NaNoEdMo is, in fact, in March. December is National Novel Finishing Month, NaNoFiMo. Thanks Michelle for pointing this out!

Geeky Blogger Networking

Hey everyone, go check out my guest post on How Not to Write! People are saying it's giving them lots of laughs.

The Waiting!

UMass finally got my transcript from PUCE (after I spent an hour in Tim's office doing mental troubleshooting - figures). The status of my application on their website tracker has changed from "complete application" to "under review." Now the nail-biting truly begins! Any day now I'll find out...and thus find out where I'll be living next semester, what job I'll have, what classes I'll be taking, and all sorts of other somewhat life-changing things.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm trying to keep mine out of my mouth, and trying not to check the website every half an hour.

Yesterday's word count: 27,030 (exactly 2,000 words written!). Today's goal: 28,339. The Helpdesk has been busy this morning, so I haven't gotten any writing done, with the obvious exception of that which you're reading. On the other (really awesome) hand, though, I only have one class today. Matt came down with the flu yesterday, and so cancelled my 2pm and 6pm classes, leaving me with just chemistry at 4pm. Time to get things done...or sleep.

Day Sixteen

I've hit the half-way point! 25,030 official word count on Saturday the 15th. I'll cheer for myself since I can't hear the rest of you from here.

I've gotten wind, however, that my excerpts are disturbing some people. Apparently they are causing "wondering" about me. While there is always some amount of the writer in the writing, I wouldn't really call my novel a revealing psychological portrait of myself. However, I think I'll stop posting pieces of it, at least for a while. Perhaps until it's done.

Today's goal: 26,672.

Take a Break? Never!

I'm taking a break from writing...to write. At least I'm writing something different.

Catching up with a day's missed word count is a little more of a struggle than I expected it to be. I've reached 22,518 as of a couple of minutes ago, but my progress is slowing down. I really want to get through the last 800 words today/tonight, but it's amazing how much effort a half day's wordcount can be when you've already done a couple of thousand and you're not in the middle of an inspiring scene.

I'm not one of those writers who can say "This scene is boring me, so I'll skip it and write the next one, and come back to this later." Some part of me demands of some other part of me that I write everything in order. (It's the same part that demands that I fix grammar and spelling errors, even though that's kind of against the rules of NaNo.) My inner Editor is too obsessive-compulsive to let me concetrate on anything else, like writing productively, until that typo staring at me is corrected. Fortunately I type fast, so it doesn't hold me up too much.

This is the point at which I should say "Time for a break!" and go do something ELSE else, that's not blogging, that actually requires me to get up and change my position and surroundings. However, it's raining and cold and dark outside, and I'm entirely uninspired to do anything but remain inside where it's warm and dry. Training myself to actually take breaks while I'm working on something is pretty difficult. Whether it's a novel or a programming project, it seems more productive to sit and stare at the screen and produce nothing than to walk away, even though theoretically I know otherwise.

So here I am, sitting and staring at the screen and producing nothing but whining, bloggable drivel and complaints.

In other news, though, UMass finally got my PUCE transcript. Now it's back to the waiting game. I have my fingers crossed!

Day Fourteen

For the first time, I've actually gotten behind on my wordcount. I didn't write at all on the 12th; just didn't get to it. I'm playing the frantic catch-up game in all my classes, so I spent the day doing homework. I finally got my VB midterm done this morning (it was due Tuesday, but I got an extension). HW07B for Data Structures got finished yesterday (on time! Wow!), and I'm taking my chem exam next Tuesday (which was originally more than a week ago). I also need to start and finish two homeworks for my server class, which the prof says are the most important ones of the semester. Of course.

Last night's word count: 20,708. Today's goal: 23,338. I'm less than a day behind. Hopefully I can catch up this afternoon.

As far as UMass, they are still giving me a hard time about my application. I finally got the business with the fee sorted out, but now they are insisting that they can't look over my application until they have my transcript from PUCE. Since that has to come from Ecuador, one of the slowest countries in the world, I'm worried that it won't get there in time. I have to reply to UMass by December 1st to tell them whether I'll be going. It's November 14th and they're refusing to look over my application. Talk about getting down to the wire. I've emailed Tim and PUCE, my advisor, the admissions officer at UMass, and their dean of admissions (who hasn't seen fit to reply to me yet.) In short, I've talked to everyone I can, and now all I can do is just sit and twiddle and hope that transcript comes through ASAP.

Day Twelve

Last night's word count: 18,317. Today's goal: 20,004.

I need a place to put these awesome little NaNo image thingies! So here they are. Like you hadn't figured out already that I'm a participant.

World's Smallest Girl

Amazing pictures of the world's smallest girl, in India. She may be tiny, but what a beautiful smile!

In more serious news, today is Veterans' Day. I haven't personally seen a vet, given the small bubble in which I spend most of my time, but if any of you have come across one, I hope you've thanked them. I know I will; whether it's November 11th or not, it's always their day to be thanked and supported.

Day Eleven

By some miracle, I am still on my word count. That miracle is, I believe, known as "having a laptop." Since I refuse to write by hand in favor of using a computer, having a portable version translates into the ability to write...well, anywhere, really. On the couch, in various houses, in random parts of campus, in the kitchen of my dorm while making dinner, or in the car on the way home from Vermont (I wasn't driving, I promise).

Last night's wordcount: 17,018. Today's goal: 18,337.

I've also been offered the opportunity to write a guest post for http://www.hownottowrite.com/. I'll probably make an attempt, even if it turns out to be a shameful one that I wouldn't actually send to anybody and end up trashing. After all, I have procrastination to get to!

I stopped, turned around, and jogged the other way. There was no way I was going to try to wade through them; somehow I doubted they would move. I’d just have to take the long way back.

As I reached the edge of the pond and came around the last tree into the parking lot, I was startled to see Fin. He was walking toward the path, but stopped when he saw me.

“You don’t want to go down there,” I warned him. “There’s crows, lots of them, and they look mean.”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“You know? Then why are you going that way?”

He shrugged. “I was curious.”

“About what? Have you never seen a crow before?”

“I’ve seen a lot of them, actually,” he said. I was inching away from the head of the path as he spoke, not wanting to encounter the huge birds again. I hoped he would take the hint and either let me go or walk with me. I didn’t want to be rude by just walking away in the middle of a conversation, but I really wanted to be elsewhere at that moment.

“Um. Are you a birder?” I guessed.

“Nah, not my thing,” he said. “Just crows.” He didn’t explain further, but he did finally start walking away from the path. I followed quickly, unsure what else to say but glad to be getting away from the pond and the woods.

We walked in silence for a minute while I worried about various things. I had no idea what he was thinking, and after our conversations in class, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.

“Have you always attracted crows?” he asked suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, um, no. I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, there was this one last week, but before that, no.”

“Recent,” he muttered to himself, nodding like he had confirmed a suspicion. Then to me, “What happened? With the last crow, I mean.”

“It flew into my window,” I answered, shuddering at the memory. “It was dark, I guess he couldn’t see it or something. It…” I left it there. The rest just sounded completely nuts, which I probably was. This conversation undoubtedly meant nothing.

“What?” he prompted, but I shook my head.

“Nothing.”

He turned and stared at me as we walked along, and I stared back, wondering if this was a no-blinking contest like the kind I used to have with Marielle in third grade. If it was, I was going to lose; I’d never been good at them.

“Hm,” he finally said, and faced forward again.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head and clearly imitating me.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “If I don’t talk, you don’t either?” Usually that would get people to protest – and to start talking. Not this time.

“Yup,” he said amiably.

Well, I told myself, I could be just as stubborn. I didn’t say another word except for “bye” for the rest of the walk.

Day Seven

Today's wordcount: 11,676. Tomorrow's goal: 13,336. Needless to say, I made it over the five-digit mark.

The only good thing I ever had to say about Professor Gray is that technically he knew his subject, which was Abnormal Psychology. Aside from that, he was nothing more than everything that his last name implied. Everything from his eyes to his tweed suit to his personality was gray. He probably had unsweetened oatmeal for breakfast and showered in dishwater. Even his voice matched his personal pallet.

“Good morning, class. Please settle down while I take attendance.” He required us all to sit in alphabetical order by last name; he was the only college professor I ever knew of who did so. We all sat in relative quiet while he went through his seating chart and checked us off row by row, starting in one corner and working his way to the opposing one. Those who were unfortunate enough to have quiet voices or to not pay attention the first time were marked absent.

“Here,” I said loudly the second he called my name. I wasn’t about to take an X on his sheet when I was sitting right in front of him.

When he was finished with his roster, he filed it in a manila folder, which went into a stack of other similar folders, and then pulled a sheaf of meticulous notes out of his textbook.

“Today,” he announced in a voice completely devoid of inflection or emotion, “We are going to do a comparison exercise. You will work in partners.” There was a general shifting noise throughout the classroom as people made to sit with their friends, but it was silenced when Professor Gray cleared his throat. “I have paired you up by name so that you won’t be working with people who will distract you.” Though no one actually said anything, there was a distinct feel of disappoint that wafted through the air at his statement. We should have known better than to think he would let us get away with enjoying his class.

“Abramson, Finlay,” he said. “Allen, Delano.” Having been the first name on the list, I immediately tuned out the rest and starting looking around for someone by the last name of Finlay. The last name might have been useful had we all been wearing nametags. It didn’t seem to occur to the man that most people referred to each other by their first names and not their last ones. For someone who also taught social psychology, he was distincly lacking in a functional understanding of people being social.

An Excerpt

Last night's word count: 8,442. Today's goal: 10,002. Five digits, twenty percent of the novel. We can do it!

And now for a short excerpt to get you all wondering...

To say that I knew who Seth was, of course, was not to say that we were friends, or that I had ever exchanged more than a startled glance with him. Everybody who had gone to my high school during the four years he was there knew exactly who he was; he really couldn’t be missed. It seemed as though he looked in the mirror each morning and decided he wasn’t noticeable enough naturally, so he added things to make himself moreso. For the most part it was black clothing, studded with metal spikes and dripping with chains, but he was a little more creative than the school’s gothic crew. I had seen him add to the outfit, among other things, hunter-orange sneakers, a large drooping silk peony, a midnight-blue blazer, and various bright jewelry and even brighter nail polish. These things had not, fortunately, been all at the same time, though there were certainly days when looking at him was the visual equivalent of riding a roller coaster through a tropical forest.

I avoided him like I tried to avoid snakes in the woods, not always successful, but always enthusiastic. No one who was anyone at school spoke to him, and they too tried their best to leave him plenty of space, moreso than any human actually needed. On the occasions that he would appear somewhere that we were, the girls would make their way elsewhere, some more loudly and hastily than others. The guys would either walk away in contempt or else loudly announce to him what his proper place was: not there. The most noticeable thing about him was how he seemed never to take the slightest notice of these things. I had seen him yelled at, insulted, run from, and even pushed into walls, but he always continued whatever he was doing without missing a step, the look of freakish calm on his face never changing.

Day Five

Day Five. As of last night, I've reached 6,770 words, just a little bit over the daily goal. Today's goal is 8,335.

I found a wonderfully inspiring thread in the NaNo forums yesterday, discussing how people have let their plots and their characters create themselves rather than trying to force them. I find this particularly inspiring because that's something I have a hard time with. I have a tendency to plot madly, carefully design my characters, and then force both to stay that way rather than letting them surprise me. It's probable that I'd be better off doing it the other way.

I have yet to see if I can actually convince myself to let that happen, of course.

Day Three

Day Three of NaNo. (If you read the timestamp on the post, it claims that today is Tuesday. I disagree. For me it's still Monday, and therefore day 3).

5,123 words by the 12:04am. I really wish I had posted them five minutes earlier to the NaNo website, because now they appear in the awesome little graph thing as having been written on Tuesday and not Monday. The problem with that is that it now appears that I wrote nothing on Monday, and this is certainly not the case. In fact I wrote 1,614 words today.

Unfortunately, it's now time to go have a talk with my neighbor, who seems to think it's a good idea to play her crappy music at full volume at almost 1am.

Let The Chaos Begin

It's November 1st. Most of you are probably saying, "So?" That means one thing for me, though: NaNoWriMo. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this recently, so I won't go into the background again. But today it has officially begun!

Novel is working-titled Retribution, but I don't like that very much, and hopefully I will come up with something better soon.

Today's wordcount: 1,702.

I kept a blog last year specifically devoted to NaNo, and I may resurrect it. If I decide to do so, I'll post the link here so you can follow.