Month of writing dangerously, Chapter 5

Heading into Week 4 of NaNoWriMo, and I’ve now clocked 61K words. Since the goal of the exercise is to complete 50K words by 30 November, I don’t feel quite such a sense of urgency to rack up the word count each day, although I am still averaging about 2000 per.

Because my oeuvre is a detective story, and I didn’t have the benefit of six months’ solid research into my location (still undetermined city in Northern England), police work (specifically as practiced in the UK), forensics (basic as well as specific; and don’t even refer me to any of the scripted TV series as being legitimate resources) and various other aspects of the genre, I’ve developed a way to ignore those pesky little issues & crack on:

Whenever I run into something I don’t know, I insert place markers and write around them. So the manuscript is splattered with [city blah-blah] or [forensic blah-blah] or [investigative blah-blah]. A week ago, acting upon instructions of The Voices (you know—the ones who cooked this story up in the first place), I ensconced my two main characters in a tapas bar. And, since I’ve never actually eaten tapas (although I did once see Rick Steves eat them on TV), I just stuck in [tapas blah-blah] until such time as I can find such an establishment locally and have a legitimate tax-deductible writing-related expense.

I also had a [rioja blah-blah] because my only experience with Spanish wine involved offerings that reminded me strongly of the Bulgarian rotgut we used to have at history department parties at William & Mary. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on what I might like to lay in—also by way of tax-deductible writing-related expenses.

The Voices forced me to make my American researcher besotted with spreadsheets, which is a great trial to me, because I believe their use for every possible purpose in the business world is the clearest sign of the End Times the Almighty could have sent us. So I have a whole shedload of [spreadsheet blah-blahs], as well. A former boss of mine—who does not play a market researcher on TV, but actually is one—has kindly offered to help me out with (and I quote him) “the spreadsheety goodness”, when I’m ready.

That, of course, will be some time down the road, especially as he is also participating in NaNoWriMo, and is obviously cranking away on his own. (41K words as of yesterday—yay!)

However, considering that I’m ahead of the game, word-wise, if I feel like slacking off a bit and playing with designing a state-of-the-art kitchen with Italian appliances and cabinetry, or trying to hunt down what a coroner’s inquest report looks like, or the logistics of Desert Storm—well, then I do.

The spreadsheety goodness can definitely wait.

Thanksgiving memories

I’m hoping that your Thanksgiving holiday is filled comfort, generosity and a lot of pleasure.

To contribute to the last, I’m sharing a clip from one of the Thanksgiving episodes of The West Wing.

I also recommend the clip on President Bartlet and the Butterball Turkey hotline. But that's considerably longer.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Consuming passion

Since we’re heading into the holiday season, which means we’re also into the turbo-charged consumer and culinary frenzy season. So I think we should start it off with this: The Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog.

When I was a child I occasionally wondered what parents would say when their kids asked, “Mom/Dad—what is it that you do?” and the answer was something like “Make dishmops.”

And I also wondered what people in the Korean or Indian factories thought of Americans as they packed cases of Smurf dolls for shipment over here.

But we’ve clearly moved way, way beyond Smurfs and dishmops to polished Italian alderwood acorn-shaped twine holders and Hungarian grain-sack stockings and potato scrubbing gloves.

Ah, look—you just can’t make this stuff up.

If you can remember the 60s...

Yesterday’s post about the Seattle Police Department’s helpful hints to the public about what to expect from the new law allowing possession of small amounts of marijuana gave me a case of the munchies for…Arlo Guthrie:

Don’t know why, really….

Seattle slew

In the wake of Washington voters approving a ballot measure decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, the Seattle cops are taking a pragmatic view of how to approach the shifting winds, so to speak, as least as they’re able to determine them.

This being the self-proclaimed vortex of anything technological, naturally they’ve posted their guidelines online.

It’s called “Mariwhatnow?”, a guide to what SPD thinks will be happening come 6 December, when the law takes effect.

I see that the same folks who with every show of distaste and reluctance control the sale of hard liquor (in state-run liquor stores) are going to be in charge of the legal sale of grass. That means that the hours will be so limited and arbitrary (depending on each outlet’s management) that the consuming public probably won’t have to worry much about being caught with any discernible amount of Super Skunk in its trunk.

But SPD has certainly shown more than a kilo's worth of sense of humor.

Month of writing dangerously, Chapter 4

As of 0817 PST today, I crossed the bar as far as NaNoWriMo goes: I clocked 50,288 words on my novel:

In case you're interested, my 50,000th word was "funeral".

I reckon I’m about 25% of the way along in my story, so I still have miles to go WRT actually finishing the damned thing, but at least I achieved the goal of 50,000 words by 30 November.

No comment on the quality of what I’ve written, but since I’ve been assured by Old NaNo Hands that “your first draft will be crap”, I’m not really worrying so much about that.

Month of writing dangerously, Chapter 3

We’re just embarking on Week 3 of NaNoWriMo. It’s actually going well. I find I’m actually having rather a good time writing fiction. Well, mostly fiction. Um, fiction with various dashes and splashes of Things I Might Have Actually Experienced at One Time or Another.

One of the best parts for me is creating and setting in motion characters. I believe I mentioned that my novel is a police procedural. Meaning, there is some crime involved. Meaning, there’s actually some son-of-a-bitch malignant narcissist who’s responsible for the crime.

& when the time came for me to pin the tail on that particular donkey I had just the jackass in mind. Someone I was involved with for about 37 minutes, before I realized that all the freaking warning bells that had gone off when he first appeared were not just system malfunction, and he really was the lying scumbag I’d felt him to be from the beginning. But charming—he was charming.

Which makes him the perfect template for the charming sociopath my novel requires. Yippee—the bastard does have some redeeming social value, after all!

I have to admit that I’m having way too much fun writing this part—and I’m not even making most of it up. For example—I was filling out some “character questions”, you know, the kinds of things you need to know about your characters so you can picture them well enough to describe and manipulate them. Things like…clothes; what kind of clothes does he wear?

·         Sadly, favors double-breasted suits, which a man of his stocky build & short stature should not

·         Likes to wear his kilt to any evening event; will tell everyone within listening distance all about his relationship to the clan; no one cares

Favorite foods?

·         Whatever someone else is buying

Most important thing to know about this character?

·         He never makes a mistake—anything less than resounding success is due to the (unwarranted) malevolence of others, or to circumstances unforeseeably changing

Also, an unrelated NaNo pleasure, I get to have my American protagonist encapsulate all of rural Britain by referring to the nonexistent (to my knowledge) village of West Lesser Chipping Nowherehampton.

Okay, the “Chipping” part is real.

Power to the prince

So, an interesting (I guess) story on Prince Charles’s digestive & automotive policies.

Here’s the thing I want to know: what the hell is “waste wine”?

Eclipse of beauty

I wouldn't ordinarily do this, but this is an extraordinary circumstance.

A friend of mine took a trip to Australia; on the itinerary was a stop in Cairns, Far North Queensland, to view the solar eclipse yesterday. Here are the photos he sent me:

Partial:

 Total:

And here's one he called a diamond ring:

He commented that there would be "well-lubricated revelry" last night.

Well, I'll certainly drink to that.

Guilty, guilty pleasure

I think it says something for my job search that when I start typing the URL for a tech jobs-posting board, as soon as I enter “D” into the bar, Firefox auto-completes dog-shaming.com. Only when I add the “I” does Dice.com come up.

I do love Dog-shaming.

&, as a public service, I’m going to share a couple of the pictures from last week that just had me, um, howling:

There’s something about a circle of dachshunds that just cracks me up.

Now, this one: if—as it would seem from the caption card—the dog has done this before, I have to hold the cat at least partly culpable. Honestly—if you know what happens when you get in the shower & the dog’s around, you should make it your business to stay out of the bathroom.

I mean, dog-shaming is one thing. Being shamed by a dog is another entirely.