Daily Quote for Feb. 9, 2010

Smiles give others hope, joy and strength. Don't forget to use yours today.

Sasha Azevedo

I am often responsible for answering the telephone as part of my duties at the Pork Palace, and I've been told that my telephone manner is very -- how to say this -- distinctive. Some have said my voice is like an answering machine recording, and I do my best to sound both professional and helpful.

Sometimes, I am professional and helpful. Other times, it only sounds like it to the person on the other end of the line.

I'll admit it here and now: I occasionally get very frustrated at my job. For me, it's difficult to be mindful when there are three customers in line at the register, a server wants change for a twenty-dollar-bill, two phone lines are ringing, and the couple at the end of the bar wants another round margaritas and more cheese biscuits. In fact, it's quite easy -- trust me, I've proven it -- at those times to become stressed, rushed and irritable.

The funny thing here is this: When things are at their most chaotic, when I am the most aggravated, that is when my telephone voice is at its most effective and friendliest. I am Mister Chipper Dipper on the phone, bright and professional and the model employee every employer dreams about and every customer wants to be served by. This state lasts until the exact moment when the receiver slams back down onto the cradle and I turn back to the seventy-five other items screaming for my attention.

My coworkers give me a hard time about this. "That's just so fake," they say when they hear me on the phone, and -- sometimes -- they're right. But I subscribe to the theory of "fake it until you make it". If I can act happy in the midst of chaos, that's one step closer to actually being happy in the midst of chaos -- and the rest of the time as well. And if my acting happy spreads a smile to someone else, all the better. Happiness is never diminished by sharing it. Even if I am having to grunt through it.

So use your smile today, even if you don't necessarily mean it. You never know what good might come from it. And it's good practice for when you do mean it.

Daily Quote for Feb. 8, 2010

“When walking, walk. When eating, eat."

Zen proverb

I consider myself a good driver. I've not had an accident since 2001, and that was the first one in years. I can't remember the last time I received a moving violation. Driving is, essentially, second nature to me.

Up until eighteen months ago, I had a habit of multi-tasking while driving. I would often be on my cell phone while simultaneously seat dancing to an old Grateful Dead song and smoking a cigarette. My thoughts were rarely on the driving itself.

All that changed when I purchased an old Mercedes-Benz with the intent of restoring it to its former glory. I have the car to the point where it starts, runs and stops, but the Benz is quirky. It's a 1987 model, which means it has lots of worn parts that like to break at the most inopportune times. I have to let it warm up for a good five minutes or so before pulling out of the driveway, or otherwise it will stall the first time I hit the accelerator. I constantly monitor the oil pressure, engine temperature and the tachometer for any readings that would indicate a problem, and I strain my ears for any sounds that are out of the ordinary.

In short, I must be attentive -- not only to the road and the traffic around me, but also to my vehicle -- if I want to get where I am going. When I am driving this car, I am focused on nothing else but driving.

It is difficult to maintain that kind of focus in daily life, but it is one of my goals. I want to be mindful of my tasks and how I do them; I want to be focused on the task at hand. When I'm writing, I need to write. When I'm making the bed, I need to the thinking about making the bed.

I think that kind of focus is the key to productivity and a mindful life. Be here in the present. Embrace the moment and experience it fully, no matter what you may be doing at the time.

And when you're driving, drive.

Daily Quote for Feb. 6, 2010

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”

Buddha

I think this is a most excellent quote, full of truth. Each new day brings new opportunity. All we have is now, and we should make the most of it.

As part of my effort to live a more mindful life, I've been trying to focus on the "now" by paying attention to the moment. It's not always easy, for my mind likes to wander all over the place. I'll be washing the dishes when I start thinking about what kind of shift I might have at work, or I will be working on a writing piece and my brain will meander over to the concert I attended last week.

Of course, I can't know what might happen at work, and what happened last week is of little consequence to what's going on now. Worrying about the future is a gamble at best, and beating yourself up over the past is a useless exercise. You have to be here now.

In short, yesterday is gone. It's a new day. Embrace the moment in which you are living right now, and make the most of it. You'll be happy you did.

Daily Quote for Feb. 5, 2010

“You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

Rabindranath Tagore

How simple and obvious the above seems, and how hard it is sometimes to achieve. If you want to cross the sea, you can't do it by looking at the ocean. Steps and action must be taken. Dreaming of crossing the sea won't get you from New York to Southampton, no matter how hard you visualize it. You actually have to cross!

In my personal life, I've often been the "victim" (can one truly be a victim if the victimization is self-inflicted?) of fantastic planning followed by piss-poor execution. Of course, to reach a goal one needs a plan, but if you don't follow the plan and do the work, you get nowhere.

For years, I had a dream of writing a novel. But until I sat down at the keyboard and actually typed the words, the dream was just that: a fantasy, a pleasant diversion, a "someday" thought. But then I got to work, and in a month, I had a first draft.

I don't know exactly what kept me from doing the work. I assume it was a number of things, including some fear, as well as laziness and a lack of self-discipline. But the truth has been knocked into me lately: If I want to reach the goals, I have to do the work -- even the hard, distasteful stuff that I sometimes dread.

As the old saying goes, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." If we take that first step, then follow it with another, then another after that, and so on, pretty soon we can look back in amazement at the progress we've made -- and that goal, that dream, that "someday" will be closer than we ever imagined.

The traveling Scot and Alabama's Glasgow

I wait on a lot of out-of-towners at the Pork Place. I suppose that shouldn't be surprising; the restaurant is near the interstate and a cluster of motels. On any given night one can find a business traveler from Ohio sipping on a cocktail at the bar while he reviews a proposal for a meeting the next morning, or perhaps a frustrated truck driver knocking back cheap beers while he waits for the shop next door to finish the repairs on his rig. Late fall and early spring bring snowbirds from the upper midwest who stop in for a bite to eat along their migratory route, and the races at Talledega draw people in from all over the country.

Foreign visitors, while not unheard of, are much more rare. Occasionally the snowbirds will include a couple from Ontario in an RV, and I've served wheelchair rugby teams from Canada and Australia who were in town for an event at the Lakeshore Foundation. But until now, I'd never served a Scot. And certainly not one on a quest.

That changed this week with the arrival of one Michael Slavin.

For the past three nights, I've had the pleasant duty of waiting on Mr. Slavin and introducing him to some of the finer craft beers the Deep South has to offer, while enjoying his tales of his journey (he likes Good People's IPA and Sweetwater 420). He has been in the states since April of 2009, on a quite particular mission: He is here to visit each and every locale in the United States that bears the name of his hometown of Glasgow.

At each stop, he does some historical research and writes about his travels in his blog. He's been from New York to California and back during his time here. Birmingham is his eighteenth stop, for there is a small hamlet near Adamsville named Glasgow. From here, he has two more Glasgows to visit before he heads back across the pond in April.

Mr. Slavin has been a pleasant addition to the bar lineup at the Pork Palace. His brogue charms each and every patron at the bar he's spoken with, and with his longish hair and full beard, he looks more the part of an anthropology professor than a retired software programmer. He always has a story, and is more than willing to share it to whomever will listen.

It has been an interesting week with Mr. Slavin holding court at the Pork Palace. I need more regulars like him; it would make the bar a much more intriguing place to work. I wish him well on the rest of his journey, and the bar will be a bit lessened when he heads back home.

Michael, may you successfully complete your quest, and may there always be a willing ear and a strong pint waiting for you at the bar at the end of the day. Come back again, y'hear?

A moment for Haiti

I was planning on writing something witty and clever today. I didn't. This is more important than whatever drivel I might have placed here.

The earthquake in Haiti is an almost unimaginable catastrophe. Supplies and resources will be desperately needed in the days ahead.

I am urging my friends and readers who can help financially to do so. Personally, I like the American Red Cross effort (also linked from the White House web site): from your cell phone, text "HAITI" to 90999. It's simple, your donation is needed, and just about everyone I know can afford an extra ten bucks on their cell phone bill next month.

I don't normally shill for causes, but this tragedy has reminded me of both how interconnected we all are as human beings, as well as how fleeting life can be.

Lives and dreams will be rebuilt with our help. Please help if you can, and keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

Resolutions are for suckers

"New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

Mark Twain

It's the second full week of 2010, and I'm feeling pity for the salad makers at the Pork Palace. This time of year, ticket after ticket cascades from the printer in the kitchen, running nonstop like a faucet which can't be turned off. Chilled bowls are lined up, waiting to be filled with vegetable goodness to fulfill the high-minded intentions of the customers in the dining room. Lettuce flies, tomatoes roll, and the company makes a killing on a very low-cost product. It's a busy, busy time for the salad makers.

Of course, this bit of stress and extra work is only temporary. By February, the salad maker's workload will ease, slowly at first, but eventually returning to a normal pace as only the people who eat salads the rest of the year continue to order them. All those extra salads being made at present go away, as all the "I'm going to lose weight this year" resolutions devolve into a heaping basket of crispy, battered onion rings.

Why does this happen? The problem lies in the whole idea of resolutions themselves.

Think about it: Once a year, we look at our lives and decide to change something about it. "I'm going to lose weight." "I'm going to stop smoking." "I'm going to quit whatever."

Bleah. That's no fun.

I think the best resolution I saw this year came from a comment on facebook: "I want to drink more and put on weight." At least make your resolution attainable, right?

I think the issue is that people generally make resolutions that are restrictive and chock-full of ways to deny oneself. Of course, the intent is always noble, but the practice... well, the practice just seems to say "don't" over and over again until the resolver is doomed to fail.

So I made no resolutions this year. Nor did Jean. Nor have we for the past several years.

It's not that we don't want to better ourselves; we most definitely do. In fact, we work on it just about every day. But rather than making a list of near-impossible achievements and denying ourselves, we're making plans. Turning negatives into positives. Setting goals and then determining the actions we need to achieve those goals.

I have a fairly extensive and far-reaching list of goals I want to achieve this year. They include living a more mindful life; becoming a non-smoker; becoming a published author; and enhancing my relationships with Jean, my daughters and step-daughters, my aging mother, and the rest of my extended family. There are others, many of which are lofty, but all of which are, to me, attainable.

In addition to my goals, I'm thinking through the actions I will need to undertake in order to achieve them. Thoughtful consideration of what needs to be done is the hard part, but I am doing my best to be thorough with my plans. I'm consciously phrasing the plan in a positive manner (you will find neither the word "don't" nor "stop" anywhere in the plan), I'm plotting out baby steps and attainable plateaus, and as I work I am finding that many of these actions (even more than I first thought) intertwine to reach multiple goals.

So, there it is. Resolutions are out (again), and planning is in. There is much work to be done, and I am eagerly anticipating not only the results but the work itself.

If I have one word of advice, it is this: Punt the resolutions in favor of a plan, and then follow through with it. Make 2010 your best year yet. And eat the onion rings. They're delicious.

Holiday film preview: The blockbusters I'll (probably not) see

The holiday movie season is here! The holiday movie season is here!

Okay, sarcasm doesn't read well. Yes, the holiday movie season is upon us. Everyone is talking about James Cameron's "Avatar" and Hollywood is gambling that millions and millions of people will get so tired of dealing with Aunt Sarah and her dog stories that they will flee family gatherings in droves and head to the theater. It's a good bet.

I probably won't be one of those people. I simply don't make it out much to the movies these days. In the past, I never was one to go to the movies often, and now a trip to the cineplex is an incredibly rare treat. I might make it out to see a first-run film once, maybe twice a year at most.

Of course, there are good reasons for this. For one, I'm pretty much a homebody. One of my favorite things to do is to lounge on the sofa at home with Jean on the nights we have together, watching a DVD on our tiny TV.

For another thing, I'm not an early adopter of gadgets, social trends, or any thing else, so it follows that I'm not one of those people who has to see a movie when it first comes out. I'm generally happy to wait to see a film until I can get it at the movie store, or even better, for free at the library.

A few more advantages of staying in over heading to the multiplex are that I can control the temperature of the room (I usually come out of the theater with my lips having turned blue), I can drink beer instead of six-dollar buckets of soda, and I can pause the action whenever my tiny bladder demands. And, of course, there's the cost. A trip to the Rave in Vestavia for the family will set me back a quick fifty bucks, easy.

So it's no mean feat to get me out the door to the movies. A film must significantly tickle my fancy for me to plant my butt in a theater seat. This year, there are a couple of likely candidates.

Sure, everybody is going to see "Avatar" (Roger Ebert likened it to an event movie, like "Star Wars" or "Harry Potter"), and it looks good to me, but I'll wait for the furor to die down a bit. What should be an easy ticket is the new Terry Gilliam film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus".



Gilliam's movies work best when he's dealing with the fantastic (See "Brazil", "Twelve Monkeys"... hell, just watch anything he's done), and from the trailer it seems that he's headed in that direction once more. This film might just be another "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", but the cast -- including Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, and Colin Farrell -- should ensure that nothing like that happens.

Another flick that might find me out of the house on Christmas Day is "Tony Stark Goes to Victorian London", also known as "Sherlock Holmes". In "Iron Man", it seemed like Robert Downey Jr. found his acting niche as the charismatic, intelligent, tech-savvy playboy. The trailer for "Sherlock Holmes" appears to be more of the same:



Guy Ritchie is directing (I wondered about that when I saw the fight scene, and is that Bullet-Tooth Tony I saw in there?), and the cast includes Jude Law and Rachel McAdams. It should be fun to see the long-historic character of Holmes turned into an action/supernatural blockbuster.

So there you have it. I probably won't see you at the theater for these, but you can bet that by March, I'll have been to Blockbuster and you'll find me on the sofa enjoying these two films.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

During our weekly visit to the Homewood Public Library this past weekend, Jean and I picked up the DVD of "The Deep" episode of the BBC's fantastic documentary "The Blue Planet". After work last night (and following a bit of universal remote finagling on my part), we sat down on the sofa and watched as Sir David Attenborough described some of the strangest creatures found on planet earth (a sample is below):

It was interesting to learn that not only is the sea bed the least-explored part of our planet (more people have been to outer space than have been to the bottom of the ocean) but also that every expedition discovers new and ever-more-odd species of life.

Most of these species fall into two categories: Hunter and hunted, just links in the food chain. At that depth, it's a short chain and the different species have evolved in strange ways to ensure their survival. There are some ugly mothers at the bottom of the ocean, to be sure. As we watched some of the more violent-looking creatures, Jean turned to me with this thought:

"They look so murderous," she said. "I wonder if that's some sort of karmic hell."

It's an interesting, albeit sobering, thought. In my humble opinion, you would have to lead a seriously horrific life to be reincarnated as a creature found only on the cold, dark sea bed, never seeing the light of day, with your previous transgressions manifested in your appearance.

My bigger question is this: If that is a karmic hell, how would you get out of it?

Writing and momentum (or lack thereof)

Fellow blogger (and really smart guy) Wade Kwon made the point in a recent blog post that "perfection kills". Essentially what he said was that if you try to make everything perfect (especially in the blogging biz) that you'll never get anywhere.

But what hit home with me was this quote: "Although I’m not a fan of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, the event has at least one great takeaway lesson: Your momentum matters... Those who finish their 50,000-word novels in 30 days are rewarded with two things: a mass of sloppy, unedited writing, and the use of momentum to accomplish a once seemingly impossible accomplishment."

In my writing, momentum is -- simply put -- huge. Way huge. Godzilla-like ginormous, even. Once I get going, I don't want to stop. It's a great feeling to get thousands and thousands of words out of my head and into the computer.

But once I stop, getting back on track is damned nigh to impossible.

I'm in the middle of such a period right now. On November 30, when I hit my 50,000-word goal for NaNoWriMo, I decided I needed to take a little sabbatical. A week, at most, I thought. It would give me time to get some ideas flowing for other projects, and besides, I deserved it. I knocked out those 50,000 words in twenty days -- I was due some rest and relaxation.

But before I knew it, one week had melted into two, and the situation threatened to keep stretching until the holidays were over -- and I am certain that by then I could find one or two more reasons to keep from getting to the keyboard. I hadn't written a thing since December 1, not a blog post, work on Committed, or anything else of substance other than the occasional Tweet or facebook status update.

But thanks to the nagging voices in my head, I'm back at it -- even if the first steps are nothing more than some hand-scribbled notes in a spiral notebook and a blog post about how important momentum is to me. It's a start. And like the wise man said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

I can guarantee two things: Those steps won't be perfect. But one will follow another until I get someplace. It might not be my initial destination, but I will journey far and wide before it's all said and done.

Lessons from NaNoWriMo

For the past couple of days I've had time to think about this whole NaNoWriMo experience and what it has meant to me. I think it is a wonderful, crazy idea to get authors from around the world to write a new novel in 30 days. To be honest, NaNoWriMo 2009 turned out to be an enjoyable, challenging, and -- at times -- frustrating experience for me. I'm glad it did it. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

NaNoWriMo made for a most memorable November, and one I'll likely not forget for a number of reasons. But the main reason is simply this: I have a first draft of my first novel. That was my goal for the month, and reaching it has given me an incredible sense of fulfillment -- as well as expectation for what I will do next with this story of Snakebit. It made me feel like I can be a writer, if I just sit down and do the work. It's a fantastic feeling. I imagine many of the other participants feel similarly; at least I hope they do.

And there were a lot of participants. I remain amazed at the sheer scale of the entire enterprise. If NaNoWriMo signifies anything, it's that there are a whole lot of people out there who want to write. The final numbers weren't up on the NaNoWriMo site the last time I checked (and please don't hold me to my recollection), but I think something like 170,000 people took part in the madness with around 16,000 people "winning" by hitting the 50,000 word mark. In total, there were more than TWO BILLION words written for NaNoWriMo. In a single month.

Whew!

It felt good to be a part of that enterprise, sharing a common goal with so many people around the world. I enjoyed seeing what other writers had to say about the experience, how they were faring, what techniques they used during the month. It was enlightening and informative, and a learning experience in many ways.

Lessons learned

The most important thing I think I learned is that I actually can can start and finish a first draft of a novel in a month. I can have completion, as long as I work for it. This has been a problem for me for years. My writing, before November, was generally a long, drawn-out process. For example, I've been working on my other major project, Committed, for nearly three years -- and I think I've only hit about 80,000 words in that epic. To start something like Snakebit -- almost on a whim, I might add -- and finish it in 30 days is incredibly encouraging for my writing career.

Also, NaNoWriMo hammered it into my thick skull that there is no substitute for sitting at the keyboard and writing. You write even when it's not fun, even when it's not easy; you just keep writing, one word after another. This sounds ridiculously simple (and it is), but I only really got the point this month. The ideas in my head are not going to magically transfer themselves into engaging prose in the computer. It's up to me to sit down and do the work. And it is work. Hard work. But I like this work, and NaNoWriMo reminded me why.

Imperfection is okay

The pieces on this blog may not always be evidence of the following, but I am pretty picky about how I write what I write. It's not the just the story I want to tell, but I want to tell it in an engaging and entertaining way, using just the right words to get my ideas across. This pretty much hampers any pretense of productivity, and such behavior is completely useless during NaNoWriMo. Learning that I can tell my inner editor to take a hike for a month is probably the most liberating thing I discovered in November.

Ditching my inner editor allowed me to get my story down, and that was the important thing. Good prose can wait. The draft I have now is undoubtedly a mess; there are holes in the plot the size of Connecticut, my main characters sometimes seem to be no more than cardboard cutouts, much of my descriptive work has all the flair of and vigor of cold oatmeal, and much of what I wrote is quite likely gramatically offensive. I can accept that. This is a first draft. I will edit, rewrite, and edit some more until the story is told exactly how I want to tell it. A good story isn't at its best with the first telling. Only after the tale has been retold, perhaps many times with details and embellishments added with each telling, does it get better. I have a foundation to build upon, and that is exactly what I wanted out of this adventure called NaNoWriMo.

I could not have finished the draft had it not been for some serious planning and scheduling. This point was driven home right at the beginning when I took off five straight days from writing at the start of November. I planned for the days off and I eventually overcame the word deficit, but not without some serious ass-busting at the end.

So why was the plan so important if I still had to pull off the literary equivalent of a cramming for an exam during the last three days of the month? Because without that plan, I wouldn't have been in position to pull off those last three days. I didn't always stick to the plan, but I worked with it and tweaked it as circumstances dictated. I will continue to use this kind of planning both for major projects and daily work.

All in all, I have to say NaNoWriMo 2009 was an overwhelmingly positive experience, and one that I will remember. I accomplished much and I learned much. I liked it so much that I plan to do it again in 2010.

But that's a year away. What do I do now?

What's Next?

For the time being, I'm going to let Snakebit settle. I plan to leave it alone for the month of December, at least for the most part. I'll walk away from it and come back to it for editing and rewriting when January comes. I'll admit that I probably won't walk too far away from it; I had an idea while I was taking shower this morning that filled up a big plot hole and I ran to the computer, still dripping wet, to get it down before it flitted away. I have committed to not reading the draft until at least January 1. Then I'll get back to work, and I'm shooting to have a manuscript ready to submit to potential publishers by March 1.

I'll also be getting back to work on Committed, putting up episodes on a more regular basis than readers have been used to seeing in the past. I learned quickly during NaNoWriMo that I can crank out some verbage when I just sit down and type. This should help a lot with the episodic nature of Committed. And that story is about to start being all kinds of silly fun, not only to read, but also to write. I sense some serious craziness about to happen for Tal and Liv and the bunch.

I'm also considering making some changes to my website; it's been static for too long, and I want to try some new ideas to get things hopping over there. Content will be a priority, but I also want to look at some technical things. I'm also considering changing the site so that Committed is available only to registered users -- this might be a way to save my rights of first publication when I get the story ready to submit to publishers, but it may be too late for that now. I'll be doing some more study on that issue soon.

Another avenue I want to explore is getting some paid freelance work. Momma needs a new pair of shoes, you know? I'm looking to do some short story work (I've got one idea for a story about a new arrival to heaven that tickles my funnybone) and possibly some other articles for submission to a variety of publications.

So that's that. One project done, another begun. I'm looking forward to the rest of December and the upcoming New Year. Should be a good one.

NaNoWriMo Update: Days 25-30 -- An End

Daily Stats

Days 25-30 Word Quota: 15,100
Days 25-30 Words Written: 15,167
Cumulative Word Count: 50,067

Reaching an end

At midnight on Monday night, NaNoWriMo 2009 came to an end. I have been woefully lax in blogging about my progress for the past week. I'll end the suspense early: I achieved the 50,000 word goal, and I am a winner (I have the PDF certificate to prove it).

I hvae perfectly good reasons for not providing an account of my doings over the past seven days, and although Thanksgiving is over, I'd like to share with you my recipe for How to Make The Last Week of NaNoWriMo Really, Really Difficult.

1. Start from behind

If you want to make the last week of NaNoWriMo as difficult as possible, you want to be behind schedule. Take my experience. After renewing my excitement about the story on Day 24 and writing a quite impressive 3,300 words, I found I was still far behind where I needed to be. To that point I was somewhere just under 35K words total; which meant I would need to knock out some serious word count over the next six days. Difficult, yes, but hardly impossible. I needed to add some more challenge.

2. Throw in a Holiday mix

I found that challenge in the approaching holiday weekend. I love Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays; there is something about family and food and the cool weather that touches me. It does not, however, make for good writing. Nor does an incredibly busy day at work the day before. Add in the Iron Bowl on the Friday following the annual gorge-fest, and you can make things really hard in that last week.

I knew both Wednesday and Thursday would be busy days, so I scheduled accordingly. I set small goals of 500 words on each day -- not where I needed to be, but I would make some kind of progress on the story. It was part of the plan.

Of course, on Wednesday, I completely blew off writing, thanks to work. The day before Thanksgiving is a big day at the Pork Palace for carry-out business. We sell a lot of smoked turkey breasts and side items, as is to be expected, but also a surprising amount of ribs (I imagine I could eat ribs on Thanksgiving, but it just seems very, very wrong to me. I'm a turkey man). As such, I ended up working a double shift of Wednesday, both to help out with the increased business, but also to make up for the shift I would miss when the restaurant was closed on Thursday. By the time I got home on Wednesday night, I was exhausted and had to call it a night without even looking at the computer.

I made up for it on Thursday, mostly writing in the morning. We had great dinner that afternoon with Jean, Caroline, Katie and Juliana, and after one of the best Thanksgiving Days in recent memory, I had ended up writing almost 1,100 words. Good for a holiday, but not good for my cumulative total. I was still just under 36,000 words with only four days to go.

I expected to gain some ground on Friday, or at least that's what I told myself. I scheduled a 3,300-word day, and I was eager to get some good writing done.

Yeah, right. It was Iron Bowl day.

I did some writing that morning, but most of the time I spent on the computer was taken by checking on pre-game information and reading articles about both Auburn and Alabama. Once game time arrived, any more writing I had hoped to do simply wasn't going to happen. I went to work during the third quarter of the game, came home after the Pork Palace closed early, and went to bed. I had written 1,500 words for the day.

3. Mix in new projects

At this point, I had three days left to write and more than 13,000 words to go.
The task before me was daunting. Scary, even. That's a lot of words-- a whole lot of words -- to knock out in three days. And not to just type them into a computer; I needed them to make sense and advance my story. Ah, yes; the story. I was rapidly running out of ideas for the story as well. By then I had only one phase outline completed for one of the chapters, and another phase outline sketched out in a raw form. The rest of the story was wandering around aimlessly in my head, making itself incredibly difficult to find.

But that just wasn't enough difficulty for me. Something else needed to be thrown in to make things really, really hard. Namely, a newsletter and a website.

Not only would I be typing like a madman over the weekend, but Jean would need a significant amount of computer time herself. Magic City Blues News, the newsletter Jean and I lay out each month, was behind schedule and needed a lot of work. Jean is also building a website for a client of hers, a gentleman who hand-builds guitars from cypress knots (more about that later).

Instead of panicking (to be honest, there was a little panic. What do you mean we have to do all this by Monday?), we planned. We plotted. We scheduled. And by early Saturday morning, we had a strategy that might -- just might -- let us get most everything done, if we stuck to it.

4. Hit your stride

Time was slipping away and there was too much to do. If I was going to hit that magical 50,000-word goal, something would have to happen -- and soon.

I guess I was exactly where I needed to be.

Maybe it was the deadline pressure, or perhaps the structure; it might have been the synergy I felt from working with Jean, but I hung in there and Saturday was the day when I hit my stride. We swapped time at the computer, each of us working in shifts that lasted between 45 minutes and an hour, and we each made the most of our time. And during my shifts, the words just started flowing. I was hammering out a lot of material, completely focused on the task at hand. If I got stuck with something, I just moved on to the next idea. Quantity was the important thing here, not quality.

I made a decision to work with the story in sections; trying to tell the story from start to finish wouldn't work. There was just too much story left to write; I figure that telling all of Snakebit will take 80,000 words or more. I took a hint from the NaNoWriMo website and worked on pulling together a decent beginning, middle and end, with highlights in between and the details to be filled in during the editing process.

And it worked. By the end of the day on Saturday, I had written more than 5,000 words. My cumulative total was over 42,500 and I could not only see light at the end of the tunnel, I could also make out the exit and what lay beyond. After Saturday, hitting the 50,000 word mark was practically a foregone conclusion.

Sunday was another very busy and super productive day, following the same pattern as Saturday. I knocked out more than 4,000 words on Sunday, working mainly on the ending of the story.

5. Bask in the glow of success

Monday was more difficult than the other two days, mainly because I almost ran out of things to write. I was happy to type out the words "The End," but when I checked my word counter afterward, I was still 800 or so words short. I ended up adding two more sequences to the middle of the story, and sometime around 3 o'clock that afternoon, I became an official NaNoWriMo winner.

That's 50,000 words in the month of November. For me, that ended up being twenty writing days. And there there is still much work to be done on Snakebit. There are plot holes to be filled, characters and descriptions to be fleshed out, and probably two months of editing work to do. It is a book that is far from complete, and I know it. Yet I also know this: I have a foundation. A good one. My first one.

I am eager to see what happens next.

Tomorrow: What NaNoWriMo taught me

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 24 -- Renewed efforts

Daily Stats

Day 24 Word Quota: 4,000
Day 24 Words Written: 3,300
Cumulative Word Count: 34,861

Renewed efforts

After Monday's realizations, I decided to take a long, hard look at at Snakebit and where it stood with regards to the remainder of NaNoWriMo. I knew I was behind, but I didn't know exactly what I would have to do to finish 50,000 words by midnight on the 30th.

I know now.

The first thing I did on Tuesday was to review what I needed to do to reach my word goal on time. It wasn't pretty. It looks like I'll need somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 words per day to reach my goal (not counting two days mostly-off for Thanksgiving). I'll also need more phase outlines, because I'm running out of things to write. So I made a plan, and I'm working it.

I also became un-bored with the story. That happened when I figured out that it was entirely up to me to make the story fun. Throwing in a redneck wedding to a Mississippi stripper upped the fun quotient to be sure.

So even though I'm behind, I feel good. I have a plan, and although it will be difficult to attain, it is far from impossible. I guess the most important thing is that I want this. I really, really want it. I not only want to hit that magic 50,000 word mark, but I also want a first draft finished by the end of the month. Can I get a draft finished by then? I don't know. But I will at the very least finish 50,000 words by the time the clock strikes 11:59 on the night of the 30th.

You can take that to the bank.

NaNoWriMo Update: Days 20-23 -- Falling behind

Daily Stats

Days 20-23 Word Quota: 10,000
Days 20-23 Words Written: 3,333
Cumulative Word Count: 31,561

Falling behind

After a fruitless writing weekend, I find myself in a bit of a jam. I've realized that I don't know where my story is going, I'm bored writing it, and I am 8,500 words behind schedule with a week to go in NaNoWriMo.

A bit of a jam, indeed.

Things all seemed to be going swimmingly on Friday. It was a good day for output, but not a great one where my writing was concerned. I made my word quota just before I had to leave for my shift at the Pork Palace, which was the good thing for the day. On the downside, I had a hard time writing that day and an even more difficulty getting into the story. Most of the time my writing seemed lifeless and dull. I plodded ahead until I went over 2,500 words for the day, and topped 30,000 to date. I went to work pleased but somehow unfulfilled by the day's progress.

Saturday was not even close to Friday's efforts. I didn't give myself a chance to be bored with the story because I had so many other things going on. The day's big chore was to rake the yard before the rains came. Like so many other projects, this took longer than I expected, and I ended up with limited writing time for the day. I was able to sit down and get almost 700 words in, but like Friday, I was uninspired.

Sunday and Monday can both be labeled as NaNoWriMo "EPIC FAIL" days. On Sunday, we spent most of the day cleaning the house and getting ready to have some friends over to play music that evening. I completely blew off NaNoWriMo for the day. Even when I had a chance to write, I didn't take it. On Monday, Jean worked from home, so I did not have access to the computer for most of the day, and planned not to add anything to my word count. I was glad about it; I just flat out did not want to work on Snakebit in the least. I thought I would spend the day working on some phase outlines, but I didn't even do that.

On Monday night after I got home from work, I looked at the computer and wondered why I wasn't sitting down to write. I was falling farther and farther behind with Snakebit; what was going on?

I realized a couple of things that night. One, I was getting bored with my story. I was doing a lot of exposition and introducing new characters, and not in extremely exciting ways. I was in the doldrums, stuck in a literary sargassum, and like the Ghost Pirate said in my favorite episode of the "Venture Brothers", "any way you cook it, it still tastes like hot sargassum."

I also realized that I was running out of things to write. I became a big fan of phase outlines early on in the writing process, but I've just about used up all the ones I've written. Putting it bluntly, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to get where the story needs to go.

To sum up: My story is boring me. I'm not sure where I'm headed. And I'm 8,500 words behind schedule with more than 18,000 words to write in one week.

I'm not going to panic. I think this is exactly where I need to be right now. More to come.

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 19 -- Seeking motivation

Daily Stats

Day 19 Word Quota: 2,500
Day 19 Words Written: 1,402
Cumulative Word Count: 28,228

Seeking motivation

Following Wednesday's less-than-stellar output on Snakebit, I decided on Thursday morning that what I needed was some good motivation. So I searched. And searched. And searched some more, until I found good stuff!

Some of the best came from the staff at NaNoWriMo. These people are incredibly encouraging, not to mention funny. They send out weekly "Pep Talk" e-mails which challenge, boost, and encourage all the NaNoWriMo participants. They tend to be humorous, and they usually speak directly to whatever it is I am experiencing at the moment.

This week's pep talk was a good one, but what really intrigued me was one from 2007 by Neil Gaiman (of Sandman and Eternals fame). I'm not quite sure how I happened upon it, but I'm glad I did, because he spoke to the work angle of writing a novel. To quote:

"You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat."

I needed to hear that.

In addition to Pep Talks From Writers Better Than I, the people at NaNoWriMo also put up some helpful videos, like this one describing Week Three of the bit of madness that is NaNoWriMo.

I also found motivation in an unexpected place. I'll admit up front that Wesley Crusher was not my favorite character in "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but I was impressed with the blog by the actor who portrayed him, Wil Wheaton. Who knew Doctor Crusher's baby boy could write?

I had been checking some keywords on Twitter when I saw a link from Wheaton' s blog posted as a retweet. I probably would have ignored it, but it quoted Warren Ellis, so I had to check it out. Turned out to be another motivational blog post that said something I needed to hear.

Of course, all this searching for motivation came at a cost: I only got 1,402 words done. But I feel good about it, and there is much more to come.

NaNoWriMo Update: Days 17/18 -- Inertia Creeps

Daily Stats

Days 17/18 Word Quota: 2,500
Days 17/18 Words Written: 1,739
Cumulative Word Count: 26,826

A writer at rest tends to remain at rest

The events of Tuesday and Wednesday made be wonder if taking a break from writing is ever a good idea. I can see arguments on both sides, and I've still not made up my mind on the issue.

Because Jean was working from home on Tuesday, I scheduled the day as a planned non-writing day. To be honest, I was glad for the time off. I'd been busting my hump for six days straight, trying to get caught up on my cumulative word count while still maintaining some sembelance of a plot. My brain needed a rest, and I looked forward to taking a day off from Snakebit and NaNoWriMo.

I used the day to catch up on some housework, write some phase outlines (I apparently can't let a day go by without doing something for NaNoWriMo), and enjoy having my wife at home. It turned out to be a very productive and enjoyable day. I felt good, and all was right with the world. And for Wednesday, I anticipated picking up Snakebit with the same gusto I felt on Monday. I was on a roll, and ready to get back into action. Right?

Wrong.

Wednesday morning came, and the zeal with which I had written on Monday was just... gone. I couldn't seem to make myself sit down at the computer and type. I'd sit in front of the monitor, staring at the blank screen in front of me, waiting for the muse to strike.

For most of the day, she didn't show up.

Distractions and Sarah Palin

I was distracted most of the day, always finding something to keep me from writing. I was cold. I wanted to do something outside. The cats were being incredibly annoying, whether they were hanging tails and paws from the top of the monitor to hide the screen from me or snagging my chair any time I got up from the computer. My inner editor even popped in for a visit, asking me "why bother?" when I know that 50,00o words won't finish the book. Then I heard about Sarah Palin's visit to Birmingham, and that got me to toying with the idea of attending her book signing in true Hunter S. Thompson/gonzo style (I later dismissed this idea, remembering that I have no desire to be tasered by the Mountain Brook police).

What it boils down to is that I let inertia get hold of me. Not writing on Tuesday made me not want to write on Wednesday. Fortunately, I recognized this before it became a giant issue. I pressed on and made myself sit down in front of the computer, getting out 600 words out before I went in for my bar shift, and then knocking out 1,000 or so more after I got home.

I'll admit that I let Wednesday get away from me, and that I only finished a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish for the day. But the bright side, for me, is that I got something done, that I achieved something positive out of the day. It wasn't so long ago that I would have blown off such a day completely. But I didn't.

For that I am glad.

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 16 -- Midterm review

Daily Stats

Day 16 Word Quota: 2,500
Days 16 Words Written: 3,696
Cumulative Word Count: 25,087

Midterm Review

Monday was a big day for a couple of reasons. For one, I had my second-highest daily output since I began NaNoWriMo. Second, I hit the word-count midpoint for the month; a big deal in and of itself, but I think it's more significant for me that I hit it on schedule.

I feel good about this, and I think I should feel good about it. I put a lot of work and planning into this project/challenge/bit of madness. Seeing that magical halfway mark appear when I planned for it to do so is a nice bit of affirmation for the work I'm doing.

I expected these past two weeks to be filled with agony. I anticipated writing into the wee hours of the night, every night, connected to a straight caffeine I.V. and pulling my hair out while I wrestled with character and plot.

Hasn't happened. It's been -- I can't say easy, because it's not -- but enjoyable. And as November has progressed, my writing is coming easier and I'm having fun. I suppose it is much like undertaking a new exercise regimen; the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more you enjoy it.

Problem issues

There have been problems, to be sure. Disposing of my inner editor was the biggest one, but I shipped him off to parts unknown in a small, cramped crate. Which is actually fairly humane and better treatment than he deserved. My inner editor is a jerk, but I will start listening to him when he returns in January.

Procrastination is another issue, but I think I've finally, truly realized that Snakebit isn't going to write itself. The greatest ideas in my head don't mean squat if I don't make the time to sit at the keyboard and actually get them out of my head.

I also had to get used to the idea that the first draft wasn't going to be perfect. I am certain that the eventual Snakebit manuscript will be something quite different from what I'm putting out this month. I really started moving along when I could tell myself that I'm laying a foundation.

Imperfect is okay (for now)

Knowing that I didn't have to be perfect also affected me in another positive manner: I started cranking out material. I have been surprised at how many words I can get out in a day. The episodes for my other writing project, Committed, also run about 2,500 words each. I would sweat and strain and fuss over those episodes for a week, and often longer. I considered a 1,000 word day as an exceptional output. Not any more. I like that a lot, and I plan for this new productivity to carry over to other projects once NaNoWriMo is done.

One more thing: I'm finding that finishing 50,000 words will only get me about three-quarters of the way through the novel. While the 50,000 word goal is a good one -- and one that I think is definitely in sight -- I want to finish the book. Looks like I'll be upping my word quotas. Can I do 3,500 a day? Every day? I want to give it a shot.

So I am eager to get going with the rest of the month. I'm caught up, I'm working my plan, and I'm going to end up with something I've wanted for a long, long time.

NaNoWriMo Update: Days 14/15 -- Good and Bad

Daily Stats

Day 14/15 Word Quota: 5,000
Days 13 Words Written: 3,872
Cumulative Word Count: 21,391

The Good, the Bad, and the Lazy

The weekend provided a mixed bag for my NaNoWriMo efforts. Saturday was good; I hit my 2,500-word goal easily. As for Sunday? Not so much.

C'est la vie.

I was motivated Saturday to get my work done early for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to watch some of the Auburn-Georgia game that evening, and second, we planned to meet one of Jean's old friends for dinner that night. So it was important to me to get the day's writing done, and done early. And I did. Although I took my time writing throughout the day, by five o'clock that afternoon, I was done -- and I had surpassed the 20,000-word mark for my story.

Write or Die

One thing that helped me was an obnoxious little web app called "Write or Die". This is a program into which you enter your word-count goal and an amount of time, and then begin typing. The program keeps up with your word count, and alerts you when you are slipping behind in your progress. It's a nifty program to help guilt a writer into getting words on a page, and it has a particularly nasty way of letting you know when you're really behind (I won't spoil the surprise if anyone out there plans to use it). I know I will be using Write or Die more often as the month goes on.

Sunday was not nearly as productive. For some reason, I was stricken with the lazy bug yesterday. I was up early and did work on some phase outlines, but I didn't get into my writing until after 4 p.m. There were a couple of naps in between, as well as some viewing of a Venture Brothers Season Two DVD (for inspiration, of course). By the time I called it quits when Jean got home from teaching her yoga class, I hadn't even hit the 1,500 word mark.

All in all, however, things are getting easier as time passes. The good NaNoWriMo folks state that week two is the most difficult, and I agree. But that week is gone, a new one is beginning, and I'm hitting my stride.

It's going to be a good week.

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 13 -- A Milestone

Daily Stats

Day 13 Word Quota: 2,500
Days 13 Words Written: 2,504
Cumulative Word Count: 17,519

My personal milestone

Friday marked a milestone for me: It was the first day I achieved my NaNoWriMo word count goal during the day before I had to go in for my shift at the Pork Palace.

In short, that meant that when I got home from work around 10:30 I was able to chill out, talk with my lovely wife, and indulge in some mindless relaxation (which in this case meant checking out some old "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episodes on WB.com). It also meant, almost as importantly, that I wouldn't be sitting down in front of the computer, tired and brain-dead, trying to reach my word goal before I could get into bed.

Before I wrote word one for NaNoWriMo, I made a schedule for November that determined how many words I would need to write each day. I also included daily guidelines for achieving my word goal. Ideally, I would get up each writing day, spend 30 minutes to an hour surfing the web, checking mail, updating facebook, and so forth. Then there would be some general housework, with the rest of the non-workday committed to NaNoWriMo before I would get ready for my shift at the Pork Palace.

Ah, the best laid plans.

I've been trying to follow my my schedule, I really have. But I didn't count on my procrastinatory tendencies. I've been pretty bad about doing anything and everything around the house for hours before finally noticing that half the day was gone, and if I was going to get anywhere near my word count for the day, I would have to light a large, hot fire under my ass. By doing this, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and up until yesterday I was having to come in after work and write, staying up much later than normal just so I could reach my quota.

Thursday was such a day, and before I went to work I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,700 words done, with another 800 to do when I got home. I was tired and the writing didn't come easy, but I stuck with it and reached my quota sometime around 1:30 on Friday morning (about three hours later than when I normally like to hit the sheets).

The stage was set for Friday to be an underachieving day. I slept in, and got a later start on my writing than usual. But I was determined. I made myself sit at the computer, and by the time I started to get ready for work at three o'clock, I was excited to find that I had done 2,504 words. My quota was met! Done for the day! No late-night Friday writing!

So another day, another word goal met, another step closer to a first draft of what's turning into a fairly interesting novel. I'm working my plan, I'm having fun, and I'm learning about myself as I go.

It's hard to argue against that!

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 12 -- Overcoming procrastination

Daily Stats

Day 12 Word Quota: 2,500
Days 12 Words Written: 2,678
Cumulative Word Count: 15,015

Overcoming Procrastination

Thursday was a roller-caster ride. I began the day with the best of intentions, tried to make a mountain out of a molehill of a plot situation during the morning, almost procrastinated myself into trouble in the afternoon, and finally ended up beating my word quota late Thursday night.

Just another NaNoWriMo day at the Kirby homestead.

However, I am very pleased with the day's end result. I overcame some self-sabotaging tendencies, and because I sat down and did the writing, I am now back on track concerning my schedule. That's a good thing.

Now if I can just keep myself off facebook (with the fiendishly addictive Bejeweled Blitz), avoid Twitter, and stop finding months-old honey-do projects I've been successfully ignoring for time without end, I might just get this Snakebit written!