Writing Progress - Big Zero

In an ideal world, a world of concentrated attention to NaNoWriMo.org activities I would be focused upon the job of writing a novel.

In the real world:

My back hurts now because I tensed up in the dentist’s chair yesterday while I was getting my teeth cleaned. It was like I’d passed on into an advanced stage of rigor mortis. They’re so blamed sensitive I was jerking, and twitching, and gagging. It was horrible. The dentist apologized to me afterward. I said, “Oh, that’s okay. It happens every time. At least I wasn’t screaming.” He looked at me funny. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t drink anymore. The comments that used to come out of my mouth in those days must have been fabulous.

The further unsettling news is that I’ve got to get 3 crowns. To maximize dental benefits I’m getting 2 done next month and the third done the following month. Oh, joy.

The more unsettling news is that my car is due to be smogged at a test only station. If it doesn’t pass I can either have it repaired (which could be really big bucks) or I can sell it to the State of California. I’ll have to investigate that avenue.

I didn’t need all these crappy things on my mind as I’m trying to craft a novel. No wonder I got a boil on my rear end last year.

NaNoWriMo - Day 3

Well, I’m writing. That’s about all I can say. Progress on an actual novel? Well, no. Not yet. It’s like eating the crusts off of your sandwich completely until you get to go forward into the center where the truly good stuff resides. Word count for NaNoWriMo: 6,552 I wish I could find a cute widget.

And, She's Off....Writing for NaNoWriMo.org

I don’t anticipate a whole lot of action in my blogs this month. I’m participating in the NaNoWriMo.org November Novel Writing Contest. I’ve written two days and devised a clever, yet way cool spreadsheet to track how I’m doing. Different than the table I used last year which had a count of each chapter. This one takes into account the fact that I might dip into an already written part and add to it. How it will work is at the end of a days writing I cover over the entire text…ctrl A ought to do it and get a word count. The word count is placed into the table.

What I think is neat is that the equations are set up to subtract all that has been produced before to come up with just what was done that day. That way I can begin in the middle of a sentence, which is a good thing. Not having a completed thought when you leave a piece of writing enables you more easily to pick up on your train of thought when you return to it. At least that's what they've told me. Then I also don't have to do awkward things like color coding anything or mark it in any way so I know just exactly where that piece of writing happened. I also incorporated an IF statement so that the next day’s stuff doesn’t return a weird number. I also have a number for where I should be. That way I can easily see if I’m still on target. Roughly, I want to do 3 pages a day. More if I can handle it.

Anyway, if I can get it up here you can see what I did. The places to input numbers are in the green column. That would be the total written in its entirety. Ctrl A to select and word count to see how many words. Then, you can widen the comments column. It wouldn't fit in the blog unless I squeezed it up. If it helps somebody, good. I think it will help me to stay on target.

What I find interesting is that you, Dear Reader, can input numbers into this spreadsheet to see how it works. Refreshing the page returns it to how I uploaded it. You can even save it for yourself if you want.

It's Over 20,907 Words

Okay, I've declared the writing over for me. The word count stands at 20,907 and, interestingly enough this morning I wrote 222 words. How's that for a neat coi-inki-dink? I figured that was the universe's way or my higher self's way of saying, "Stop already, it's over. You did good".

I'll be glad to start posting here more regularly again. I've missed it, and had even started a few entries only to scrap them once I'd let off steam. They weren't particularly interesting, even to me. Why bother? Also, it felt like energy I needed for my other stuff was being syphoned off into this whiney voice and I didn't want to spread that around. Sort of like having a cold and passing on germs, I guess.

We still don't have DSL. Poo on SBC/AT&T. Comcast modem is supposed to arrive tomorrow though the computers are not yet ready. I need to take a trip to Office Depot...maybe tonight after work.

How the Universe Works

Point your nose in the right direction and the universe will help you to move right along. Our DSL is down. I needed to get cracking on what I’ve done channeling for the NaNoWriMo project. Guess what? Surfing the old fashioned way just does not appeal to me. It takes forever for web pages to turn and pictures to load. I’m just not used to that anymore. So? I’m being super productive this weekend. I got 1,000 words done yesterday and another 1,000 today. About. Just sort of rounding it off. Total channeled/written for NaNoWriMo sits at 18,386 right now.

Writing Away

I got up early again this morning. I’d forgotten how I really work better keeping “Writer’s Hours” which for me are to work while everybody is still sleeping. I put on the headphones and zone out on my brain wave altering music by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. My current favorites are the Delta wave stuff. All of them work fine, but I tend to reach for that first. Funny, you would think that something along the lines of Alpha would work better for me with the channeling, but the Delta stuff is just fine.

Actually, years ago the best stuff I found to listen to while I was working on “the Stone” which was my murder mystery, swash buckling, horror, romance, three hanky tear jerker novel presently under my bed, was a subliminal tape designed to get a person to lose weight. I didn’t lose any weight then, but it surely did jump start my creative batteries. I never really understood how that worked. All I know is it did.

Anyway, word count is at 15,833 this morning. I’m about 5,000 in the hole as far as what I’d wanted to do and found that to be slightly discouraging for awhile. However, I’m working at it most every day. And, although I’m only getting between 500 and 800 out at any one sitting it’s more than nothing. I’m finding that I need to rethink what I consider to be “good work” and what I consider to be “slacker performance”. It will all come together in the end. It’s good training for me and I think I would like to continue this mode of writing and channeling for a good long while after the end of November rolls up.

If you think about it, if a person were to just write 500 words every day. Every single day to take half and hour to 45 minutes to write at the end of a year they’d have more than 180,000 words. That’s pretty decent.

13,915 words

You know, I do this to myself. When they ask me what I’m doing these days I tell people I’m participating in NaNoWriMo. Then, they want to know what I’m writing. Letting the cat out of the bag (with me, anyway) is a sure fire way of jinxing the entire operation. Especially, when I say that I’m channeling the work. What? Then, I need to go into the explanation of what that is. Why do I do this to myself? I don’t need the aggravation at this point. I’m already 4,000 words in the hole. Yikes. Anyway, posts to these blogs are going to be short and infrequent over the weekend because I’m busy. Word count this morning is: 13,915

Progress

I thought to mention that I'm at 13, 582 on my word count for NaNoWriMo It's not what I'd hoped to do, but making allowances for my boil, which is healing, and back ache which is better, I figure it's not bad. I just did 1,000 words this morning. I'm looking to the weekend to get caught up somewhat. I'm pleased with what's been done so far. I also had the opportunity to make a cameo appearance myself this morning in what was channeled. Whether that stays or not is debatable...but, I personally got some good work done for me.

That's one of the major benefits of channeling. You have the opportunity to do your own work and have somebody help you with it too. It's why I wanted to do this in the first place. I didn't want to be hieing myself off to psychotherapist and psychic alternately paying out the big bucks for the rest of my life. Do it yourself...that's my motto. Some guide just made a crack about learning dentistry. I do draw the line, bud.

Anyway, upbeat this morning and need to go get ready to go to work.

It's Friday!

I'm Not Writing

The creative juices sort of dried up today as far as the NaNoWriMo.org program goes. I was however, able to channel a bit off topic and posted it to the Learn to Channel blog and wrote a pissy little piece to post to The Psychic Vents. Then, not to be undone, I figured to be fair I ought to post something here even if it isn’t anything of real importance to anybody in the world. How’s that for blah?

Well, I could let everybody know how the boil on my back is coming along. It is healing, but it sure looks gross. To point out what a very loving and attentive husband DeeDude is he did not even recoil in horror when I’ve asked him every day to tell me how it is doing. If it is appropriate (he uses his judgment because I can’t see the damn thing) he works at squeezing the pus out of it. Now, isn’t that gross? It does hurt like hell. But, I cannot stand the thought of having this thing on my back. It’s like an alien has imbedded itself under my skin (a channeling funny for you, somebody just said, “Watch out.” ….LOL) to grow and be something that swallowed Cincinnati.

I read on the internet today all sorts of cautionary notes about squeezing boils, except, it’s not hard anymore because I have been using hot, moist compresses a lot and I think the antibiotics are working. It eventually melts. I fully expect this sucker to be healed by the end of next week. I hope it doesn’t go any longer than that.

The bummer about this is folks with diabetes are prone to getting boils. My first experience was many years ago maybe a year or so before I was officially diagnosed with diabetes. They kept saying, “Use antibacterial soap, quit wearing tight clothes, use wet, hot compresses.” And, that year I must have had 10 of them. I was so miserable. It was horrid. I stopped calling the doctor about them. They never did give me any antibiotics. I should have been more forceful. Note to anybody with a boil: Do not pick at it unless you plan to totally disregard what wiser heads have to advise about them. A totally mind blowing cautionary note I read this morning about them were about boils on your face. Pick at them and you tempt brain damage. What? What? Okay, it’s on my back. It’s not on my face.

But, I don’t feel very good. And, the momentum to write serious stuff, stuff for my project at NaNoWriMo is just not there. So, I’m blogging instead. At least that’s sort of useful.

Write Every Day

I don’t know if he still does this, but there was a time when Stephen King would write every single day of the year except for Christmas, his birthday and the Fourth of July. If ever I wanted to have an idol it would be him. I love the way he writes. I love that he kept trying even after he’d gotten rejection after rejection. I love that he came from humble circumstances. He’s an ordinary guy. He’s done an extraordinary thing.

He scares the crap out of me, but he is also the reason why I am a channel now. I OD’d once on his novels. And, after that the weird psychic stuff started happening. And, here I am today.

But, if you need somebody to help you over the rough spots in your own path of creativity pick somebody who is working in the field of your heart’s desire and pattern your own work or the way you work after them. And, if he can show up every day to work, so can I.

NaNoWriMo word count this morning is 9,988, still real close to my goal of 1,000 words a day.