Pimping my friends in an attempt to feel better

It's late, and I'm tired and grumpy, so just a little something to make this actually count as a blog entry.

Actually, I think something that will make me feel better is to tell you about something one of my friends has done. Jenn Brissett has written a novel that is getting all kinds of amazing notice. Elysium is a new and notable book at Locus Magazine, it's been well reviewed at places like Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post and i09. And. AND it's nominated for a Philip K Dick award. I haven't yet had the chance to read it, but it's on my short-list, and I've heard from a few people I truly respect that it's nothing shot of amazing. Jenn and I went to Stonecoast together and she was one of those folks who were ahead of me that I wanted to keep an eye on. And with good reason. On top of having written a great book, she's also super nice.

You should all check out her book, and tell her that I told you to do it, okay?

There. I do feel better.

Here are tonight's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,466

Novel word count: 53,143

Old music and writing, plus numbers

I've been having good writing days lately. I contribute a good bit of this to my strict lack of writing rituals. I've written briefly about this before. I used to ritualize the act of writing, and I've cut out all of that nonsense. Well, almost. If I have anything like a ritual anymore, it centers around the music I listen to while I'm writing. I can waste a good few hours coming up with the perfect playlist to listen to. Spotify has made this task both easier and more difficult. Easier in that I can find some many great songs so easily. Difficult in the I have so many more songs at my fingertips -- it makes choosing difficult sometimes.

Lately I've been listening to older stuff, stuff that I remember listening to 20 or 30 years ago. You know, when I was a baby. Not sure why this is. I usually crave new music. Maybe it's a phase >shrugs shoulders<. For now I'm just rolling with it.

Here's one song that's been in heavy rotation on my current writing playlist (entitled, imaginatively, Writing II) on Spotify. Supergrass were a British alternative band in the early '90s. This song, "Alright," is the only one I remember from them. I think it's in a commercial for something right now. That may be where I heard it and decided I needed it in a playlist. Or maybe it's in a movie the boys have watched lately. Kids' movies seem full of oddly inappropriate music cues nowadays, thought that probably hasn't changed much since I was a kid. Anyway, here's the video for the song, which seems like a classic of the let's-grab-a-camera-and-shoot-a-video-to-promote-our-hit-single variety. This sort of thing would never fly today...



That video really makes me want a plain white tee with "ADAM" printed across the front in Futura black.

Here are today's numbers:
Daily word count: 1,641
Novel word count: 51,677

50,000 and a late announcement

My latest work-in-progress is a fantasy novel titled Sowing Serpent's Teeth. I just hit 50,000 words, so I'd guess I'm about 50% through this beast. This seems like a good time to start recording my progress on the book.

This is something I did with Zomburbia when I was writing it, though I started tracking that book much later in the process. I'm doing this for a couple of reason. 1) I want to hold myself accountable in a public way. I had a hard time with the beginning of this novel and I want to give myself as few reasons as possible to miss a day of writing. If I think someone somewhere might notice me letting a day slide, then I'm all the less likely to do it. 2) Tracking the numbers forces me to write other things in this space as well since I don't want to write about just the numbers. I've long been neglecting this blog and that needs to change. So, numbers it is if that'll help.

Here's something I should have written about last week and didn't, because I've been slacking off, you see. 

In case you didn't catch it, my novel, Zombified, the sequel to Zomburbia, was released last week. It's available from a number of online retailers, of course (and this link will take you to my publisher's page where you can find links to the book on many of those sites), but it would be great if you decided to buy it from an independent bookseller in your area. One indie book store you may want to consider buying it from is The Book Bin in my hometown of Salem, Oregon. If you get it through them, you can ask to have me sign or personalize your copy; something I'm more than happy to do. 

There have been a few other things going on with me and my writing, but I'll save those for upcoming numbers round-ups. 

That's all there is to say for now, I suppose, except I want to thank you for checking out my blog. Thanks for sticking around during the fallow period if you've been reading for a while, and hello if you're new to the place.

And now, here are the numbers:

Daily word count: 1,386

Novel word count: 50,036

Update 4/20

One of the things that thrills me, and frustrates me, about writing is how things I am making up -- things coming out of my own head and which I should know very well -- can so completely surprise me. Case in point: Tonight I began a chapter featuring a new character. A character that I wasn't expecting to show up for several more chapters. A character who isn't even in the outline I wrote out for several more chapters! And yet, there she is, in a scene I never outlined but that seems to make total sense. And is a much better introduction than my outline gives her, too, by the way. Why did I even bother with an outline? I guess I'm more of a "making it up as I go along" type writer...

I hope I continue to be surprised.

Here are tonight's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,129

Monthly word count:6,265

Novel word count: 6,265

Writing! New numbers!

Lots of writing-related stuff going on at the moment, which is probably how it should be. I guess. Zomburbia is currently with three new readers, and its first reader thinks that I'm a polish away from being able to send it to an agent and then to publishers. My fingers are crossed. I'm working on what looks like will be another novel, numbers for which you will find at the bottom of this post. I've joined a new writing group. Actually, I am the founding member of a brand new writing group which is comprised of me and one other writer (hi, Kate!), but it's gonna blow up, I can tell. On top of all of that, I currently have, what, four comics things in various stages of development. Three of those are with a co-writer (hi, Phil!) and one that I'm writing my self.

That feels like a lot. Probably more than I can reasonably handle. We'll see.

And here are today's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,018

Monthly word count: 5,136

Novel word count: 5,136

I'm well into chapter two and things are developing nicely. I like the main character and I'm having fun developing the world. So that's all good.

Thanks for your kind attention.

Hello, Blogger. I've missed you.

Speaking with Greig Means this weekend (editor and publisher of the excellent Tugboat Press, about which I need to write, I think) it occurred to me that I hadn't been updating this blog much lately. This is for a variety of reasons, none of which need to be gone into here despite the fact that this is a blog and that's usually exactly the kind of thing that is gone into.

Anyway, it occurred to me what I useful tool this blog was when I was writing my novel. I posted my progress every day and if I had no progress, I posted that, too. The knowledge that people were keeping track of those slowly mounting numbers helped to motivate me. I bring this all up because I seem to find myself writing another novel. What I think will become another novel, at least. (My wife's declaration to this bit of news was something like, "Why would you do that?" Indeed.)

I didn't come up with the idea of publicly tracking my progress. In the grand tradition of writers everywhere, I stole the idea from someone more talented and more intelligent than me. Cherie Priest, writer of scary stories and, lately, steampunk novels does just this. I've also noted that just lately, in the last couple of days, Warren Ellis (Ellis's site is very often NSFW) is also tracking his novel-in-progress's growing word count. So I'm in good company, I suppose.

So let me recap, very quickly, my progress so far, starting with the fact that my goal is to write 1,000 words a day.

On Friday, I wrote 1,026 words. Saturday yielded 1,092. On Sunday I had a full day with Oscar up in Portland and I only managed 317 words, but I made up for that by writing 1,683 words tonight which is 2,000 exactly for the last two days. That makes a grand total of 4,118. There. Starting tomorrow, I'll start having a running total at the bottom of each post until I get to end of the first draft.

I suppose I should write just a bit about the first novel, Zomburbia. I finished the second draft and sent it off to three readers. My first reader is going to give it another once-over and two new victims volunteers are also reading it. Soon I will have even more corrections to make, I'm sure, and I'll be able start on a third draft. After that, who knows. Maybe it'll be time to start finding an agent. As much as I'm able, I'll document the whole process here.

Lucky you.

One story down...

I finished that short story. No, I conquered it. I laid waste to its, um, something. Anyway, you can be sure that I saw it driven before me and heard the lamentation of its women. So there.

It helped to walk away from it for a couple of days. Give it a rest. Back in the old days I used to feel like it was some kind of defeat if I couldn't finish a story in just a few days. maybe that's why they weren't very good and none of them were ever published. Just a thought. This time around, by which I mean this current push to write and publish, I'm letting things take as much time as they need. Though it still feels good to put the words THE END at the bottom of a document.

This story turned out to be about 4,200 words written over four sessions. That's roughly 1,000 words a session. It feels like I should be able to do it more quickly than I did, but I'm cutting myself slack. Something I need to do a lot more of.

Now I need to let it sit for a few days more and give it a polish before I send it off to a reader.

In other writing news, I got back notes on my novel from my first reader. Now I need to sit down and actually make the changes and polish it up. A month's work? That's what I'll be aiming for. Wish me luck.

And to make this post of interest to more than just me (maybe), here's a music video. This is what I listened to for the most part as I wrote. Weezer's first album. Good, good stuff.

Another quick update

I wrote another 1,082 words on the short story I started yesterday. For those keeping count, meaning me, that's 2,151 words total so far.

This is another in a series I've been writing featuring a magician named (stage-named) Christopher Dark. This story is about a bit of sex magic that goes pretty horribly wrong and it's been a lot of fun to write so far. I stopped writing just before it's revealed exactly how it went wrong, so it should be even more fun to write once I pick it up again. Yea for having fun while I write!

That is all for now.

The last numbers of 2010

I was at my part-time job when the yearly odometer rolled over from 2010 to 2011. Don't get me wrong, I really like my job, but that was not really where I wanted to be Friday night. There was nothing to do about it, however. Nothing but sulk, I mean.

I like the way I spend my time over New Year's Eve/Day to be meaningful to me. I want it to be a reflection of my values and desires. Usually It will be with friends or family. That wasn't an option this year. So as I sat there feeling sorry for myself, I started to wonder how I could use that time in a way that meant something to me. And then I remembered that I had an unfinished draft of a short story on my laptop.

Let me say a word about my job here. I work as a projectionist at a locally-owned, independent movie theater. Projecting films is just one of the things I do as that process is largely automated. You should forget your romantic notions of sitting up in the booth waiting to change over from one reel to another. In our theater, we have a platter system. When the reels come in, our manager, Abby (hi, Abby!), assembles them into one big reel on a platter. So once I thread up the film in the projector, all I have to do is hit start, make sure everything is running fine, and then walk away. That's simplified a bit, but not much. After the films have all been started (there are three auditoriums in the theater), we employees have a bit of down time. We stock and clean, too, but we still have a lot of time to ourselves. Most folks play games, talk, eat, etc. I usually choose to write or work on homework. I'm explaining all of this so you won't think that I was getting away with something as I sat there for an hour and wrote. This happened after the last set of shows had started for the night and we had cleaned and stocked all we could before the movies let out.

So, yeah, I finished a story. My fourth of the semester. I was happy because I had originally thought I wouldn't get to finish it until after I came back from the MFA residency later this month. I was also happy because writing is one of the things I want to devote myself to this year. It felt good. And, after a month of not writing, I was happy with how easily I fell back into the process. I wrote a little more than 3,000 words in just over an hour. That might be faster than I've ever written. I think it's because I told myself that I had to finish the story before midnight rolled around, which meant I would need to finish it before the movies let out and I had my theater duties to attend to.

So, here are some updated numbers for the last of 2010:

Words written for 12/31/10: 3,080

Words total for Story D: 8,870

Which brings my word total for the semester up to 124,720. Just shy of 125k, which is just shy of 500 pages. Damn. Ah, well, maybe next semester. It's a new year, after all. Anything feels possible.

Stonecoast and lots of numbers

For those of you who are unaware, I started a writing MFA program, Stonecoast, this Summer. I know I've mentioned it in this space a few times and I wanted to write about it at more length now that I've just completed the first semester of work. First I'll talk about my intentions in following the grad school route, and then I'll assess what I think I've accomplished this semester. Finally, tacked on to the end in an ungainly manner, I'll run the numbers on what I wrote over the last few months. Sounds fun, right?

First, what I wasn't expecting by attending an MFA program. I don't think writing that leads to publishing can be taught. I certainly had no belief that I would be handed a magical set of rules that, once followed, led to me becoming the next Stephen King. I think that lots of writing and re-writing is the only thing that can lead to publication.

And that's one of the big reasons I wanted to go back to school. Time. I'll admit that last year when I was considering applying to grad school , I was feeling more than a little lost. I had been a stay-at-home dad for two years and while that was great, and continues to be great, it was not how I defined myself. I'd always thought of myself as a writer. Only I wasn't doing much writing. Since 2003, when my first professionally published comic came out, comics was the medium through which I channeled my creativity. There was no comics work. Several proposals had been rejected and no one was exactly knocking down my door to submit more. I knew that the entire industry was in an economic downturn, but that didn't really help boost my ego.

It occurred to me then that I should get back to writing prose. Writing comics had seemed like a sideline back when I was first published, but then it became my sole focus. So, prose. I tried a couple of times to write longer prose pieces -- I've never cared much for writing short stories, though I seem to be developing a taste for them now. But it was hard to find a focus. I struggled for more than a year with one piece, got about 150 pages and then stalled out when my computer suffered a hard drive crash that was unrepairable. After I calmed down about so much wasted work, it was almost a relief. I've since recovered that word document and can't bring myself to go back and reread it to see if it can be salvaged. I may need to just consign it to the dustbin of history, as it were.

I thought that a writing program of some sort might be just what I needed. It would get me back into the habit of writing prose and it would impose a deadline to do so. Perfect. And while I don't believe you can teach someone to write, I did think that a grad program would have other benefits. Among these, I'd be exposed to a group of writing professional and I would get their critiques of my work, I'd meet and (I hoped) become friends with peers who were in the same situation as me, and I would learn from those who had already gone through the process of getting published the ins and outs of the business. Of those three the second, meeting peers, was most important to me. Living where I do, I feel sometimes like I'm living in a creative vacuum. It's been nice to have people I can reach out to via email or facebook and know that they are sharing a similar experience.

Once I decided that a writing program is what I wanted, I had to decide which one. I interviewed a couple of writers who had been through MFAs. They told me the same thing -- an observation borne out on various websites and in interviews I've read. As soon as I told them that I wanted to write genre fiction, their reply was that I would have a difficult time finding a program that would work with me. Most MFA programs are welcoming of non-genre, or literary, fiction and don't know what to do with genre. And even if a program said they'd work with you, I was told, I would find that that statement was designed just to get me in the door. Once there, I'd find an environment hostile to genre fiction. This was discouraging to say the least, and it led to me putting the idea on the back burner for a while.

I was toying with the idea of applying to the Clarion Writers' Workshop, an intensive six-week long "boot camp" for writers, when I heard a radio interview with Kelly Link. Ms Link is a phenomenal writer of surreal short stories and a recent favorite of mine. In the interview she was asked what work she did besides writing and she said that she taught at the Stonecoast MFA. That sent me running to the Internet to look up the program. Like every MFA in the country, Stonecoast has disciplines in Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry. What makes them unique is that they also offer a concentration in Popular Fiction (read: Genre Fiction). It didn't take me long to decide that I wanted to go there. And it was the only program to which I applied. If I had not been accepted, I would have taken it as a sign that I wasn't meant to go to grad school and I needed to find another way to advance my writing. I am so happy that I got accepted.

I was even happier when, a few months ago, Poets and Writers magazine named Stonecoast one of the top ten low-residency MFA programs in the country. What, I hear you asking, does low-residency mean? A full-residency program is one which holds classes every day. You stop your life to attend, move to the city where the college is located, etc. A low-res program just means it's part-time. Twice a year I go to Maine for two weeks to attend classes, lectures, and workshops. The rest of the time, I'm at home doing the required homework. I mail off five packets over the six months of the semester and communicate with my advisor (in the program they are called "mentors") over the phone or via email. It's all self-directed and self-motivating so it's really a case of sink or swim for the students.

Which leads to the section where I talk about what I've accomplished. One of the unexpected results of being accepted -- a real sense of urgency to my writing. Seriousness. Fucking gravitas. Let me give you an example using the novel I just finished. In the four months before I started the MFA program, I wrote just 12,500 words -- that's 56 pages. After starting the program in mid-July through the beginning of December -- about four and a half months -- I wrote an additional 91,000 words. That's just shy of 400 pages. And I didn't use the novel toward the page count for my homework. It far exceeded what the school's handbook says to send to the advisors on a monthly basis. I wrote and sent in short stories. If there was a day when I didn't write, I felt bad about myself.

And I wasn't the only person affected by this. Paying for an MFA program makes your family and friends take your writing very seriously. Suddenly my writing became a priority.

I also feel like I've gained confidence in my writing. The comments I received in workshop last July, and the critiques from my advisor, have really boosted my ego -- in a good way. And, not to worry, I'm still getting some fairly humbling responses as well.

Now that I've completed a draft of my novel, I feel like my experience at Stonecoast will be different. Next semester I see myself devoting myself to rewriting the novel and not devoting so much time to writing new material. I'll probably write enough just to satisfy the packet requirements and then use the rest of my time on the rewrites. I want to get this thing polished up and to an agent as soon as possible. I want to see if it's publishable.

And now the numbers:

Last numbers dump of the semester. Here is what I've been doing for the last five months.

As I mentioned, I wrote 91,000 words on my novel. In addition, I also wrote three-and-a-half short stories and a short film script. There was also a new comics proposal thrown in their as well.

Short story A: 8,026

Short story B: 8,682

Short story C: 5,319

Short story D: 5,089 (so far)

Short film: 2,008 (an 11-page script)

Comics project: 1,516

That gives us a grand total of 121, 640 words for the semester. That's 486 pages. Not bad. I guess I don't feel too bad about slowing down through this month (which is all about preparing for the next residency) and the next semester. Come next July, though, I bet I'll be ready to get back on that horse.

I already have an idea for a second novel...

Draft 0.9

Late Friday night/early Saturday morning I typed THE END at the bottom of my novel. And then I just stared at it for a while. And then, this being the age that it is and the time that it was, I updated my FaceBook status and went to bed.

If only typing those words meant that I was done with this particular work. Unfortunately, it's not even at a place where I can call it a complete draft--that will require another couple of months of writing. Writing I won't be able to get to until January. I have a story to rewrite for my last homework packet and much, much reading to do to prepare for January's residency in Maine. Oh, and I still need to read a short story for a friend and give her notes. Honestly, it already feels a little anticlimactic.

But I am happy to be done. This is the first time I've been able to finish the draft of a novel. Now I need to figure out what to do with it. In January, I suppose I'll start patching some of the holes I know exist in the draft. One of the things that allowed me to finish is that I didn't go back and fix things as they occurred to me. I think that's where I'd lost momentum on earlier attempts at a novel. I rewrote as I went and I lost steam. This time I forged ahead and kept notes about all of the things I needed correct. Another thing that helped me was a trick I picked up from Corey Doctorow. He suggest that anytime he came across something that he needed to look up while writing would instead get a "TK" in it's place in the manuscript. TK being two letters that almost never occur together in English. Then, once he's done with a draft, he goes back and replaces all those TKs. Using that method meant that I ran up against something I didn't know at the time I was writing, I didn't have to stop and go look something up on the amazing time-suck device known as the Internet. I just typed two little letters and continued on. We'll see how I feel once I start replacing all of those instances of TK.

So things will be a little quiet here as I try and get caught up on homework. No more writing about writing. At least not the close-to-real-time blogging I've been doing lately. There are a few things I want to write about in the next little while. I want to write about the novel I just (sort of) finished. I want to write about the MFA program I am attending and why I decided to attend one at all. And, based on an email I got from a friend on FaceBook, I want to write a little about my process of writing in general. If anyone reading this has any questions along those lines, add them as a comment and I'll do my best to answer them.

For now, here's the last numbers update for some time. Remember that these are Friday/Saturday's numbers

Daily word count: 2,339

Monthly word count: 5,319

Novel word count: 103,450

Dave Brubeck

An early update. I had to do my writing this afternoon because I won't have a chance tonight. I gave up a nap to get it done. Do you see the kinds of sacrifices I make for my art?!

It'll be another short, music-related post. I thought I'd class it up a little bit. This is a video of The Dave Brubeck Quartet doing "Blue Rondo a la Turk." Good, good stuff. I remember being at a party once in college and a girl I was talking to asked me what kind of jazz I liked. I started my (admittedly short list) with Dave Brubeck. Because of this, she said something to the effect of, "You don't know shit about jazz." I had never stated I did, but this really threw me. It's like she was telling me that I wasn't qualified to like what I liked. And I know this kind of pretentious behavior is part and parcel of being that age, but man it got under my skin. I was so mad I didn't even try to hit on her later in the evening when she was obviously drunk. Because, you know, I have principles. I think it was around this time that I started formulating my "no guilty pleasures" theory, where I refuse to feel bad about anything I like. I may have to expound on that at some point here.

Anyway, take it away, Dave:

And here are today's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,010

Monthly word count: 2,980

Novel word count: 101,111

The Johnny Cash Project + numbers

As I near the end of the draft of the novel, I feel like I'm developing tunnel vision. All I can think about is the book. What happens next, and after that? Until I get to the end. Which will be soon. All I really have time for are these bits of Internet flotsam that seem to constitute how I take in the world these days. The easiest of these to post, and those that seem most meaningful to me right now, are the music videos I've been posting. I feel like I couldn't write without music and when I discover that videos exist for these songs that are meaningful in their own right, well, I just have to share them.

A case in point: The Johnny Cash Project. Director Chris Milk (who directed the beautiful video experience for Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait") has created a site where fans of the late Johnny Cash may contribute to a video of his song "Ain't No Grave." The result is beautiful and moving. I don't want to say too much about it, I'll leave it to you to explore the site, or not. If you click on the link, you won't be disappointed. I promise.

And here are today's numbers.

I was filled with a desire to reach 100,000 words on the novel today. That number, which is nice and round and darts around my brain in a pleasing way, has been floating just out of reach for the last few days and I was determined to put it behind me. Long story short, I did it. Yea, me. Oh, and since this is the beginning of a new month, I'm resetting the numbers. I have a feeling that the novel is the only thing I'll be working on until I reach the end. But I could very well be wrong about that.

Daily word count: 1,970 (which is also the year I was born--more resonance.)

Monthly word count: 1,970

Novel word count: 100,101

Writing update: Nov 29 edition

Just numbers tonight. I didn't start writing until 11:00, which means it's now late and I am tired. Though I feel like I'm having to force myself to stop. I'm in the middle of an exciting (to me) scene, and it's hard to not just keep going. I can feel the novel winding down. This scene, another big character scene, and then some mop up. I'm guess by this weekend I'll be done with this draft. Crazy. I really didn't know if I had it in me. And maybe I still don't. I guess it could all implode before I finish.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

Daily word count: 1405 (novel)

Monthly word count: 34,647 (26,630 novel, 5,790 story, 2,227 new project)

Novel word count: 98,131

R.I.P. Leslie Neilsen

Also, weekend numbers.

Just this morning I was talking to to my wife about Police Squad and some of the hilarious devices they used in each episode to satirize detective shows at the time. This evening I was saddened to learn that Leslie Neielsen, the star of Police Squad and Airplane! and, of course, Forbidden Planet. Nielsen was one of those lucky actors who got to have a second act to his career. (I know that F. Scott Fitzgerald was mostly wrong when he said that there are no second acts in American lives, but, as far as actors are concerned, he was mostly right.) A handsome dramatic actor as a young man, Nielsen was given the opportunity to reinvent himself when he starred in Airplane! There was no looking back.

I remember seeing Airplane! in the theater, which seems impossible now since I was only ten years old at the time, but that might say something about how I was raised. Regardless, I know I didn't understand everything I was watching, but I knew it was transformative. That movie was the benchmark against which I measured all comedies for a very long time.

I'm going to look on amazon.com now to see about buying Police Squad on DVD. If you haven't seen it before, I suggest you do the same.

And here are the numbers:

Daily word count: 3,266 (1,049 novel, 701 story, 1,516 new project)

Monthly word count: 33,242 (25,225 novel, 5,790 story, 2,227 new project)

Novel word count: 96,726

Friday's numbers

Sorry that I'm posting so little besides my daily numbers and the occasional video. I feel like all my free time is spent doing other writing and it's sometimes hard to muster up a decent post here. And I'm not sure when it'll let up. New and interesting things keep cropping up and I can't seem to say no to them. It's not a bad problem to have.

I'm thinking of setting myself a goal of one or two large, juicy posts a week. The rest would just be the filler that you've come to expect, of course. We'll see if I can manage that once I'm done with the draft of this damned novel.

Which brings me to today's numbers:

I started making notes on a new project and I'm going to throw those numbers into the mix, mostly because it's writing I'm doing and I think those numbers should count toward my goal for the month. So there. Also, I made no progress on the short story today.

Daily word count: 1,897 (1,186 novel, 711 new project)

Monthly word count: 28404 (22,608 novel, 5,089 story, 711 new project)

Novel word count: 94,109

It's like a Thanksgiving present to myself

My wife and I decided to stay home today rather than travel to see family for Thanksgiving. That meant it was going to fall to me to make a Turkey and all the trimmings. That's just how things go in the Kreutz Gallardo household. I'm fine with it. I like to cook, and I'm good at it, so I really don't mind. But I had made myself a little crazy over the last few days because I'd never made a turkey before. I think I devoted more time to researching roasting techniques than I have on any piece of homework so far this semester. (If my advisor is reading this, that's hyberbole!) I'd also never made stuffing or from-scratch giblet gravy. Even more time spent researching.

But you can all rest easy, everything (except the stuffing) came out fine. Great, in fact! Not to toot my own own horn, but I think that turkey ranked up there with the top five turkeys I've ever eaten. And, because it was just the three of us -- and one of us is a two-year-old -- we have tons of leftovers. Yes. And it may have gone well, and not been as difficult as I imagined it would be, but I was still confined to the kitchen all day. And the last hour was a mad dash to make sure everything came out at roughly the same time. The point I'm trying to make here is that I felt the need to indulge myself. I'd suggested renting a movie, but my wife didn't feel up to it.

So I wrote. I made a public statement on this forum two days ago that I would be taking Wednesday and Thursday off from writing. That, I can now tell you, was a lie. I am apparently in a place where writing is something I do when I want to treat myself. Who knew I'd ever get there? I feel like mI'm a long ways from the days when staring at the blank screen would just about reduce me to tears. And I may very well get back there again, but I'm enjoying it while I'm able.

I just wrote 1,000+ words on the short story I'm writing. I'd been experiencing some frustration with this story. I had a beginning I liked, and I was pretty sure I knew where I wanted it to end up. It was that pesky middle part that I couldn't figure out. Well, t seems to be coming together now. Hopefully I'll wrap it up the first draft over the weekend.

And now I'll give myself another Thanksgiving present and send myself to bed.

That photo, by the way, was taken by my wife and is of my son regarding the thing that kept his dad from playing with him all day long.

Here are today's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,073 (all on the short story)

Monthly word count: 26,508 (21,419 novel, 5,089 story)

Novel word count: 92,923 (unchanged)

Just the numbers

I'm going to be taking off tomorrow and Thursday from writing. I'm far enough ahead that I just want to enjoy Thanksgiving. And, of course, I need tomorrow to actually prepare for the enjoyment of Thanksgiving (I'll be preparing my first Turkey, etc). It'll be nice, and I'll be back at it starting Friday.

I stopped writing last night at the end of a chapter. I then realized that when I started writing today, I'd be starting on what I believe will be the last chapter of the novel. I know that I wrote a while ago that it felt like the ending was receding away from me, but lately I feel like I need to slow myself down -- that I need to not rush the ending. The whole process that's gone into writing this thing has made me feel crazy at times, I tell you what. Anyway, I'll write more about that later. You know, after I actually finish writing the damned thing.

For now, here are today's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,284 (all on the novel)

Monthly word count: 25,438 (21,419 novel, 4,016 story)

Novel word count: 92,923

Mostly numbers, but also a video

I took the weekend off from writing and read a book for homework. I got back to it tonight and I realized how being away from it for even two days makes me feel sketchy. Aw, well, it was unavoidable.

As to the video: It's been more than a year-and-a-half since I last wrote about Jenny Owen Youngs. I still listen to her music quite a bit. And today on FaceBook, I saw that it's her birthday today. (More than likely, it was her birthday yesterday to you since I'm posting this just before midnight.) I posted songs of hers on Twitter and FaceBook to celebrate, but I thought I'd post a video here. This is Ms Youngs's cover of the Nelly song, "Hot in Here." It's a hoot and a half and I think it still manages to showcase her amazing voice. I hope you like it. Oh, I should probably warn you that it contains some adult language. You've been warned.

And now, here are the numbers:

Daily word count: 1,914 (1,412 novel, 502 story)

Monthly word count: 24,154 (20,138 novel, 4,016 story)

Novel word count: 91,639

The Suburbs + 90k

Like me, do you like the band Arcade Fire? Do you like music videos directed by Spike Jonze? Do you like beautiful, but bleak visions of the lives of aimless teenagers who live in endless, surreal, militarized suburbs? If you said yes to all three then you have scored a trifecta of likes with this, the latest video from the aforementioned band directed by that guy I already named. It really is a lovely video, but it is also bleak, bleak, bleak. Enjoy!

Apparently this is taken from a short film that Jonze directed titled "Scenes From the Suburbs." I just did a quick search online, but I couldn't find any information about when or where one might be able to see the short film. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

And now here are today's numbers:

Daily word count: 1,386 (all for the novel. Sorry, short story, no words for you today.)

Monthly word count: 22,240 (18,726, novel, 3,514, story)

Novel word count: 90,227 (Holy cow, I feel like I buried the lede here.)

Since I'm ahead on my weekly goal, I'm going to take the weekend off from writing and devote that time to catching up on some of my reading. That means no updates over the weekend. I'm sure you'll all muddle through somehow.