Novel Update.

I'm at 134,600-some words when I left the library last night after a four-hour stretch (and a five-hour stretch on Saturday!) I should get a bumper sticker that says, "I CLOSED MFPL".

Things are moving right along! After pulling through a part in my novel that was fairly difficult, for whatever reason, it seemed as though my progression has sped up significantly. It's not the reward that's spurring me along; it isn't even the punishment if I fail to finish. It's just...I can see the light.

One thing I did at the very end of the night yesterday was get rid of all the miscellaneous stuff at the bottom of my story. This story is a few years old. Through that time, when I wrote dialogue and exposition that I thought was wonderful, I found when I edited that it was ill-fit in that particular spot. So I moved it to the bottom of the document--available, but essentially out of sight. I realized that I had ten pages of random, miscellaneous quotes, conversations and exposition that was crunching my style. Trying to finish a story that never looked finish due to the words that my cursor was butting up against was exhausting. It was also misleading to think that I had 140,000 words when I really had 134,000...

So I moved them to another Word document, the veritable purgatory before the cutting room floor. They're there if I wish to revisit a graveyard, but chances are I won't use them at all (out of sight, out of mind...). Chances are I'll write something better anyway.

I have a few chapters left to go, and then the inevitable, painstaking, time-consuming process of editing. My hopes are that I will swipe through my story only twice before handing it off to the poor, trusting souls of my entourage who wish to edit and proofread before I start the inevitable, painstaking, time-consuming process if finding an agent, editor and publisher.

Pushing to finish a novel is not hard; I suspect the worst is yet to come. As Winston Churchill said, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” A good quote, but I hate thinking of my story, my heart, my baby as an "unhealthy state of things."

Seven days to go. Wish me luck!

J

I'm finishing a novel this month, god dammit.

Please excuse the profanity, but I'm sick of my weakness, sick of procrastinating, sick of dreaming of the day that I'll become a novelist. I'm a writer, true, but I'll never be a novelist if I don't finish a bloody novel.

My boss at work is a business coach, but he's become my life coach of sorts. Truly. And let me tell you how invigorating it is to feel purged. That man has hit the bullseye on several issues, and he's kicked my ass several times in the last few weeks when I complained or made excuses. It hurts, but, man, do I need it.

November is National Write a Novel Month. Not just finish a novel, but write it...like, beginning to end. From scratch. I told him that, and then he asked me, "so, how many novels you working on right now?"

I wish I could accurately describe how sheepish I acted. Safe to say, I was quite sheepish when I replied, "oh, close to fifteen or so."

"And you haven't finished one yet?"

"No."

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but he sort of forced me to promise to finish a novel by the end of the month. If I do it, he's buying Mike and me dinner. If I fail, I have to buy him and his wife dinner at Mr. B's Steakhouse. That's damn expensive! Oh, god, what did I get myself into??!

So, what am I doing? Finishing a goddamn novel. You hear me, world? I'M FINISHING A NOVEL!!!

So leave me the fuck alone while I push this fucker out.

(Not you guys, just...everyone else.)

J