So there!

My last word count two days ago was around seventeen thousand something, so when I sat down to write for a couple of hours tonight my goal was to hit twenty thousand, and I needed approximately twenty-five hundred words to do it. I was still writing tonight when our friends showed up for our appointed evening of film-watching. I typed furiously at my notebook computer, and finally said, “Okay, please humour me by allowing me to run to my big computer and post my word count.” I was confident. I was satisfied with my achievement. I logged on, grabbed my calculator… and was two hundred words short.

“What?” I cried at the screen.

“Everything okay in there?” my husband called.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “My math was off. I don’t know what number I used, but it was the wrong one.”

I logged off and we proceeded to watch Spider-Man, and I was rather impressed. This film just sort of got away from me while it was in theatres. I enjoyed it immensely, apart from the slight issue I had with Peter not telling anyone he’d been bitten by a blue and red spider like those fourteen other genetically altered spiders, you know, the ones where there’s supposed to be fifteen, but one’s missing? We no-prized it by deciding that he was shy, and he’d already been bullied in that scene, so if he said, “Hey, a spider bit me,” the other kids would probably make fun of him: “Oooh, poor baby, did a spider bite him?”

So the film ended, and our friends left, and my husband started turning off lights… and I sat down, determined to hit twenty thousand words before I went to bed.

It’s done.

So there.

Note to self: when taking a bath to think about your novel, take a pad of paper and a pencil in with you, just in case, so that you can make notes when bombarded with good ideas and perfectly phrased lines.

A public congrats to Ceri for not only hitting her goal of 8,900 words, but surpassing it for a running total of 9,115.

Yay, Ceri!

I was out last night and I picked up a couple of books that my protagonist examines closely over the course of my novel. I already own copies of these particular books, but there was no way I was going to use them as reference. So, new copies were purchased (I did try to find them second-hand, but five second-hand stores later, I knew I was out of luck) and I brought them home to break them in.

My mother (this is related, honest) trained as a documentation technologist, which is to a librarian as a dental hygenist is to a dentist: they do all the work, and the university graduate gets the credit and the plumper paycheque. One of the things she learned was how to prepare new books for the shelf, and for library binding. She taught me how they do it, and it simultaneously fascinated me and horrified me.

Here’s what you do: you hold your book spine down, find approximately the middle, and crack it open. Yep. Bend that virgin spine to the book lies completely flat. Then choose one side or the other and divide that section in half, and snap it open again, then do the other side. You keep diving the sections in half and snapping them open so finally, the book will flex smoothly and you’ll have no trouble turning pages. As a rule of thumb, there should be a snap every fifty pages or so.

I’m obsessive about my personal library, and in my world, to snap a spine is to break the book. It’s interesting to note that of all the people I used to lend books out to (it doesn’t happen often any more, trust me), those who handed them back with broken spines are no longer in my circle of friends. Hmm. Coincidence? Maybe.

So to sit down last night and snap these spines ruthlessly so I could mark them up with pens and markers and sticky notes was a big step on my part. I mean, I didn’t even do this to my university texts, although I did finally concede defeat and begin making light pencil marks in them. You can see why I had to have second copies, though.

Then I went to bed at about midnight. I woke up at around five (we think) to my husband sitting bolt upright in bed to say, “The power’s out.” Sure enough, I could hear the slow beep of the fire alarm battery in the front hall, which, when you’re still partially asleep, really sounds like a delivery truck backing up. Then he said, “Wow, it’s snowing.” So I pulled the curtain aside, and it was a winter wonderland out there – at least three inches of snow was piling up. “Pretty,” I said, and lay back down.

And then, the realisation that if the power was out for long, there would be no NaNoing today, despite the fact that I had a new adapter for my notebook computer.

Was the power outage city-wide? Would NaNos all over Montreal shake their fists at Hydro-Quebec and wail? Was the problem local, i.e. a snow-laden tree leaning against a power line, or distant, i.e. James Bay has been snowed in? And then, as I fell asleep, a most heartfelt feeling of gratitude for not being caught at the computer when the power failed welled up in my heart.

Although when I woke up at eight the snow had stopped, it’s begun again. My husband the Weather Channel addict tells me that by Saturday it’s supposed to be 13� C again, which means rain and mucky messes for a few days. Ah, November. Changeable, fickle, and you don’t even have the redeeming factor of a holiday in there somewhere….

I would like to take this opportunity to state that I am fully aware that I am surrounded by men who flock to my rescue each time I am in any sort of need, and that I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

MLG, you’re a hero for coming up with that adapter so quickly. My eternal thanks. If it hadn’t suddenly become winter overnight, there would be a short skirt in the near future for you. Let’s put it on credit to be cashed in next spring, shall we?

Well, I’ve had just about enough of Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele today.

I think I’ll go put the soundtrack from Titanic on. Heh.

My optimistic and idealistic goal today was to double my word count. I hardly expect to do it, but I’d like to try.

I don’t know who Emily Horner is, but we seem to be keeping pace with one another word count-wise in Montreal. Like Ceri, I have a sneaky suspicion that my work is severely lacking in the subtlety department, and my insecurity is wailing that Emily is probably writing a tidy, flowing, subtlety-laden manuscript, so that even though our word quantity is approximately equal, hers is likely of higher quality. Fortunately, my insecurity is wrestled down and gagged 99% of the time by a toughened, thesis-experienced editor, who says that if you don’t write it, you can’t make it better. You need an actual draft before you can improve it; you need thoughts down on paper before you can shape them. No one writes perfect prose as a first draft.

So, hats off to you, Emily, and to all the other NaNoWriMos in Montreal. Write on!

Okay. I went out for a walk. I bought offerings. I’m back. I’m okay. I think.

For those who are asking, yes, I have back-ups. I’m paranoid enough to have done that. And yes, I have another computer; gods, I can’t think of anything worse than writing longhand for a few days and then having to transcribe it all.

It’s just not the same.

Fortunately, I am informed by MLG, underground hardware supplier and all-round mental/emotional support guy, that the solution is as easy as taking a trip to Radio Shack. Assuming, that is, that he doesn’t have a spare adapter lying around.

Well, it’s slowed me down, anyway, which ought to make other Montreal NaNo writers happy on a deep, guilty level. I’ve already been informed that my word count has me up for a severe review of my membership in the Friday night writers’ gathering, as I am evidently not a drinker with a writing problem.