They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s just wrap up the National Novel Writing Month discussion with a picture:

The story’s not done yet, but I hit the NaNoWriMo monthly goal of 50,000 words. Somehow I managed to get enough writing in even during that final week—which included Thanksgiving, a trip back to my home town for a class reunion, and time with my girls—to fall across the finish line around 8 p.m. on November 30.  I’ll pick the story back up in January, along with two other novels that need some serious revision. I’m thinking 2010 will be a year of revision and editing rather than more new writing (aside from finishing the 2009 NaNo). Time to get these puppies out there in the world!

In other news …

KINDLE UPDATE: ONE YEAR OUT

I’ve had my Amazon Kindle for about a year now. I’ve tried to make note of any book-buying patterns that have changed since getting the Kindle. And, as you might expect, there are some:

First, when I see a book I’d like to read/own, I see if a Kindle edition is available. Usually, there is. Assuming there is a Kindle edition, I then ask myself a series of questions about that particular book:

1. Do I need to have it immediately? Like, really immediately? 1 vote for the Kindle edition. (Available in about 30 seconds.)

2. Is it available only in Kindle and mass market paperback? 1 vote for the Kindle edition. (I hate mass market paperbacks—hard on the ol’ eyes.)

3. Do I want the physical copy taking up ever-dwindling shelf space in my house? 1 vote for the Kindle edition.

4. Will I want to lend the book to anyone else in the future? 1 vote for the dead-tree copy. (Still not possible to lend Kindle books, which doesn’t really bother me. I don’t lend out books all that often anyway.)

5. Will I want a first edition copy or a hard copy that the author might someday autograph? 1 vote for the dead-tree copy. (Still kinda hard to autograph the Kindle edition of a book, which goes without saying, although apparently I said it anyway.)

6. What is the price comparison between the two editions? If all other variables are not relevant, then 1 vote for the cheaper edition, if it is a LOT cheaper. (Sometimes Kindle editions are oddly high-priced, even near the price of print editions, and this puzzles me, since I so often hear about the high cost of paper, ink, and book production in general.) 

Let’s use a book I bought just this morning as an example: Robert Sawyer’s Flashforward.  Trade paperback edition: $8.51.  Kindle edition: $7.99. 

The prices of the two editions are unusually close for a book that’s not a current bestseller. Which one did I purchase? Going through my list of questions, I decided that I didn’t need the physical edition of the book taking up room on my shelves. I also didn’t see myself lending the book out, and I doubt I’ll run into Mr. Sawyer while carrying a copy of the book, to give me the opportunity to get it autographed. Plus, I was extremely curious to start reading it … soon. Like, right now.

The Kindle edition won, and I had the book on my Kindle before I could get across the room to pick it up.

In the past year, I’ve found the Kindle to be indispensible for traveling and for leisurely reading in my wing chair at night. Having just purchased Stephen King’s 1,000-page Under the Dome in first edition hardcover (the Kindle edition isn’t due out for a few more weeks), I was immediately reminded of two of the Kindle’s best features: It’s easy to prop up and read without the weight of a large book or the annoyance of the pages flipping backwards if you shift in the chair. And, the adjustable font size is a balm to my eyes (having recently been diagnosed with ocular rosacea as well as the omnipresent chronic dry eye). And, if I’m not done with King’s tome by the time the Kindle edition comes out, I might purchase that edition too just to continue to read in more comfort. And yes, I know that’s precisely what the publishers want me to do. For some authors, such as King and also Diana Gabaldon, I’ll keep buying first edition hardcovers no matter what. The Kindle editions are merely icing on the cake.

A year later, I’m still buying print books—probably too many for my own good—but the Kindle has given me options for many of my future purchases. All told, I’m buying more book content than I did pre-Kindle. And I know I’m reading a lot more than I did a year ago. Happily so. For hours on end when I  can manage it.

And that can only be a good thing.

National Novel Writing Month continues. Yesterday, the 15th, I posted on Facebook the following cryptic (but obvious) status update: “Linda M. Au is halfway.” A friend commented underneath: “They make houses for people like that, you know.”

Everybody’s a comedian. And I hate playing straight-man.

Ignoring snide, sarcastic, rude comments from otherwise loving, caring, nurturing friends, I have forged ahead into the second half of the murky waters of National Novel Writing Month. The novel is progressing nicely. Characters are divulging secrets to each other. Some are finding dead animals in the trash. One completely disappeared into thin air. Yet another made a second pot of coffee.

Yessir, things are really flying now. I can’t wait to see what happens in the second half of the month. Why, some of them might accidentally order a steak medium-well, or forget to add fabric softener to the rinse cycle! The mind reels with possibilities! No wonder I look forward to November each year—when the creative juices are flowing like, well, like sludge. Yes, that’s it: glacial floes of marvelous literary sludge, direct from my over-caffeinated brain into my fingertips and out the keyboard of choice for the day.

The good news is that Café Kolache gets more business from me during November than they do the whole rest of the year. So, that’s good news for them, at least.

On a Side Note: I’m writing in the afternoons this year, and saving late evenings for reading instead. I was chugging along steadily reading through Diana Gabaldon’s newest in the Outlander series, An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander), taking my time because, well, it’ll be halfway into the next decade by the time we see another book in the series. Then, last Friday, Amazon delivered Stephen King’s newest novel, Under the Dome: A Novel. I was curious, so that evening, I thought I’d take a peek at it before diving back into Gabaldon’s book. More than 125 pages later, I looked at the clock: 2 A.M. Ever since then, I’ve been using sheer force of will not to throw caution (and laundry and grocery shopping and personal hygiene) to the wind in favor of reading this marvelously gargantuan tome. I suppose, in its own way, that’s as succinct a review as you’re going to get.

What are you reading? I have an idea: Instead of giving me recommendations for reading material (I have plenty to read!), give me recommendations of books to AVOID. That way, I won’t waste my precious reading time.

And Now, Back to Our Originally Scheduled Program, Already in Progress:  I may be behind on my personal word count goals, but I am doing just fine by NaNoWriMo standards. See?

I’m nearly a week into this year’s National Novel Writing Month  and so far I can report more success than I’ve experienced at the start of one of these things in a long time. The story started slowly (in my mind), and I felt as if the first few chapters were being yanked out of me like this wisdom tooth I should have had pulled sometime during the Reagan Administration. But we were all so giddy on capitalistic free love and wishing we weren’t so damned poor and uneducated that I never got the tooth pulled, and once I had the money to get it done and the abiding personal despair necessary to submit oneself to dental torture (this would be during the Clinton years), it no longer troubled me and I moved on to other things, such as weak ankles that turned on me faster than Hillary turned on Bill after the election.

But I digress. Weren’t we talking about my writing? Sorry, I’m in the bad habit this month of dragging every stray thought out until it’s coughed up blood and lies trampled in the streets like a dead–oh, sorry. 

Since I will be out of town for the last five days of November, my personal goal has been 2,000 words per day. So far, so good. In fact, I’ve found that early afternoon is a splendid time for me to write–as long as I leave the house completely. If I stay in the house, I end up continuing the household chores I’d started that morning (which always include leftover dishes, baskets of dirty laundry, and crop harvests in Farm Town). So, my system is this:

– Do mundane chores in the morning (laundry, e-mail, showering, straightening up the house, more e-mail, icing a few people in Mafia Wars, checking the mail for royalty checks for novels I haven’t published yet).

– Pack up the AlphaSmart Neo, the iPod, and the Kindle and head out to one of my favorite places to write (either Cafe Kolache in Beaver, Pa., or a Panera Bread, even though their tables are way too freakin’ high to type at comfortably).

Once I’m out of the house, armed with enough gadgets to make Steve Jobs and Bill Gates fight over which one of them gets to have my baby, I get a lot of work done. A lot. And, it doesn’t feel like work.

Next time, I’ll write about write-ins–those oddly paradoxical gatherings where writers engaging in the most solitary career choice in the nerdy world sit next to each other in public, presumably to write novels, and end up with collective word counts like 300 … or 217 … or 0 … over a three-hour period.

For now, though, I’ve hit my goal again, and I’m up over 12,000 words in six days. (Do the math, people! You can’t ALL be English majors!) And it’s 2 a.m. here (the real 2 a.m., not that fake 2 a.m. referenced in my last post) and I’m ready to hit the bed before my eyelids become as heavy as the cement shoes of Tony Soprano’s  turncoat relatives, where one false move earns you enough ill will from the boss to … oops, sorry.

But I digress … during a month where digressions are our friends. And, I apologize that this post has more links than a sausage factory.

Those of you who have known me for any length of time know that each November I participate in National Novel Writing Month. Fifty thousand words of new fiction in thirty days. Or, in my case, since I will be out of town from November 26–29, fifty thousand words in about twenty-five days. So, instead of the usual 1,667 words per day, I will be aiming for about 2,000. No pressure, though.

This will be my sixth year of literary abandon—starting in half an hour here in the Pittsburgh area. I’ve got my Moleskine notebook open, pages covered with scribbles … character sketches, random plot thoughts, theme information, etc. I’ve got OneNote open—which is where I keep all my writing notes for all projects. I ingested my second cup of coffee about two hours ago, something I NEVER do because I get heart palpitations from too much caffeine–and even with the impending time change at 2 a.m., I’ll still be up till Tuesday. I’m watching AMC’s back-to-back airings of “Night of the Living Dead” on the TV here in my office.

Even Murray, my office guinea pig and personal mascot, has been giddy and wide awake all evening here in his large enclosure behind me. The excitement in the air is that palpable.

Until about fifteen minutes ago, though, I had absolutely no clue where to start this piece of craziness. It hadn’t really sunk in yet that, at midnight, when I can officially begin writing, I would need to know what the opening scene was likely going to be. I had been so busy doing weird bits of research into the Knights Templar (don’t ask!) that I had forgotten to jot down a few ideas on where to start when I start. So now I have the opening scene outlined sparsely … and have no clue what comes after that scene.

This is why I love National Novel Writing Month. It’s so good for my blood pressure. 

And, as I post my inner feelings of angst and euphoria throughout the month (often in the same paragraph), get used to this little guy. He’ll be helping you visually oriented readers get a quick idea of how I am doing on my word count.

T-minus 15 minutes! Just enough time to take a bathroom break, take a blood pressure pill, and take a handful of leftover Halloween candy…. 

BRING IT!

A friend recently mentioned doing a little freelance work indexing books, which, she said casually, would couple her love of English and data entry. I chuckled at this, but only because I share her enthusiasm for the mindless drilling of a keyboard.

When I sit down to write, I often dawdle at first by opening up my journal program and type-type-typing some pointless entry cataloguing a day’s minutiae, as if anyone on the planet would ever want to read such drivel, even a hundred years from now as part of a badly funded sociology project. It feels good to type, therapeutic to hit the keys with bullet-speed rapidity while my eyes and mind wander to more interesting tidbits around the room.

 It’s more than simply a warm-up exercise, though it is surely that. It’s as if I am freeing my mind of all the detritus of the day—exfoliating my brain, as it were, of the dead skin of unneeded thoughts and concerns. I’ll spare you any more icky analogies; you get the idea. By the time I’m done with the journal entry, I can more easily move to the fiction, the deadline-oriented work, the magazine article—or, as it is to me, the stuff of life.  

While working at my last day job, my favorite parts of the work day (not counting staff meetings and lunch with one of the bosses) were when I had raw data to input: articles to type, photos to scan. You know, grunt work. I loved the grunt work best. I still do. Give me a few hours of scanning documents or doing other secretarial or administrative tasks, and I’m a happy camper indeed. I like the feeling of accomplishment that comes with churning out a finished product. And that sort of work requires less creative brain space than creating a world of characters and places and making them do interesting things and remembering everyone’s eye color for 75,000 words.  

Give me a good, solid keyboard and I can type mindlessly for hours. If it’s my AlphaSmart Neo, I’m in heaven. Or my desktop ergonomic keyboard, which has just the right tactile feel to it. Or even now my 10” netbook, with its amazingly comfortable keyboard and size (where I am writing this entry). Gone are the days of my childhood, banging out words at half the speed on my portable manual Smith-Corona or on the gargantuan, very non-portable gray manual Underwood in Mr. Loughlin’s ninth grade typing class.  

With newfangled equipment such as this, no wonder my friend and I enjoy mind-numbing data entry work. It’s an emotional therapy all its own. Perhaps we both missed out on promising careers in some company’s accounting department. . . .