Nov 30, 2006

Well, the fastest November I’ve ever experienced has ended, and so has the NaNoWriMo competition. And I’m absolutely floored to have won, my very first year. The completion rate is about 17%. Beating those odds has really forced me to see how seriously I desire to take writing as a profession. I’m in this to win, November and the rest of the year. And I may actually have a chance!

There have been too many times, in the last half-decade or so, when I’ve been forced to quit something I cared about–finances, exhaustion, disillusionment conspiring to pull me away from something before I’d had a chance to give it my all. And that’s not counting the things I’ve decided sucked, and walked away from. It ‘s meant a lot to me, seeing this novel project through from start to finish. It’s restored my confidence in myself that I can actually finish something.

I’ll be thinking of things for a while, that this experience has taught me. They were right when they warned that it would change the way you see yourself, the way you see the experiences of your life, the way you read, and the way you approach any creative work that you do. All for the better, I say. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Even if I had lost, I’ve had so much fun, met some awesome local writers, and thought up a pile of ideas for future works (thanks Rance!).

Fifty thousand words in 30 days. I can’t wait until next November!

Stats:

Days Where I Wrote: 17

Total Words Written: 50,219

Highest Daily Word Count: 5,298

Here’s a Wordle of the words I wrote:

Excerpt, Via De Luna, chapter 7:

My feet met the hot road, and I started walking up towards the corner. My mind was on nothing, really, just the road. How it felt on my feet, the drifted sand grinding under my toes, the occasional pebble pressing into my heel, the warmth. Drips of water ran down the back of my thighs from my soaked shorts. I reached Via de Luna, the main beach road and turned left, towards where I’d parked my car, what seemed so long ago. As I waited to cross the road to my car, a fresh breeze blew in my face, drying the saltwater there, making me shiver. A memory of other winds, other heat. I’d left something behind, I was open, headlong, sightless, glowing. No cars were coming. I walked out into the road, an uncontrollable smile stretching my salty face. Angling a bit towards my car, I breathed in a lungful of the warm beach air, and fell…

through heartbreaking sweetness

—I came to, flat on my back. Realizing I was laying in the road, I scrambled up hastily, looking around me. Then came to a dead standstill. The houses were gone. Every one of them. The beach was empty, just dunes and gnarled beach trees, and one long, straight road, as far as my eye could see. I breathed very slowly, very calmly, and waited for things to return to normal. And waited. I mentally congratulated myself that my breathing remained so steady and regular. The road continued to stretch into the hazy distance in the east, absolutely absent of any cars. Perhaps they were behind me. I would look. I turned, again clamly, towards the west, towards the sun. Well. No buildings that way, either. I was all alone on an extremely deserted beach. This was where my breathing started to come a little faster, then a lot. I laughed a bit unbelievingly, my mind at a complete loss to process. For want of instructions, my feet began carrying me in the direction I was facing, which happened to be west. I’d say I got a good twenty or thirty feet before the shock broke.

I stopped in my tracks. “Hello!” I screamed. “Hello! Where—“ And then I admit, I just screamed, period. Once.

I slowly caught my breath, feeling a lot better, except for the rawness in my throat. Okay. Where was I. That was a good question, let’s start with that.

Well, I was still on the beach. I knew the layout of the land, and more importantly the feel of it, as well as I knew anything in the world. But there were blatant differences. The complete and utter lack of sign of any people was one. The tall dunes were another. Some were two stories high, topped with waving gold sea oats. The no cars, no buildings thing was another, and that was the one my mind kept coming giddily back to. The sun was the same, in the same late afternoon place in the same silver blue sky. It was hot. I was still wet. And now I also had sand on my back, from having laid in the road.

Laid in the road. I turned around and ran back the way I’d come, fifteen feet, twenty, thirty. Forty. Fifty. Nothing happened. I slowed down. Catching my breath, as much from panic as from running, I turned back around. No car, no people, no difference, no nothing. I knew one second of utter terror. Then I sighed, and again began walking west. After about twelve paces, I came to a very clear mark in the sand that spread in thin drifts over parts of the road. It was about a foot and a half feet wide by three feet. My back. I bent and touched it, then turned around and laid down in it, closing my eyes. Sparkling blackness. The sound of wind blowing sand. A feeling of absurdity. I opened my eyes and looked straight up into blue nothing. Then I took a deep breath and got back up.

I stood for a moment in the spot with my head bowed. It felt like an island in the middle of a strange wilderness. I was reluctant to leave it. But the idea of being out here alone when night fell terrified me into the farthest corners of my soul. Bending again, I wiped out the mark of my back with my hand, for reasons I’ll never know. Then, straightening, I turned west and began once more to walk.

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