Now that NaNoWriMo season is approaching again, for the fourth year (for me) I’m starting to ramp up my research, planning, and trolling the forums.  Soon I’ll be giving this blog a facelift and start to unfold what I think will be a glorious year of characters and plot twists!!  One like no other!

But for now, I’d like to leave you with some awesome writing courses.  Unfortunately, these few are just for the Loudoun County accessible readers.  They’re put on by the Loudoun County Public Schools Adult Education program, which is usually really good!  I’ve never taken their writing courses, but these sound great!

• Completing Your Master Work
  8 – 2.5 hr sessions $120.00
  9/30/2010 thru 12/16/2010 (Class will not meet on 10/7/2010)
  Held at Park View High School, Wednesday evenings @ 6:30pm
  This class will offer the structure, guidance, and support necessary for novice writers to tackle that work of literature that as been swirling around their heads.  Whether it is a volume of poetry, a novel, lay, short story, or a memoir; instruction will be provided that will enable the class members to map out a path t0 successful completion and work toward that goal.
• The Writer’s Journey
  6 – 2 hr sessions $100.00
  11/1/2010, 11/8/2010, 11/15/2010, 11/29/2010, 12/6/2010, 12/13/2010
  Held at Loudoun County High School, Mondays @ 6:30pm
  Join an ex-editor and published writer for a gentle exploration of writing fiction for publication, focusing on the writer who has not yet been published.  Learn solid writing habits, how to take & give critique effectively, in a supportive group environment.
• Writer’s Circle
  8 – 1.5 hr sessions $100.00
  9/30/2010 thru 11/18/2010
  Held at Stone Bridge High School, Thursdays @ 7:00pm
  For those who labor in isolation, or want helpful, constructive comments about their works in progress, this course offers a writer’s group that aims to nurture, support, inspire, provide positive feedback, solve compositional problems, offer strategies for rejection and writer’s block and care for the writer’s soul.  Open to writers of all abilities and genres.  The only requirement is the courage to share your work with others and the compassion to help others improve.

Loudoun County Public Schools Adult Education program is old skool and doesn’t have registration available online.  You can find out more about how to register by going to their website (yes, the do have one).

I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON!!!

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… I just wanted to pop in and tell you that…

Current word count: 32,593, which puts me slightly ahead of schedule at this point.

Recently I decided that it would be necessary to fully explore how Stan got arrested the first time.  Here’s the Reader’s Digest version…

• Stan decides he wants to rob an ATM machine
• He inlists his buddy Quincy to help because Quincy has a truck
• Quincy’s truck dies… they end up “borrowing” Stan’s girlfriend’s (Darla, AKA Angel Bell) Chevy Nova instead.
• Said Chevy Nova’s bumper isn’t particularly well held on as the truck’s
• Stan & Quincy drive away leaving the bumper and the ATM machine behind.

I think you can figure out what happens next when the police happen to find the bumper of the car hanging out at the ATM machine without the rest of its vehicle.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that they’ve completely forgotten about potential security cameras built into the ATM machine.

Here’s a little excerpt to whet your appetite:

“It’s now or never,” Stan said, his hand poised on the automatic shifting stick.

“Wait…” Quincy said with a worried look on his face, “What are we gonna do with the ATM machine when it comes out of the wall? I mean, there’s no truck bed to toss it in!”

Stan stared at Quincy. It was true, that was definitely something that they hadn’t thought of. It was a little late for that now, though.

“Uh… I’m sure it will fit in the back seat… You ready?” Stan asked, he was already revving the Chevy Nova’s engine. Adrenaline coursed through his body like it never had before. Stan was definitely an adrenaline junkie, but this was a different kind of rush that he hadn’t experienced before. This wasn’t like when he would participate in fight club or get into at school back in the day. No this was different, his head was spinning a bit and he could hear the rush of his own blood in his ears. No other sounds existed. He even felt like his vision was just a tiny bit crisper.

Stan revved the engine a couple more times and then popped the car into drive. The Chevy Nova lurched forward and Stan and Quincy felt the chains catch taunt. For just a little more than half a second the car seemed to go no where, suspended in time by some odd strange force explainable only by AP Physics. Too bad that neither Stan nor Quincy took AP Physics. If they had they might have been able to predict what was going to happen next. The car lurched forward a bit more and Quincy and Stan heard a horrible noise. They both got excited, the ATM machine was detaching from the wall! Stan let off the gas a bit and then slammed his foot into the floor. More tearing metal sound, metal scraping against metal and then it happened. With a violent ripping motion it happened; the bumper of the Chevy Nova came careening off, bouncing backwards and slamming into the front of the Boone County Credit Union building. The Chevy Nova sped forward for a second before Stan could get his bearings, he slammed down on the break with his free left foot, not even removing his right foot from the gas. He quickly reached down and yanked the emergency break up into place. The Chevy Nova screamed to a halt and the over powering stench of burned up break pads filled the inside of the car. Somewhere between when it was obvious the car was being ripped in half by the torque caused by chaining the car to the ATM machine and when Stan threw up the emergency break to save them from going directly into the buildings in front of them Quincy had curled up into the fetal position in the passenger seat, his arms fully extended and clutching his head as if he were bracing for impact.

Stan had no idea what to do next. The chains dangled from the ATM machine and the wrecked bumper of the Chevy Nova lay on the sidewalk in front of the Boone County Credit Union’s front door. Stan was turned nearly all the way around in the driver’s seat straining to see what had happened. The bumper o the Chevy Nova was torn clear off and was just lying there. Stan panicked and did the only thing that panicked people tend to do; he fled the scene of the crime.

Also, I need a bit more help with my novel if you’d be so obliging.  You see, Stan’s got to come up with a good story to tell Darla about why her car is wrecked.  So far, I’ve got to thank @ridgeley, @MarvilleousMEg, @natnie, @saurabhg, and @crochetgrl for their fast help on Twitter tonight.  Here are their suggestions:

• Backed into something
• Bumped against a concrete wall or something
• Trying to tow something that wouldn’t budge
• A jump rope was tied to it and someone yanked real hard
• Driver tried to tow something but didn’t use the proper hooks

If you’ve got a good one, or a bad one… or any kind of excuse, please post it in the comments.  Seriously, everything will be included!!  I need all the word count help I can get.

I’m in the middle of being mired down in crap regarding the death of Stan and Ernie’s parents.  And apparently they have an Aunt Millie who they never met.  She showed up to help take care of the funeral arrangements but unfortunately Ernie’s pretty pissed that she’s around.  He also is convinced that she’s not his aunt, because after all she was his “father’s” sister.  And since Ernie no longer believes that his dad was his real dad… and that Elvis Presley was his real dad, he sees no reason for Millie to be involved in his affairs.  Really, the whole thing is rather boring.

In other news, Christina and I briefly discussed our NaNovels.  I’ve been trying to stay away from talking with her because I didn’t want any of her ideas to influence my storyline.  However, I think it’s safe to say that we are writing entirely different novels now.  First off, Stan is dead in her novel.  Moe killed him.  Moe the bartender — the bartender who has really only come up in my novel a single time — killed Stan.  Yeah, that totally didn’t happen in my novel, and I totally didn’t see that coming!  You can read about Christina’s noveling adventure here.

I am hoping that this incredibly long (incredibly boring) flashback will end quickly and I can get back to the meat of the story.  My problem is, I’m rapidly running out of plot.  And I’m just a breath’s away from the half way point.  Ugh.  Week 3, where are you when I desperately need you?

Ok, here’s what I need:

Stan is proposing to Darla.  This is actually past tense because all of this happened before the last time he was in prison.  But nonetheless, Stan is proposing.  He’s pretty excited.  And despite that he’s tempting fate a bit, things are actually working out really well for him.  I know, I’m shocked too.  Anyway, everything is going so well until he accidentally burns down and/or blows up Darla’s trailer.  This event is scheduled to occur maybe a day, maybe only hours, before he’s supposed to propose.

Problem is I don’t know exactly how this happens.  All I know is that it involves a decent amount of kerosene; and it’s immutable that the volatile liquid be anything except kerosene.  It can’t be propane, it can’t be gasoline, it can’t be any other kind of volatile, combustible liquid.  ONLY KEROSENE!!!! (Damn, you’d think I really meant that, huh?)  The other thing is that it has to be an accident.  It has to be an accident that to a woman who’s just had a fight with her very “in-need-of-anger-management” boyfriend looks like it’s on purpose.

So, we’ve got:

• Reason for a trailer to burn down and/or blow up with kerosene
• That’s an accident, but
• Looks likes it’s on purpose given the situation, and
• Shouldn’t be so violent that we kill everyone in the trailer park.

As for that last bullet point, I’m OK if someone gets a little singed or if maybe all the fur gets burned off of someone’s beloved pet’s tail.  But let’s not kill anyone, OK?  Death can be such a downer.  A word count builder, yes, but I’m not looking to get depressed while writing this novel.  Depression is a big mood killer for me, and I tend to not be as verbose when I feel sad.

I would like to thank you in advance for all your comments, suggestions, and for basically just sticking it out with me while I am struggling with this little plot point.  You will surely get my undying gratitude as well as a line item in my acknowledgements (please be sure to include your FULL name so that you will be able to contribute as much as possible to my word count).

It’s the end of Day 5 and the beginning of Day 6 and I’m happy to say that things are looking up in odd and unexpected ways. It’s true, Darla and Stan have virtually no backstory and I will likely scrap whatever I happened to have written for them because of its extreme level of suckitude. But Ernie has entered the story and he’s behaving quite nicely. I think that the threat that I might do evil things and cause tragic accidents to happen while he was making a fried banana sandwich was just the thing he needed to straighten out and fly right.

Plot is happening but in a very small way, but I think things are going to get a bit more interesting rather quickly. I am insanely pleased about “The King and Me Pawn Shop” and about the quirky things that are going to happen there.

Darla has successfully “called [Stan] a bum and slapped [him] real hard.” And she’s also “thrown his shit out into the yard.” We’re getting somewhere.

The most surprising event of the evening was the appearance of The Traveling Shovel of Death (TSoD). I know, I know… I didn’t see it coming either. I was happy though that before anyone got too rash being only 11,522 words into the novel Ernie just got knocked unconscious.

And so I leave you with the following excerpt cataloging the very first appearance of the TSoD in any of my NaNovels:

On this particular Wednesday night, Ernie came in the back door, entered the security code (33-14-51, which is significant because Elvis starred in 33 major motion pictures, won 14 Grammy awards, and it was Highway 51 South that runs in front of Graceland in Memphis, TN that was renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard — incidentally the exact year that Ernie was born), and turned to go up the stairs to his apartment. But out of the corner of his eye he saw something move. And the something that he saw move couldn’t possibly have been anything other than another person. Ernie was not alone. With his eyes fixated in the darkness on the figure that was moving towards him, Ernie grabbed whatever he could reach that was in the back of the Pawn Shop. This was the area of the pawn shop where Ernie kept the random junk that people brought in. There was no rhyme or reason to any of the stuff that he kept back there. Ernie might have been just as likely to grab a feather boa as he was to have grabbed anything that would have served him as a decent weapon against this intruder. However, the item that Ernie would happen to grab would be a good heavy shovel. As adept as possible for a man who had just closed out a bar tab totaling enough to feed a small starving African country, Ernie swung the shovel in the direction of the intruder. He missed and the shovel’s flat paddle went whiffing through the air. Ernie couldn’t tell if he was even close to the intruder, but he swung again, and again. The shovel was heavy and Ernie wasn’t able to hold it up high enough to have done any fatal damage. However, after whiffing the shovel at least five times through the air at the intruder, Ernie managed to connect with the intruder’s knees, causing a tall dark figure to swiftly plummet to the pawn shop floor. The intruder landed in a heap and Ernie rushed over to finish him off.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOIN IN MY PAWN SHOP YOU FREAKING LUNATIC!!! I AM GONNA MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN!” Ernie screamed at the figure on the floor as he wielded the shovel over his head. His balance was off because of the heavy shovel that he had poised over his head, ready to smash the intruder wherever he could manage to hit him. The intruder lay on the ground groaning.

“Uuuuuuuuuu….. Errrrrrnniiiieee. Uuuuuuuuu….”

“Stan?” Ernie asked puzzled.

“Wadda ya have to go and hit me with that gawddamn shovel for?” Stan asked, still curled up on the floor.

“How the hell did you get in here? I didn’t get a text from ARSP! This whole place has got more armed security than the damn White House!!” Ernie said, fumbling for his cell phone. Could it be possible that Stan had broken in and ARSP had missed it? Nope, there wasn’t a single text informing Ernie of a silent alarm. “Jesus, heads are gonna roll….” Ernie muttered under his breath.

“Ernie, Darla kicked me out… can I crash on your sofa?”

Ernie was too busy fumbling around trying to find a light switch and trying to dial the number of ARSP. He didn’t care if it was 3:00 AM in Singapore, if the freaking Earth was crashing into the sun, or if they were in the middle of a nuclear holocaust caused by the creation of radioactive cucumbers. He wanted to know how it was possible that his baby brother, his incredibly mentally challenged baby brother, was able to hack into the system, break into his Pawn Shop and fail to trip the silent alarm.

“Ernie…. Ernie… I said, Darla kicked me out. She’s trippin man. I swear… I came home from a night out with the guys and she practically tried to kill me. She threw all my shit out in the yard. She tried to kill me.”

“How the hell did you get in here? Yes, hello? Yes, I wanna report a break in… no… no… I didn’t get a notification of a silent alarm… yes that’s exactly the problem…. I’ve apprehended… erm… subdued an intruder but there was no notification of a silent alarm…” Ernie was explaining to ARSP.

“YOU’VE APPREHENDED YOUR FREAKING BROTHER FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ERNIE?!” Stan started yelling

“I need a complete diagnostic of the system… and send the authoriti–” Ernie didn’t get to finish his sentence because Stan had stood up, relieved Ernie of his makeshift weapon and clocked him square on the head with the shovel. Stan quietly picked up the phone and in his best impersonation of his brother he said,

“Actually, on second thought, I think we have everything under control over here. The authorities won’t be necessary… of course, security phrase is ‘I didn’t do anything but just jiggle’… of course I will, you have a lovely evening too,” and Stan hung up the phone and headed upstairs to the apartment, leaving Ernie lying unconscious on the floor.

I recommend being as redundant as possible when it comes to safeguarding your prose. I personally keep a copy on an external hard drive, a copy in Box.net, a copy on EVERY hard drive of EVERY computer I own, a copy on my networked hard drive at home, a copy on my webserver (but not on the public side because that would be tempting fate), and finally I keep a copy stored on my iDrive back-up storage facility.

In addition to keeping a million and one copies of my novel strewn all about the Earth, I recommend updating and copying your novel EVERY time you edit it. And by every time, I don’t mean when you think about it. I mean every time you finish a writing session you upload that puppy to all the different places you can. This is especially important in the early days of NaNoWriMo season before the special Official Word Counting Machine is available. After all, you don’t want to possibly lose any of your precious words before the bots in NaNo-Land have had a chance to count them, do you?? And then after the Official Word Counting Machine becomes available you need to safeguard that prose even more until you get to your golden 50k.

Have I made you adequately paranoid yet? OK, good. No rush out there right now and go back up that novel!!

You’re name is Ernie.  Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie.  Or, if you prefer, your name is Earnest Knutt.  Or you’re even going by Jason Presley, first son (and rightful heir) of Elvis Presley.

Your name is not under any circumstances Eddie.  Eddie simply doesn’t have the same ring to it.  We’ll completely ignore the fact that Eddie means “wealth protector” and you’re the biggest tight wad that I’ve ever met.  Nevermind that.

Your name is Ernie.  Earnest.  And although you’re not terribly serious, I still like it.  I’m the author so you have to do what I say.  I’ve already given into Darla’s little bizarre turn-around with names and now I’m not about to let you go off thinking on your own when you haven’t even made an appearance in this novel yet.  Maybe when you actually start talking I’ll let you think about your name.  But until then, I’ve got bigger fish to fry with Stan and Darla.

Don’t give me this crap.  It’s only day 3.  I will kill you off.  There could be a tragic accident while you’re making fried banana sandwiches.  And wouldn’t that just be terrible?  I’m not above doing evil things to characters who refuse to behave.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Your Author

Well, Day 1 came to a crashing close last night while I was sitting on a very ambitious 4,800 and some odd words, I feel like I really got a good head start.  Now when I come crashing down into NaNoDepressing during Week 2 (or more likely by the end of Week 1) I won’t feel so far behind.

So, how’s it going?  Well, frankly it’s not going very well.  At least, in my opinion.  My biggest issue is that I’m having to establish a relationship for Stan and Darla (yes, her name is Darla now… she rebelled from the very MOMENT I started writing and she refused to be called Darlene).  You see, I reach incredible new levels of suckitude when I start writing about romance.  Which is why I have specifically kept romance far far away from my NaNovels.

Also, Stan is rather two dimentional.  I was sort of afraid of this, because when I found out that his brother Ernie had that awesome quirk where he thinks that he’s the first born son of Elvis Presley I immediately fell in love with him.  Not only that, but Ernie refuses to make any decisions about anything without first consulting his trusty Magic 8 ball.  So, Ernie is freaking awesome.  There are so many places that I can go with him.  But Stan… not so much.  He’s this weird renegade kind of guy who gets in trouble a lot.  But it seems like when he gets around Darla (aka Angel Bell) he kind of falls apart, drooling all over himself and all.  Also, Stan and Darla were supposed to meet when they’re both still high school age.  And I’m having a hard time relating to a couple of 17-year-olds in love.  Yuck!!

So, Day 1, pretty sucky.  Day 2?  Well, still pretty sucky… but I’m thinking of just starting at some random scene later in the novel to really get going (i.e., be able to deal with adults).  Stay tuned for updates.

I’ll be happy to leave you with an excerpt of the very first scene in my novel.  It’s the only thing that I don’t think is trash and it’s completely random.  I had intended for this scene to make more sense later.

All good stories start with a bang, or a severed hand, or a dead body.  But this one starts with George Pritchett’s prize winning Rhode Island Red chicken.  That chicken had won George a blue ribbon at the Boone County 4-H Fair three years in a row.  She laid eggs that were the most perfect that you’ve ever seen and they were so big that they didn’t fit into a regular egg carton.  After this third win George had started to charge $5.00 a carton for her eggs — he told his customers that you just couldn’t put a price on fame… even chicken fame.  Some people were annoyed, but others thought that those chicken eggs had special powers and they would pay anything for those eggs.  George’s wife sometimes thought that he loved that chicken more than he loved her.  If it weren’t for the very odd dry cracking noise that preceded the incident some would have thought that George’s wife had finally had enough of his love affair with that hen.

So this philosophical question isn’t, “What came first… the chicken or the egg?” or “Why did the chicken cross the road?” (because we all know it was to get to the other side), instead the philosophical question that we all want to know is: If a chicken coop gets obliterated in the dead of the night and there’s no one around to hear it, does it really make a sound?

George Pritchett’s prize winning Rhode Island Red would tell you it does.  That is, if she wasn’t so overly concerned with crossing Route 374 at 11:00pm for the first time in her whole life.  It was like a door of opportunity had opened, the world was hers!  Even though her tail feathers had been a bit singed she was unconcerned.  This was her moment of freedom!  No more slavery laying dozens of eggs just for the amusement and greed of that silly farmer (would-be farmer at that!), no, this hen is a free woman!  That is, until that sneaky fox snatched her up.

Suddenly, everything seems kind of mundane in my NaNo world.

I want a trailer for my book too! *scurries off to find time I don’t have to create Collective NaNovel trailer*