FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS IN A MONTH (one man's struggle to write 50,000 words in a month about nothing in particular)
By martin_t
- 619 reads
FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS IN A MONTH.
(ONE MAN’S STRUGGLE TO WRITE FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS IN A MONTH ABOUT NOTHING IN PARTICULAR)
(chapters 1-7 the first week) unedited - let the grammar and spelling mistakes add to the joy
CHAPTER ONE November the first
I have a lot of friends, I find it easy to relate to people in real life. But I have many secrets, my real friends know I use the internet a lot, they don‘t know what I do on there.. I tell them I mainly download films, music, go on face book, mess around on a few message boards and play scrabble, only partially true.
On the internet, I have many friends, and many enemies, I prefer the enemies. There’s something more pure about hatred, about tacking someone with words, my arena is internet message boards. I am anonymous, a cyber warrior, taking names, taking people on, doing the business. Some might say that I am a troll, that I deliberately set out to antagonise people on message boards. They have a point, I do deliberately set out to piss people off, and really, what’s wrong with that. It’s only the internet, what harm am I really doing?
Others say I am harmful, that I upset people, that I bully people. Is it bullying, all I am doing is typing words out and posting them to an internet site, why the fuck do they get so upset? Actually I like them getting upset, it’s not a sexual thrill, although many accuse me of whacking one off while I‘m typing. In do stop typing when I want to whack one off, I’m not stupid, I do need to concentrate when I’m in the whacking off condition.
I admit, I do love it when someone tells me to fuck off on a message board, when they threaten me, that does please me, and I will not let go, I will needle them and needle them, and then needle them someone more, and then pile some more needling on top. it’s their own fault, they shouldn‘t get wound up by words on an internet page, for fuck sake, fucking idiots .
Basically on internet message boards, people post questions. Statements, random thoughts, and start what is known as a thread, people then write on the thread, or post replies. That is all it is, and yet people get pissed off with people, send private messages, threatening them, it has been known for people to seek out posters in real life or IRL as it is known in the trade, in order to teach them a lesson. Now I’m not a big fellah, try and keep away from thugs if I can help it, but I regularly challenge these cyber warriors to come and meet me, I name a pub, a time, tell them what I look like, even send my mobile number or a picture of myself. The fuckers never show. Nor do I , truth be told, but they aren’t to know that. How do I know they never show, If they did, they would start a fucking thread about it, pronto.. I know these fuckers, I know them very well, I’ve never met them, but I know their weaknesses, I know how to press their buttons, and boy do I love pressing them buttons,
it’s what I get up for.
“let’s fire this baby up” , I switch the computer on and get ready for a day of this, it’s a Saturday, the missus is away for the day walking in the country with mates, I have all day to piss around on the internets, what a great day this will be. Where shall I go first, I tend to stalk people on 5 different sites, I have different names, and sometimes I only post from a internet café as people can’t trace my I.P address and prove that it is me. The joys of anonymity.
I log in to the first site, I won’t give you the name, because then you might be able to find out who I am, I have to be careful, someone might walk into my local and twat me for some of the things I say. In fact, there may be people who drink in my local who have no idea that I regularly abuse them on message boards. Again, the joy of the internet, the joy of anonymity.
First up, a personal message, or PM in the trade, and it’s a flirty one, from a female poster. Oh my, it’s very saucy, obviously as a gentleman I won’t repeat what she has said. Another rule of message boards, don’t post up the contents of personal messages. All I can say is that it is good wank material, something to file away in my fantasy file. I send off a reply, a dirty reply, it’s all made me rather horny, but it’s not a day for that, I will lose focus, and today I want to piss people off, I want some threatening Personal messages, otherwise what is the point of all this. Some might say what is the point of the internet anyway. It’s got plenty of points, some pointless, but I love the place, I love cyber space.
No other personal messages though, which is a disappointment to be honest, I thought I had really nailed some annoying posters yesterday on this site, clearly I hadn’t done enough. I check recent posts on threads I have invaded, there is some ranting at some of my posts,. I can’t believe some of the shit I post up on threads, I don‘t actually mean any of it. If someone was to meet me in real life (IRL) as we say, they would think that I am a decent enough bloke, a loving husband, a loving brother, a loving son, a loving uncle, a loving friend. And ,I am all of those things, in real life. In fact I am all of those things on some sites that In post on. You should see my face book profile, I use my real name, I have 200 friends, many of which I have actually met in real life. My mum is on there, groovy oldster that she is, I set her up with an email address, registered her on Facebook, told her about it, she logged on, and loved the site. Although now she is more often on a saga site they just launched, especially for silver surfers. Fair play to her.
Back to me, I love going on the politics threads, and baiting the left wingers, the socialists, the anarchists, god they always fall for it. They might call me a troll, and say things like “don’t feed the troll” but they can’t resist rising to the bail, can’t resist trying to win the argument. The funny thing is, I agree with a lot of the things to say, I’ve been on marches, in the 80s, I supported the miners strike, collected for the poor fucks, came to London to march in their support, marched against apartheid, boycotted Barclays bank. I marched against the cuts in student grants, and the introduction of student loans. Thanks I got a full grant and no loans, so university was a breeze. In fact I often say that on threads about student loans, to piss off the current students, even though in real In life I feel genuine concern for their plight.
And then there is my reason for writing all of this, It is not a desperate urge to unburden myself, to come clean, what would be the point of that, I’d never be able to do it again, and it is so much fun, a gift that keeps on giving.. I’m writing it as part of a annual internet obsession; Nanowrimo, write a 50,000 word novel in a month, 1667 words a day for 30 days, it’s day 1 and I’m behind schedule, in fact it’s past midnight so the 1200 words I wrote yesterday were a failure. I’m going away for 2 weekends this month, 4 days when I can’t write a thing, so I need to find nearly 7000 words on the other days, pushing up the average word count to I don’t know, I haven’t created my excel spreadsheet yet, it gives me a count down, how far I am behind or ahead of schedule. The first year I did this, 2005, I wrote thinly disguised version of my own life, made it a lot more sexy and adventurous, with a lot of mystery thrown in. I enjoyed it hugely, and finished 5 days ahead of schedule. The second year I wrote a sci fi novel, inspired by Logan’s run, in which a mysterious virus killed some people at the age of 30, it was part of a scheme by a baddie to reduce the population, so that the finite natural resources would last longer. I wasn’t as happy with that one to be honest, struggled to get to the 50,000 and managed it finally with about a day to spare. The secret to this nanowrimo it to write without thinking, not to worry about plot or character development, but to write, write, write, stream of consciousness stuff. Although unlike Jack Kerouac I won’t write it on a long roll of paper, fuelled by speed, cigarettes and coffee. For a start I don’t need to go to all that trouble, for another thing , I’ m not allowed to smoke in the house any more, a ban instituted by my wife, in advance of the ban in pubs. Wow, I’m over 1500 words now, the last time I checked the word count there was just over a thousand. You see, just write , write ,write. I should be putting more conversations in, they really helped me out last time, I could get the characters to talk and argue for hours, really adding to the word count.
I just created my excel spreadsheet, gives me the chance to compare my performance against the previous two years of nanowrimo ( I am well behind the pace set in 2005 and 2006), later I will be adding things to the excel spreadsheet, things such as how far I am behind schedule, average words per day, average words I’ll need to write to get to the 50,000 on time, how many words are left, how many I have written. It’s geek heaven. I have got over the 1667 but 18 minutes in to the second day, not a bad start, as I wasn’t even sure I was going to try it this year, but seeing a lot of threads about it on various sites, and reminder emails from the organisers has tempted me back to the fray. Another month of worshipping the ,word count God. I will find time to torment people on discussion boards this month,, it;s a rich source of material for this opus. I won’t be cutting and pasting any of the posts, I will merely be inspired by them. There is something about Nanowrimo that is very honourable, I didn’t start it until 12.00 midnight on the 1st November. I thought about what I was going to write but didn’t write a word. I’m sure there are some who write it all year long, then just cut and paste it and claim to be winners, that is just not honourable. There is honour in failing nanowrimo as well, or glorious last minute completion, but no honour in cheating.
Throughout the month, people will post on the nanowrimo forums about the progress of their novels, I never troll on there, it’s a honour thing, I’ve heard there is a face book group this year, I’ll join that as well, with my real name as well, again it’s an honour thing. My other internet identities can piss people off, the real me joins the nanowrimo community and shares the pain and the joy of the month. People meet up and write together, but not owning a laptop, I don’t fancy coming along with a note pad. This year I might actually turn up to one of the drinks though, meet some of my fellow obsessives. In fact meeting people off the internet is great, I’m not talking about the whole on-line dating thing, to be honest I don‘t understand that, but the nice on-line me has met people from internet boards, first time is always the hardest. Turning up to a pub with no idea of what they look like, just a list of stupid names in your head. Sitting at a table on your own, hoping that someone will come up to you, realising that you have to explore. If you’re lucky, someone will have put some sort of sign on a table, or be wearing a tee shirt of that message board . You feel like a twat wondering around a pub, going up to strangers and mentioning the name of an obscure internet message board, but you do eventually strike lucky and enjoy a fine night on the ale.
This is going swimmingly, finished a chapter, started another one. I’ve joined three Facebook, nanowrimo groups, plus on one myspace. Interesting to see what my fellow nanowrimo obsessives look like. This year feels more interactive, plenty of forums to chat to fellow nano buddies, plenty of people to give you the words of encouragement you need to get through the month. I’ve posted about this on 2 forums already, plus on the face book London group, as usual the nanowrimo site is overloaded and taking ages, so I haven’t been able to post a lot on there, there are thousands of us internet obsessives all over the world, frantically trying to get to that magic fifty thousand words.
And I am now remembering tactics from previous nanowrimo years, apart from having a lot of dialogue, something I haven’t managed to write any of this year. Chapter headings and a novel title, just added them in, 50,000 words in a month is the title, snappy, and 5 words , maybe I should change it to Fifty thousand words in a month, I don‘t know if the word count god counts figures.
Done, now it is a six word Title, I can write about writing about the Nanowrimo thing on message boards, repeat the title, another six words, easy. There is nothing to stop me writing the same word fifty thousand times, or simply writing it once, and obsessively cutting and pasting, doubling, trebling, until I get to the fifty thousand mark , but it is about nanowrimo honour, which reminds me, I’m sure I have already used figures in this book, rather than the actual words, If I hit a dry spell I’ll go back and change them into words, and whilst doing that, might get some other ideas to include. Of course, I could just go to bed, it is a school night, work tomorrow and it’s already 1.28am, so farewell to this for the night.
CHAPTER TWO November the second
Why do I do all this? it’s not for a sexual thrill as some accuse me of, I’m not whacking one off one handed while posting shot on message boards with the other, it’s physically impossible to do for one thing, I guess if I had voice activated software I could manage that, COME ON BILL GATES!!!!!!! Sort it out.
No. it has nothing to do with sexual pleasure, I have other outlets for that, I don’t need to cyber stalk to get my jollies. Was I a bully at school, is this a way to continue with that? Hardly, I was a victim of bullies at school, the other me, the real me, has talked about this on message boards. And it is the truth as well. Am I getting back at the bullies, well, not unless they post on boards I post on, I have no idea if they do, so no, it’s not about getting back at them, that was thirty years ago, I’m over it. Although to be honest, it still affects me, I still hate bullying in real life. I even started a facebook protest about a crisp company I read was bullying it’s staff about joining a union.
To be truthful, I have no idea. I started posting on message boards with an alias that became known, had fun, got the in jokes, enjoyed the banter. Then I noticed the trolls, I fell for a few of their tricks, found myself ranting at them, how could they say that, I joined in when others ranting at them, ignored the wiser posters who had seen it all before. A young jedi has to learn the power of the force, he needs Obi to teach him, and soon I realised that I was giving them exactly what they wanted, so I stopped, so I changed, so I began new adventures on the internets.
In order to complete this nanowrimo challenge, it is of course, necessary to write a lot, including at work, which is what I am doing now. This five hundred words or so will be emailed to my home email address, so that I can cut and paste it, when I do get home, and it will take me over the three thousand mark. So on day two, I find myself on schedule, by the time I get home tonight at about eight o clock, it’s Friday, I will be having a few beers after work. I will have written over the three thousand three hundred and thirty four words that I have to do by the end of Day two. As I am visiting family and friends in Bath at the weekend, I need to get ahead of schedule as I won’t be able to write much over the weekend. I might manage to write some when I’m on the train, I’ll type it direct to my mobile phone and then email that to my email address. I keep meaning to buy a laptop, although buying one just so I can write obsessively during November seems a bit excessive really. I could write long hand in a note book, no doubt I will as the month progresses, but them you have to copy that onto the document, you can’t cut and paste it.
Back to the cyber stalking, clearly that is more interested than an internet monkey trying to type fifty thousand words in a month. I think I began in earnest when I joined forces with some other trolls types, to take the piss out of a clearly vulnerable poster, in my other guise I supported the poster against the trolls. You see how it works, it’s a world of multiple log ins, if the moderators discover you and ban you, you have to find somewhere else to post from, you have to vary the internet cafes. I have come across some sites when four or five posters previously banned from other sites, appear to post as several different posters to make it look as if the site is more popular than it actually is. They have even gone to the trouble of registering names from other sites, usually people they have fallen out with, and post as them. One sad case even started a myspace page in the name of an internet enemy. Once you start digging below the surface, there is a a big pile of weirdness going on.
I not pretended to be both mail and female, there is something hilarious about flirting with a male poster who thinks your female. Part of you wants to constantly out yourself and end the gender confusion, but part of you loves the fact that they think they are flirting with a woman and that they might one day get a shag out of it. You wouldn’t believe the number of rude messages I have got on my myspace and facebook pages, along with suggestive photographs and phone number. The picture on the page is just a random picture I took off the hot or not site, a saucy picture. If I could find out the phone numbers or email addresses of various wifes, girlfriends. Mothers. Daughters, I could have a field day forwarding these messages on.
Today I was going to target a few old favourites, an old guy who pontificated about all sorts of issues, today I was going to be his pal, backing him up with well timed posts, letting himself dig himself deeper and deeper thinking he is in agreement with me and that I am his ally, then dropping the cunt into a fire of his own making, serve him right really, I felt no sympathy for him. I actually have a load of saved threads, moderators on discussion boards tend to delete the troublesome ones after a while. If a thread gets out of hand and people start talking all sorts of shite, they bin them, move them to the bin area where no further posts can me made. I have to be alert and save them at that point, I can then use them at a later date, to deadly affect. Woe betide a poster who makes an error, It will tar them for life, my nicknames for them are meant to sting.
I call one man (the twats are usually male, with a few exceptions) orange man, even though he has never expressed any sympathy to the unionists, he raved about a rangers performance once, and that was enough for me. Now I can make all sorts of jokes about him and paisley and it pisses him off every time. Again , a gift which keeps on giving. It is a bit of a full-time job keeping track of all my identities, I have built up profiles for all of them, where I post, what sorts of things I like to say, my views on that particular board. Someone should pay me , it’s practically a profession.
I poured myself a large jack daniels to accompany me on my visit to the world of message boards, today I was going to target a sad sack anarchist who seemed to piss a lot of people off. Like Brian Paddick ex Brixton nick boss, I have an attraction to anarchism, it has a lot I like. I don’t like anarchists with no sense of humour, they do seem very far up their own arses. Then again I’ll defend to the death to be up their own arses, isn’t that what they say?
One thing that does stop me writing is scrabble, ironic in it, a word game stops me writing. I play it on line, and it is addictive, not only the playing, but the scrabble cyber warriors, you give you abuse if they beat you, or you beat them. I admire them in a way, as there is no way of tracing them, and they can block your messages. Although I have re registered on the site ,then messaged them and called them cunts. I mean, I have to have the last word, who the fuck do they think they are?
In know, I’m a bad tempered old fucker, I don‘t know what has come over me. Earlier on tonight I saw some kids letting fireworks in my street, I was outside having a cigarette, they walked past me and asked me for a light.
I said
“you’re too young to smoke”
One of them replied
“it‘s not for a cigarette”
To which I replied;
“You’re too young to let off fireworks too, you bunch of cunts”
They walked a bit up the road ranting, then one of them said,
“we’re going to light you up”
With what I thought, you just asked for a fucking light, kids, no fucking brains, you see I’m turning into a grumpy old bloke, and I’m only forty two. One of them threw a pebble at me, which bounced harmlessly along the footpath.
This is all getting quite complicated, this nanowrimo lark, I keep wanting to start a narrative, but real life kicks in. I just wrote on my own facebook wall about how I have written more than 4000 words now, but that I’m away a lot of the weekend, so I’m going to fall behind schedule. He said, as he sipped from a bottle of “lindemans Kriek”
Back to the story.
Where was I, I was about to log on to a site and create mayhem, before I was destracted by kids throwing fireworks, Belgian beer and Facebook. You see how difficult it is to keep concentrating, it’s not too difficult to keep own writing, as you can write any old shit in nanowrimo, it’s the word count that matters, the content, if good, is a bonus really. I think I have written some good stuff this year, I wrote some good stuff in the other years, but never went back to edit them. It’s the journey that counts, and the destination. I just checked my stats for the last two nanowrimos, I’m ahead of last years pace, but 2000 behind the first year. The most words I wrote in one day was five thousand two hundred and forty four, on the fifth of November 2005. Today has been a good effort, well over 3000 words, putting me ahead of the schedule. Nearly four thousand three hundred words as we head towards midnight on November the second. I just have time for about twenty words of so before Saturday November the third starts. I’ll write after midnight for about an hour, then nothing will be done until I come back from Bath on Sunday evening, when I’ll try and write about two thousand words, which will see me start on Monday on schedule.
CHAPTER THREE November the Third
I have decided, at the start of each NANO day, I will start a chapter. So I will need to write every day which will be problematic, as I won’t be able to write much on the weekend of the twenty fourth of November as I am going on a walling weekend in Norfolk with a bunch of Internet obsessives, funnily enough. So that is two days out, which should leave me with about twenty eight chapters. This one will be short as I need to go to bed soon as I’m off early tomorrow. Real life getting in the way of nanowrimo, it will happen, you have to write obsessively when you can, put all sort of nonsense downm so that when you can’t write, you have some in the word bank to liveo ff, like a squirrel in winter. Talking of squirrels, we used to have a neighbour who complained a lot about skirls, took us ages to work out what he was talking about. He died earlier this year, a lovely old fellah, Look Arnold, I’m raising a glass to you in a nanowrimo book,
I’ll hit the hay when I hit 5000, which is only 400 or so words away,
Three wins on the bounce three hundred and sixty six points to three hundred and twenty seven. Might have the last beer to celebrate my mighty scrabble victory. Then I’ll think about where this is all going. To be honest I’m a little bored of internet obsessives, I’m not really a cyber stalker, that bit was fiction. Maybe the best way forward is just to write about writing, to write about the struggle to put the words down, the fifty thousand word target which dominates November, because we let it.
It was a choice between a Belgian cherry beer, and some sickly swedish perry I bought the other night. That stuff was way too sweet, that will wait for a truly desperate night.
It is a great experience this nanowrimo, it’s why millions perhaps participate each year, the site has a word count for every one who has registered, the word count goes into the billions after a week or so. Millions of obsessives, obsessively writing on the internet, a shared experience. It’s not something you can talk about at work, I’ve tried to explain message boards to people. So far, only one friend has been interested enough to get more involved. She joined a site I post on, we work together, and do hilarious things such as post on the boards that it is their turn to make the coffee. Yes, tres sad.
If I was to include some stuff about internet stalkers I guess it would go something like this. Well, I can’t exactly think how it will go, I’m tired, it’s twelve fifty one in the morning on the 3rd of November, I have nearly reached five thousand words, and at the moment, I’m running out of things to write about,still fucked off about the firework yobs. I’ll finish my beer, maybe have another cigarette, piss about a little more on the internet, and go to bed.
CHAPTER FOUR: November the fouth
So, I have been thinking about this nanowrimo regularly since I last typed anything, slightly frustrated that I couldn’t add to the word count, slightly pissed off that I was even thinking about it when I was hanging out with my family. I’m not sure if this is a novel, or a blog, maybe it’s a bit of both, blovel, a novellog? Maybe I should introduce some fiction into the proceedings, maybe I already have.
Thankfully my return home did not see a burnt down flat, the teenage yobs who witnessed my finest victor meldrew did not return and put a firework through the letterbox. Did I go too far? Well, after some thought, and several posts on message boards, yes, I did over react, this sort of thing should be challenged, but I shouldn‘t have called them a bunch of cunts. It was very unusual for me to lose my temper, I‘m usually so well mannered. This is way too bloggy, this cannot do, I need to get literary, need to inject fiction, need to write what’s on the box. I am , afterall, 1500 words short of average word count I need to complete this thing in 30 days, and I want to complete it. I didn’t want to start it, but once I found myself sucked into it again, now I need to finish it
Since last November I have agreed not to smoke in the flat, and I mostly keep to this, apart from sneaky ones in the mornings, which are only discovered if Mrs21 has to come home early from work, as happened last week. This prompted a strongly worded email, and a strongly worded apology from me.
Talking of smoking, if we are off on a tangent, let’s run with it, and watch the words stack up. I feel uneasy about smoking in front of my mum, I’m 42 (for fucks sake) and I still don’t like to disappoint her. So today, I lit up after leaving the pub after a drink with my dad. I see a missed call on my phone, ring my mum, “I saw you”
“when” said I
“Saw you leaving the pub and lighting up”
“well I can’t smoke inside any more”
It was a short conversation, hopeless for nanowrimo, I need to invent some characters and have long drawn out conversations, long debates, long arguments. But I’m losing the will to write tonight, maybe 500 words down today, I have written everyday, but feel a bit knackered and uninspired today
CHAPTER FIVE : November the fifth
Yesterday was a bit of a wash out as far as nanowrimo is concerned, there are often crisis in the month of November when one is trying to hammer out fifty thousand words in just 30 days. It would help if I actually had a story to tell. I am still thinking of the internet obsessive. Having used message boards and the like for about 7 years or so, I have come across a lot of them. Maybe I am a bit obsessive but some are in a different league to me. For some, the internet is life, real life gets in the way of their internet selves.
I have to get to the story, to the meat, to the centre, to the nub. How can I get there, when all I have been doing for nearly six thousand words is waffle. That is the key to nanowrimo, waffle. Very few people will read this, unless someone likes one of the excerpts you put up on the site, and they happened to be a literary agent. I have no idea if many of the thousands of nanowrimo novels ever make it to print. That is the dream of most of the people who undertake this challenge, their name on the front cover, even if it sells very few copies, it’s published. It is a slice or immortality, a copy goes to four different libraries, you have a unique ISBN number, maybe a search on Amazon reveals your work. You could google yourself and up will pop that book. That never gets boring.
The challenge is more satisfying, I might have said this before a few thousand words ago, but in nanowrimo, repeating yourself is highly recommended. Well , not repeating the same word fifty thousand times actually, although seeing some words fifty thousand times might be entertaining.
Writing this when you can just fuck about on the internet is also difficult, if you just did it on a typewriter, I guess you would be able to concentrate. Bit of a bugger uploading it at the end of the month to word check it, maybe you’d need to fax it to someone with a computer and get them to upload it. But I keep writing a couple of hundred words, then going on a favourite site, I just went on one and posted a picture of the inside of my fridge, mostly because the last picture had a fridge full of jars of stuff, which provoked a lot of banter, I can’t believe I have posted 2 pictures of my fridge, and in face posed the second one. That’s the magic of the internet for you. When I have another couple of hundred words on this story, I might pop off for a game of scrabble, or check the football results, or go back and see what they are saying about my fridge. I think the fridge wins. One comment, a “that’s beautiful” with a sticky tongue out emoticon.
It’s gonna be tough getting back on schedule at this rate, didn’t get the chance to write any nonsense at work today, I actually had to do some work. I could write about work, write what you know and all that. But I did that 2 years ago, when the main character was a housing officer , as I was then. It did involve a lot of fiction as it had the housing officer falling in love with a lunatic tenant. Not something I can ever imagine doing. It is my favourite of the nanowrimo stories though, and every November I think about going back to edit it, and every December I forget. A friend did read some, her main comment, punctuation, I have a tendency to run off and write incredibly long sentences with barely a comma to be seen. I really should put more in, but often you are just writing the first thing that comes into your head, and you think you’ll go back at a later date and edit it. Nanowrimo is not about editing, it’s about pounding away on the keyboard and writing more and more to get to your goal. And now I find myself in page 10, over six thousand words to the good, I need way over two thousand tonight to catch up, and I like to be ahead all the time in case of bad days when I can‘t write anything, because I can’t think about anything to write, or can’t physically do it because I am in a pub somewhere, or just can‘t be arsed.
Actually if I don’t manage over a thousand today, and I’m still a few hundred short, that will be three days on the trot that I didn’t break a thousand. Seeing as though the average daily rate required is one thousand six hundred and sixty seven, that is a pretty poor nanowrimo show. I feel the need to go off and mess about on the internet.
Got a bit bored so came back to this, went on urban75, meanwhileatthebar and face book, not a lot going on in either of them, apart from the fridge thread which is going from strength to strength. If I get a burst on now, I might make it past one thousand words for the day, which will be the best result of the last three days. I’m actually impressed with myself that I have written nearly six thousand five hundred words about nothing much. If I make it to the finishing line in the same fashion I will be very pleased with myself. Although should I do this again next year, I will try and actually write another novel. I’m only two thousand words behind schedule now, that is an average day though. I’m confident however, that I will have a few three thousand word days, and maybe a four thousand word day. In fact I will have a little wager with myself that I will break three thousand five hundred on Saturday November the tenth. I will be on my own most of the day, I will not take any picture of fridges, I have to wait for a delivery of a book case, but other than that, the words can just pour out of me all day. There , that particular burst saw me sail past one thousand words for the day without even noticing, I wasn’t able to say, this is the thousandth word of the day, because I didn’t pause until I was beyond one thousand and fifty words.
And back from messing around on the internet, getting involved in debates about putting picked food in fridges (wrong) to jars in fridges (there can be too many apparently) I’m amazed I made it back at all to continue with this stuff. At the moment I just don’t feel like returning to the other story, this is the story. About me and this stupid internet challenge, how the hell am I going to continue this for another forty four thousand words?
In previous years I carried a note book around with me and jotted stuff down. I wrote at work and emailed myself it to cut and paste (I have at least done that this year) and got up early to try and do five hundred words or so before I went to work. I work near where I live, so tend not to get up early. Discipline is what is needed to write all this stuff about nothing in particular. At eleven nineteen on the fifth of November, I might hit the required daily word count tonight, but it is still going to leave me nearly a day behind schedule and I really need to ratchet up the word count as there will be days ahead when I don’t hit the one thousand six hundred and sixty seven target. As it is I’m about three hundred short today with the clock ticking away, eleven twenty two already, and I know I’m not going to hammer away for the next thirty eight minutes. I will mess about on the internet a bit more. Actually a quick word count reveals that I am now less than a day behind, which is excellent news, after the weekend I thought I’d be behind a lot more than this. Plus I’m only two hundred or so words behind schedule for today. More good news. In fact today is the second best day of the month so far, I’ll need to double the word count in thirty four minutes to make it the best day but a good effort from a late start. I’m sure you’ll agree. I have now sailed through fifteen hundred words, practically at the finish line for today, and if I hit say eighteen hundred words, which is possible, I will have nibbled away some at the deficit. In fact I have just about hit seven thousand words. I have just thought about a way to add some more, I can add a word count record, so that interested readers can see how many I wrote on day one, day two, and so on.
Day one: one thousand one hundred and fifty three words.
Day two: three thousand one hundred and seventy two words
Day three: six hundred and eighty words
Day four four hundred and fifty one words.
DAY FIVE, not yet over, and a score on the door of well over sixteen hundred.
Day Five is now just about done, twenty eight minutes to go and I have hit the required word rate and I have started to nibble away at the deficit. So I am about twelve hundred short of what the word count should be, which means that one three thousand word day would get me back where I should be.
A bit of you tube and another successful game of scrabble. It has been a successful day of naval gazing and messing around on the internet. Eleven fifty two now, I can’t think of anything more to write. I’ll see if I can get up early tomorrow and get a quick five hundred in. I want to be ahead of schedule by Thursday, and then really pick up speed.
Chapter Six: November the sixth
Six days in, twelve thirty seven in the morning, I thought I’d start today’s words before I go to bed, I’d like today to be a big day word wise, so knocking off a couple of hundred would tart me off well. If I can get up early then a thousand before work becomes a real possibility. Alas I am feeling pretty tired, so this is all I can do today, but in nanowrimo, every word counts, and these hundred or so post midnight words are definitely not wasted.
I’m feeling more confident now about reaching the target, even though this book has developed into being a book about itself. I’ll be happy with around eighteen hundred today, to nibble away a little more at the deficit. That little post midnight spurt netted me about two hundred words in a little over eight minutes - fine play sir.
This nanowrimo monkey keeps popping into my head, how far am I behind schedule,? will I be able to catch up tonight? I didn’t get up early this morning so that was five hundred words I could have written, but didn’t. I felt I needed to get a bit of a spurt on today,so I hammered out a few at work, I‘ll email these words home, cut and paste them, and add them the mountain of words already saved on the file on the home computer
(and I did that, but could I cut and paste? No, it should be simple, highlight, copy, cut and paste, I’ve done it thousands of times, but not this time) so now I have to look at the email, and remember about 5 words, then write them in the correct document, I can’t even print the damn thing as I haven’t connected the printer, and it’s a spaghetti of wires down there that I just don’t feel like sorting out)
Of course I can’t update the reader or myself on the ever increasing word count, (well I couldn’t then but now I can, but I’ll wait until I have typed all this out again. Don’t want to spoil the surprise.) I know I managed over two hundred after midnight and to catch up today I really need to hammer out about three thousand words. I would hazard a guess that I have managed about 200 more words today and I feel confident that I can at least reach the daily required number of words ,and maybe nibble away at the deficit just a little. In don‘t want to be in the position of having to hammer out ten thousand words in the last week, when I will be flagging, then again if I am in that position in eighteen days, I probably will manage to do just that. No one is going to be pissed off if I don‘t manage to hit the fifty thousand target by the end of November, I might be a little deflated, but then again, I feel deflated when I do manage the fifty thousand as well.
Does this to have any meaning, does it need a narrative, a story, a point. Well, not really, obviously for the reader, that helps the enjoyment, but who is to say that reading about my struggle to pen fifty thousand words in a month isn’t entertaining in itself. The tactics I have used to boost my word count, I said, the tactics I have used to boost my word count. Did you see what I did there? Repetition is a great tactic, repetition is a great tactic. It does get boring for me if I keep repeating myself so I have to use that tactic sparingly. I guarantee I will use it again, I said use it again. Ok I won’t flog that particular dead horse for the moment, but don’t be surprised if that tactic gets used again. A tactic I haven’t used too much so far is of course dialogue, I am keeping that one in reserve as it will come in very useful when I struggle towards the finish line. Still this morning’s struggle as yielded a five hundred word harvest, and I have been fairly busy at work during that time, sneaking in twenty or thirty words when I can, or in this case, maybe a couple of hundred. All the time I am adding these words I am knocking off words towards the target. Any word counts, they don’t have to be long words or clever words, the only demand I place on myself is they should at least make sense. Some people will read this, and I don’t want it to be too much of a trauma for them.
Still, with then two hundred or so words after midnight, the nearly six hundred so far today, I’m about half way to the required target today.
Refreshed by lunch I sit back in front of the screen, trying to decide what else I can write about as I struggle onwards past eight thousand words, a mere forty two thousand words to go, and twenty five days in which to write them. I know that others on this quest are probably writing great stories, but once you start on this quest, it is difficult to change direction. If I had stuck with the original idea, the internet stalker, it might have made a great story, it might have also been absolute rubbish. Being rubbish is not a problem with nanowrimo though, quantity not quality is the creed. The quantity of words now soars towards nine hundred for the day, and the chances of me nibbling away at the word deficit increase with every word I type. There are probably people on here who have scrapped their stories after the first few days and embarked on new ones, that is an error in my opinion, a waste of those days when they were writing something else, a waste of word count. There are others who are obsessives who manage to write one hundred thousand words or more, do the whole thing twice. They either don’t sleep, or have nothing to do with the rest of the time, no kids, no job, they have the luxury of being able to hammer away twenty four seven. Bang, I’m nearly at a thousand for the day, that is great news. Any day I manage to break through a thousand words is good, it would be better if there were fifty days in a month. But getting beyond the thousand word mark, breaks the back of the target, only six hundred or so words to come up with and I‘ve reached the required target, and achieving a thousand by nine minutes past two in the afternoon, on a work day, means I still have around ten hours to do about six hundred words, only sixty words a minute. That has to be an achievable amount of wordage
It’s never enough though, I’ve done a thousand over the day so far, but I want to do a thousand plus in this document. I’m still eighty short at the moment, once I get to the thousand, I’ll be only four hundred words short of the required daily word count. You see how I’m going to get there, by constantly writing about how I am going to get there. It is some sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Twenty words to go and that will be another target reached. I can relax slightly then, as it becomes easier and easier to reach the target for today. Is it time to repeat myself yet, or did I do that too recently, can there be too much repetition when all I am doing is writing just to write with no other intention other than to fill page after page with words.
Hoorah, managed to cut and paste it into another document, to end the laborious copying out. And the word count is eight thousand and a few hundred, I will make the minimum word count required today, well that’s not quite right, the minimum required is zero, I could write zero every day as long as I wrote fifty thousand on one of the days, like that could happen. I‘m not leaving this to chance, I am glad I solved the cut and paste mystery, proved myself a bit of a geek on that. Not that I need to prove that, I’m indulged in a stupid internet challenge which other people just don’t understand. I think I can wear my geek badge with vague pride now. I’m only twelve hundred words behind now , I’m fast approaching nine thousand and then the way is open to a big milestone, the ten thousand word finishing line. On the nanowrimo site there are lots of threads about reaching milestones, some fuckers claim to have already finished, but you can’t validate the document yet, so they could all be lying, just to look good, to a bunch of internet geeks. They haven’t set their standards too high have they?
If I just hammer away a little more I’ll hit the average word count required, then I’ll reward myself with a little break, I’ll pop out in my car, dodging fireworks, and drive up to the odd bins in stoke Newington, where I will purchase some american spirit cigarettes. I’ll listen to some music on my Ipod on the way up, turn the music up, up up. That’s it, I’m just about there, now it’s gravy time, where I start to get over the daily count and cut back on that important deficit. Horrah !!.
And now I return and as usual I can’t think of a thing to write. I was full of ideas in the car, driving along listening to “The beauty shop” and the “the bastard fairies” maybe I should just list every track on my Ipod, that should help me finish the thing. Once you get past the one thousand six hundred and sixty seven for the day, it is hard keeping on writing, even if you are beyond the overall target. You know that every word takes you nearer the fifty thousand target, but your enthusiasm is a bit shot, and you have to force yourself to write, as I am doing now, probably I am past nine thousand now, which gets me nearer the milestone of ten thousand, which in order to be on target I need to hit today. I won’t be too pissed off as I am ahead for the day, and eating into the deficit, which is always a good thing, and made of win.
I can’t remember what I was thinking about when I was driving, In was definitely thinking about this thing. Every year I do it, and this is the third in a row, it dominates my thinking in November. I don’t get obsessed or owt, but it keeps popping up. I think I just love writing, getting that poetry book published was a big wow for me, knowing that it was there, even if no one ever read it, it was there, it existed, and as long as the British Library existed, it would as well. Maybe in the future, Chuck Heston will come across a copy as he cries about the demise of the human race. Maybe he’ll think, who wrote this shite, and cry a bit more. And suddenly with the plant of apes reference, I hit two thousand words for the day. This day is definitely made of very big win. I should play scrabble, or flirt with a lady on a message board to celebrate. I can’t imagine I will break through ten thousand tonight, it is twenty eight minutes past nine, but I have had a good writing day.
Just posted some of these meanderings on nanowrimo, you can post excerpts from your “novel” put up the first two chapters. You see how this works, I write about what I am doing, what I have done, in order to please the word count god. I’m not going to be far behind ten thousand at the end of today, and what day is it? I hear you say. Why it is Tuesday November the sixth in the year of our lord two thousand and seven. Only six hundred or so short of ten thousand words, and I have managed to write those words about nothing in particular. A huge success.
Forty six minutes to midnight, I am flagging here, I’m tired of being in front of this thing, typing away about nothing in particular. I know I set off on this quest and I have to see it through and that, way too late to start a story now. This is the way it is going to go.
I won 2 games of scrabble and lost the other one in a close game. So with the well over two thousand words today, and the scrabble, this day has been made of win.
So as this reaches page fifteen, of what about 90 odd pages, I will draw a line under the day‘s writing activities, only five hundred words short of the ten thousand, I will hot that tomorrow and then some, almost made it today but this meandering is driving me slightly mad and I need a break from it. Tantalisingly close to ten thousand, bit I am going to mover away from the screen. You never know I might pop back after midnight and have a bit of a bash at it again.
AAARGGHHH
Not sure if that is a word, I was just coasting along at scrabble, my opponent had 7 letters left, I was about 90 ahead, bang she lays a bingo, a seven letter word, gets herself seventy one points, plus twenty six for the letters I had left and beats me by twenty seven. Now I’m in a bad mood, I deserved that, she was a lucky…
So as Wednesday November the seventh fast approaches, after a shaky start, my nanowrimo effort appears to have legs, I’ll hit the ten thousand mark tomorrow at some point, onwards and upwards. This is quite knackering, after a day at the office, hammering away at the keys for hours at home. Still over two thousand five hundred words in the bag today, on my way to obliterating the word deficit. Only two hundred and fifty odd short, should I just go for it, start ahead tomorrow. I can’t, I need to step away from the screen. I will have a break and come back, maybe before midnight to get to the ten thousand, it’s so close now I can taste it, not that it actually tastes of anything, does it taste of win? The last two days have been the best writing wise, well over four thousand words in two days, after 3 very poor days, admittedly a I wasn’t around a lot, but you have to take advantage on the good days when you can hammer away for hours and really attack the word mountain. I can do this, I need something to talk about, but I am only 150 words away now, it seems a pity to stop when I am so close, and it will fill me with confidence tomorrow if I get beyond the ten thousand words tonight, I can even post on the ten thousand word thread on nanowrimo, where we all shout out our word counts. It’s in the bag, I will reach ten thousand in a few minutes, glad I stuck at it, it seemed so far away at the start of the day, but tonight I have given it some, and I am inches away. I’m not sure what it tastes like, but it tastes good. Twenty thousand is going to taste a lot better, fifty thousand tastes the worse surprisingly, it tastes deflated, because you have finished for another year. I am there, the big ten thousand, well done me. My excel spreadsheet now declares me ahead of schedule. Now I need to keep ahead, and creep ahead a bit more, until I can maybe relax in the last week and hammer out a thousand a day to finish, maybe even leave the last couple of words to the twenty ninth or thirtieth. I’m getting cocky now, very unattractive. Now I’m only three hundred short of the best word count this year, but if I keep going I might want to better the best word count in all three years , which is over five thousand words. I will stop now. With today’s score not far short of three thousand, it‘s a hundred short, I have seventeen minutes to hit that, and I want to leave this computer, sit somewhere else, have a beer , have a cigarette, maybe watch the highlights of the Liverpool game, eight goals, it was a goal frenzy, much as today has been a word frenzy, hitting the back of the net again and again.
Somehow I am about to hit three thousand words for the day, way beyond my expectations at the start of the day, with fifteen minutes to spare too. Now I can get out of here, have a cigarette, have a beer, watch a bit of telly. Yep, the word count is over three thousand for today, I’ll call it a day now, a well earned rest. Only a hundred or so behind the best of this year, but no, I will leave now
Chapter Seven: November the Seventh
Well I couldn’t resist one last go, in the post midnight slot, on Wednesday November the seventh, whack a few words down now, and when I come home from work later today, the task facing me will not be so daunting. After yesterday’s sterling effort, I should be able to get to the average word count fairly easily, and soar ahead. I might just mess around on the internet a bit first, check face book, urban75 and post on my blog. A quick word count reveals I’m only thirteen hundred short today, if I manage to write a couple of hundred tonight, then that eats into that pile. I am tired though, I do need some sleep time, so I’ll leave it for now, mess about on the internet a little bit, and go to bed before one am
Good news is, I had an idea for next year’s nanowrimo, I think I’ll write about a block, a residential block, and the dramas that happen within. It is a bit of a bus man’s holiday as I work in housing management so could use this experience, some good, some bad to drive the story. Bad news I guess, I’ll probably have loads of ideas from now until November two thousand and eight, which I will not be able to note down, as that goes against the ethos of nanowrimo. Other good news, a word count exercise, but since this has developed into a reality type show/book, I should put the date (in words) at the beginning of each chapter. I am starting each day with a new chapter so it’ll fit in well. So progress today is positive, probably nearing five hundred for the day. Thinking about next year, there probably isn’t anything wrong with writing some ideas down now, I promise I won’t cut and paste them into next year’s effort.
Let me tell you about some of the issues, dull as they are , they build up into a rich drama. We have love, my boyfriend has moved in I want to make him a joint tenant. Deceit, my boyfriend has left me, he was shagging my neighbour. Disruption, I want to move because my boyfriend is harassing me (and shagging my neighbour). Stalking, my ex is hanging around outside (when he is not shagging my neighbour) and ringing my phone ,buzzing my intercom. Happiness, I have had a baby, I need to move to a bigger place. Disappointment, It will take you a while to get that move as we don’t have enough properties. Finance, if you don’t pay the rent we will evict you. Music, if you don’t stop playing your music loud, we will get an injunction. Heartbreak, you have been evicted, please leave your home. There three hundred odd words this morning already.
There is a lot of talk about nanowrimo, on various message boards, comments from people doing nanowrimo, and from others confused as to why we put ourselves through it. I’ve only had one suggestion for a line, I guess he thought it was a challenge putting this particular line in, but since my novel is about my struggle to write fifty thousand words in thirty days, I’m happy to bung it in.
“Charles, delicately licked the delicate oyster tracings of her ear, while fingering her elevenses with anticipation”
So rednblack, your beautiful words are included in this mighty effort to get to the fifty thousand word line, and thanks very much for your help.
I’ll need to keep up the pace tonight, it is important to keep up the word count, keep ahead of the pace, write , write and write some more.
Maybe next year I could just get people to write the whole thing for me, have a list of credits at the end (think of the word count, maybe a thousand contributors, some long names, all those thank yous)
The beauty of writing it this way, about the whole writing, the struggling for word count, is that so far I have had plenty to write. On the other two occasions, I have struggled more. I have had to invent some characters just to up the word count, I don’t have any characters in here, very little narrative, no real story apart from my talking about myself all the time. Maybe have to be more inventive than the last two times. Then again, this nanowrimo is all about invention, fantasy, imagination. It does stretch you, even if you are writing shite, you are writing, and you become more disciplined as a result. Write everyday, and some of it is going to be awful, but some good stuff will result. I need to maybe write more in the off months, all eleven of them. So by six thirty one on the eigth of November, I am fast approaching one thousand words for the day, I should have time tonight to hit two thousand I reckon, I don‘t I will match the heroic efforts of yesterday when I sailed past two thousand and then somehow manage to get past the three thousand mark as well.
I am obsessively checking the word count, updating the spreadsheet, I was only about four hundred and fifty words short of the daily target when I last checked. It’s a bit of a cross between literature and mathematics. Which reminds me, there were stories in the press about a new scratch card, you won if your temperature was higher than the temperature in the winning box, people complained when their temperature was -7 and the winning temperature was -6, they couldn’t get their head around minus numbers. It is actually quite sad that people were confused by this.
Maybe I can make this an interactive novel, I’ve already had one person suggesting a difficult line, which I promptly slotted in. Another friend wanted to know if she was in it, you are mate, sue, you’re in. And thanks for the interest. And with that product placement I am sailing effortlessly towards eleven hundred words for the day. Let me also thank the fantastic nokia, the very efficient vodaphone, and a big nod to the apple ipod. Thanks for bringing some joy into my life. And Dell computers, I am writing on one of your machines. With those product placements, I am fast approaching the required daily rate for the nanowrimo, so I’ll just say a few thank yous to other favoured products. To mars bars, thank you, to marmite, thank you, to Bovril, thank you, to marmite crackers, thank you, to badger beer, thank you, to green king IPA , thank you. More thank yous to come I Reckon.
And more, maybe next year I can get sponsorship for some product placement. I’d like to thank sony, for their play stations (haven’t got playstation3 yet) I’d also like to thank wii (haven’t even seen one yet) xbox360 (haven’t played it yet). I‘d like to thank dr vogels bread. I’d like to thank weetabix, I’d like to thank crunchy nit cornflakes, bananas, apples, satsumas, grapes (white and read) chateau neuf de pape, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and American Spirit cigarettes.
Many more to come as I think of them. I might drop in some car manufacturers, you never know who could be reading. And if I have product place to get the word count up, I will product place. I do draw the line at some, I can’t even mention them as it would be reminding the world of their existence. Deny them the oxygen of publicity. Only sixty words behind where I should be to remain on schedule, but we don’t want to be there, we want to be way , way ahead of schedule, I’d like to be two or three days ahead. I should be in credit now, but I want to be able to finish with days to spare, not spouting nonsense as the clock ticks towards midnight on the thirtieth, and run the risk of not being able to upload it to be checked on their word count thingy. If I can’t get it checked, it doesn’t exist in nano land, and even though the whole thing could be considered a waste of time, it would be even more of a waste of time If I didn’t prove on the site that I had actually done it.
So on November the seventh and forty seven minutes past nine o’clock in the evening, I have a mini celebration of being ahead of schedule again. Hopefully as the days go by this celebration will get earlier and earlier. I mean, 2 hours odd ahead, that leaves no real margin of error, when the days come when I just can’t add to the word count.
As I said earlier today, two thousand words in the day is a good target, keeps you ahead of schedule by over three hundred words, and those three hundred words again and again will eventually stretch the lead over the required word count rate further and further, giving you a bit of breathing space. I will shortly hit the magical one thousand six hundred and sixty seven word count, for the third day in a row. Three days in which I have exceeded that word count, got rid of the deficit and started to stretch my lead over it. Also the twelve thousand word milestone is fast approaching, that will be a good point to get over. And it’s only about seventy words away. Time for another break from this, I have sailed through the average rate required, and moving on towards both targets of twelve thousand overall, and two thousand today .
I managed to lose two games of scrabble, played woefully, I’m probably just a bit knackered and not thinking straight, I have to win one at least before I go to bed, otherwise it just won’t feel right. Still good news, past twelve thousand words, that’s nearly a quarter of the fifty thousand down. Plus I am now nearly four hundred words ahead, I’m in profit land, the deficit is no more. I hope never to see the deficit again, if it comes back it’s because I either fucked up, or just couldn’t be arsed with the stupid internet stunt anymore. I will get to two thousand for the day, I have about ninety minutes to type about one hundred and fifty words, and despite my boredom and tiredness, I will do that. I’ll earn an early night. I want that two thousand words, you can tell, I‘m putting off the scrabble until I taste two thousand, another taste of win. It will; be mine, I forbid myself to play scrabble until it is mine. The taste of win. It will be two days on the trot of more than two thousand words, I will be soaring into profit land, spinning around, doing loop to loops, figures of eight, dancing around like a banshee. I’m five hundred words ahead of schedule, it will soon be six hundred, when I’m a thousand ahead, I might do a little dance, just in the chair, probably just wriggle my arse slightly, or tap one of my feet. That dance is approaching, it will happen anytime now, in fact if I do the dance now.
It will get me to the two thousand mark, where I can do the dance again.
Hoorah, another two thousand word day, about not very much at all, worth two little dances in anyone’s world. Of course , now that Iam beyond twelve thousand words, the next milestone rears it’s head, thirteen thousand words. If I make that tonight, and it’s only six hundred or so words away, I’ll be a happy bunny again. The word count drives you on, those milestones fly by when you are in the zone. Hammering away without a thought as to what you are writing. Alas I don’t think I am quite in that zone, I want to play scrabble. Actually I think I have got to the point in the day when I just want to veg out and watch meaningless telly, I might have to declare today and hope for as good a day, word-wise, tomorrow.
Comes back to celebrate magnificent scrabble victory, I’m still tired, but at eleven o’clock on the evening of November the seventh, I feel briefly victorious. I’ll have another scrabble game now, I will probably lose, so the feeling of victory is probably only a temporary one. Still that win, brought me close to a mini milestone, twelve thousand five hundred words, a quarter of the way home. I’m tempted to do another victory dance, but I will refrain this time. Still a quarter of the way there in seven days, that is a good thing, that rate will see me finishing on the twenty eight of November. Plus I am over eight hundred words ahead. Another resounding victory, I’ll quit now whilst I’m in a victorious way, both the scrabble , and this milestone around my neck, the nanowrimo one. Actually a word about an email I received from one of the nanowrimo motivators, it said something like, just try and keep writing ten words more, again and again, and you know what, it works. Ajourney of a thousand miles starts with a single step, said Mao, and a journey of fifty thousand words starts with a single word. I know I am labouring the point, that is the nanowrimo way, squeeze every last drop out of a point, then squeeze it some more, in the hope that more words will spill out on to the page.
And that spurt has taken me nearly a thousand words ahead of schedule, I’ll update my spread sheet, and log on to the nanowrimo site to update my word count. That will be it for today, I’ll squeeze another ten words out, but I am flagging, it’s a tough old game this nanowrimo malarkey. At eleven twenty two, I think I’m bowing out for the day, I might be back for a bit of a post midnight word snack. Good work today.
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