What a novel idea!

I've been waiting since last year. I came across a concept that intrigued me, and I waited an entire year to embark upon the voyage. I've always wanted to write a book, and as you know always never comes. I needed some motivation. I needed the fellowship of kindred souls. I needed the National Novel Writers Month.

The NaNoWriMo happens every November, and I had been waiting for a year to enter. It's very simple. You write a novel of a minimum of 50,000 words. You upload the novel for word count verification. You win a certificate, and an icon for your website. That's it! It is possible to cheat, but the honor system works well - because there is no financial prize, there is no guaranteed book review or promotion, if you cheat it only hurts yourself.

In November 2007 I joined 101,767 aspiring novelists - ready, set go! Out of the 101,767 there were 15,335 winners for a cumulative total of 1,187,931,929 words. Yes, more than a billion words were counted! Mine were not counted, I dropped out! Here's the schedule I put together and the results:



As you can see, I started off slow and got slower! At just under 30,000 words I threw in the towel realizing that I would have to write at an insane pace to finish. One night I even fell asleep with my fingers on the keyboard. I woke up to find a paragraph that looked like this:lllllllllllllllldddddddddddlllllllllllllllllllll etc.

You think I'm kidding, right? Wrong! It really happened. If you look closely there is an embedded code that when decrypted says "go to bed Dave".

The basis for my novel is rooted in reality. Many years ago while I was in college my grandfather passed away in Southern California. I took a Greyhound bus back to Portland, and made friends with 3 people. Each of us had a very different background, and were on the bus for very different purposes. But as we shared our stories a friendship grew. I've created characters around those people, and launched off into what might have happened if we had stayed in touch.

I know what you are going to ask: Will you finish? Yes, I will. Although I didn't make the goal, I learned a lot. I learned what writer's block is. I learned how to finely craft a sentence. I learned to use an economy of words (true story!). I learned a new respect for writers. And someday, I might be one!

Dream Diary #5

I dreamt I was in Hawaii with my Ford Ranger pickup. I had gone to a popular outside bar & grill, but was wondering why it was so popular. Although the warm breeze and swaying of the plam trees as I sat outside under an umbrella sipping a lava flow captured the essence of the islands, the scenery was somewhat limited. The bar & grill was on the canyon floor, if you will; with a towering condominium on one side and the enormous side of a cruise liner forming the other wall. It was a very narrow space at the bottom that the establishment sat.


It was for the reason of the limited view that I decided to leave. I went out to my truck and as I approached on the passenger side, little reddish spiders began falling like rain on the truck and then all over me. I panicked and unlocked the passenger door to slide over to the driver's side, brushing spiders off of me in a frenzy. As I opened the door though and got in the truck an enormous yellowjacket wasp followed me in. As if taunting me, he perched on the window button so I couldn't open the window. I sped off, and he moved; and I punched the button and as the window lowered he was swept out of the truck.


I drove on a road that sooned turned into a frontage road paralleling a freeway. In between the frontage road and the freeway was a large area about a quarter mile wide where off road riders would cavort in the dirt. I thought "why not" and swung the truck off road. I powered up a hill and clouds of dust began to fly. As the truck began to slip sideways I stopped by a family having a picnic. Rather than being offended by the dust now settling on their fried chicken and lemonade, the father began explaining to his son how I would soon need to put the truck into four wheel drive. We had a nice chat. As I drove up the hill the dream changed and I was out of my truck and onto a four wheeler. The dust turned powdery and the front wheels began to churn a circular ring of dust as they rotated and pounded the dust into powder.


I can see all of this that I just related to you in remarkable clarity and color. Then I woke up.