But it appears you are determined to drown next month. So be it. Just remember that Poseidon tolerates no bitching from thems that condemns themselves.

Ah, the joys of working in online retail during the holiday season. We are down two managers this year, so guess who’s doing double-duty? And when work makes me sit at a computer for 12 hours a day, at home I just can’t sit no more.

I gave up on this year’s NaNo when the 20th rolled around and I realized I would have to do 4000 words a day to make 50K and oh hahahaha, that was never going to happen. My thumbs and forefingers are already going numb from carpal tunnel and there are days when my ass actually hurts from sitting on it.

It was hard to give up at first, but then I figured hey, I have a pretty good reason this year.  Unlike the last two NaNos when I wanted to give up just because writing is haaaaarrrd – yes I’ll take cheese with my whine, thank you – but Kevin convinced me to nut up and finish, quality be damned.

There’s always next year. And by then the 2 new managers we hired yesterday won’t be making more work than they are doing (ideally) and I might have a life during the holidays.

But this December, ye old Rib might be a little quieter than usual, though I do love Christmas and may need a place to come and sing its praises since everybody else is sick of it already.  Just sayin’ if you don’t see a plethora of posts for a while, it’s because I am literally trying to save my ass.

[tags]National Novel Writing Month, writing[/tags]

NaNo commenced last Sunday and by Tuesday I was ahead on word count. That lasted all the way to Wednesday!  Since then I’ve been getting steadily further behind. But this is year three of NaNo for me and I’ve learned a couple of things since my first try:

1. Don’t panic about being behind on word count. That’s what Thanksgiving vacation is for. Your employer thinks you are doing your duty at the family hearth when in fact you are holing up in your writing nest, ignoring them all.
2. Everyone writes shitty first drafts. Get over it.
3. Do not go to the NaNo site forum for encouragement/comiseration. That place is a world-class time suck. Hey, what did I just say? Nice. You can kiss three hours and 1,000 words goodbye.

Pearls of wisdom, yes?

And while I’m here, since who knows when I will return, I’d like to point out that once again, Seattle is kicking global NaNoWriMo ass:

By the way, dunno what broke the images on the last few posts. I fixed them but no promises, since I’m running an old version of WordPress and haven’t gotten around to upgrading.

Since then, writing fiction has once again become a Have-to, but in an entirely different way: I have to do it in order to retain what little of my sanity hasn’t been eroded away by the all-too-frequent mind-numbingly dull episodes in daily life.

I know this sounds like a really unliterary reason to write, and all the Be Here Now folks are clucking their tongues at my inability to see the beauty and complexity of the Universe in a humble Post-it.

But seriously, what do you think William Faulkner was doing all day whilst licking stamps in that Oxford, Mississippi post office? What’s Stephen King thinking about in that DMV line? Betcha dollars to donuts they were either pondering the plot of their latest creative endeavor, or making mental notes on the people or place around them for use in it.

When they talk about ennui, they’re talking about the suburb of adulthood, where everything from the car to conversation is a politically correct, non-confrontational shade of beige and there are no flamingos on the lawn. Even the things that bring us great joy can take on a patina of predictability.  Most people don’t want to admit we live here but, well, studies show most people think they’re smarter than average, too.

It’s the human condition to become conditioned to things. Like how the first couple bites of chocolate tastes like Manna from Heaven and the rest takes like… chocolate.

My actual job, the stuff I do when they let me work, is good. It’s just a job, but it does not suck. The meetings I have to go to, however – now they suck big, stinky, diseased goats. And my commute, though shorter that it once was, can still put me to a catatonic trance (that’s bad). Then there’s any car trip longer than an hour, endless lines at the store and post office, and the occasional obligatory spousal event I must attend.¹

And thus I began my 38th year considering embarking on a second career in crime, taking up extreme tourism, or getting a full-body tattoo.

But lo! Who is that cresting yonder hill, sitting tall upon the back of a mighty steed and brandishing aloft a shining pen? Tis the muse come to rescue me from the brink of disaster!

Which is to say she threatened me with a certain painful and bloody death if I were to sully her sleek, alabaster hotness with that tattoo. In return for my restraint, she gives me an everlasting and ever-varying assortment of fluorescent plastic ornaments to scatter freely about the grassy plains of my mind.

1. No, not that kind of spousal event. Get your mind out of the gutter!

This will be my third year doing Nanowrimo. I can say with equal parts pride and humility that though I “won” the last two Nanos, pounding out 50K words in 30 days, it is my opinion that thus assembled, they only vaguely resemble a novel.

But luckily producing publishable prose is not the point of Nano. It’s all about bragging rights.  On your death bed, you get to say you wrote a novel and cross at least one thing off the bucket list.  It’s also a wonderful exercise in exorcising the Inner Critic. For one month a year, you have permission to tell the AntiMuse to fuck directly off, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Which is not to say it’s not hard. It is. I really bloody is.  By the end of November, my ass is two centimeters flatter and wider, my eyeballs feel like dirty sandpaper, and my fingertips are as smooth and red as a baby’s proverbial bottom. My brain is weary of daily internal battles with my Evil Twin. But, as Kevin so wisely and infuriatingly told me the first year, it’s the hard that makes it great.

Thus as I prepare mentally and physically for this year’s grueling event, I ponder its most important decision: Which brag badge should I use when I update Rib readers of my progress or lack thereof?

I love the design this year, but I can’t decide on the color. Would the orange one clash with my beloved red? Does this shade of blue make me look fat?

[tags]National Novel Writing Month, writing[/tags]

Full report coming soon.

Meanwhile, here’s a peek at the celebratory eating of the apple fritters. Orientation by Kevin. Content 100% Uppity.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxygC_5_tw[/youtube]

[tags]NaNoWriMo[/tags]

well, not too late – only 3,000 words to go

if they are done by tomorrow at noon, i get an apple fritter

i am beginning to eschew contractions

ok bai

Here you can see the days when I did not make the 1,667 words-per-day goal. Pretty much the majority of them.¹ Actually I did that on purpose because red is my favorite color. Yeah. Red is the color of Uppity.

Grey is the color of Good Cop. Good Cop brings me coffee as I pound away the keyboard every morning. He helps me come up with characters who stutter to pad my word count. He listens to me rant about characters who don’t want to do what I tell them to do. He does my chores. He answers my random dinner-time questions like besides the voiding of the bowels, what happens to a body as it dies?

Green is the color of Bad Cop. Bad Cop makes me call him sir. He says Drop and give me two thousand words, you maggot! He sets my word count goal for the day and then withholds nachos and beer until I make it. He smacks his nightstick threateningly when he suspects I am sneaking in some net surfing. He reminds me there is no crying in baseball.

[tags]NaNoWriMo, writing[/tags]

1. You can also view a detailed report of my progress, brought to you by the geeks at NaNoWriMo.

Novel: Bad

Attitude: Worse

Prognosis: FKD

Word count: 28K

Icon: FAIL.¹

1. KFKD: the radio station every writer hears in her head as imagined in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott