Day Eleven

12:30 PM - 18,011. Giddyup.

12:47 PM - 18,358. Passed today’s quota on a roll, but must pause for class. It’s become
frustrating, this start-stop pace. How nice it would be to have continuous writing time whenever I pleased. Also: no idea whatsoever what tense I’m writing in. Don’t really care anymore, either.

2:15 PM - 18,682. Wrote those last words all stealthy in class. Longhand, too. I feel like I’m having a hard time finding my voice, or using what voice I think I have. Something about writing something so long that makes me switch over to autopilot; a majority of this novel doesn’t features the style of writing I think I’ve developed in other pieces. And thus, the self-doubt begins. Side note: Think I’ve cracked the whole tense issue, or at least why I’m so much more comfortable writing in first person. In first the reader automatically identifies with the narrator, which makes my job easier as I don’t have to work as hard to establish that reader-character connection; the reader essentially is the narrator. In third, however, the reader has more of a choice with whom to identify. This sucks, because then I have to actually make the characters a) likable and b) identifiable, which are sort of the same thing. Basically, the characters need (just slightly) more depth than they do in first person. Probably my biggest weakness is creating three-dimensional characters, and so far no one in the novel is remotely close to that standard. Everyone’s a tool and the plot is driving the story more than the characters. Dab.

5:09 PM - 19,000. hi*ball number six: lemon-lime. Just started the twelfth chapter, relieved to be done with Paxtonia. Wondering, too, how it can be that nearly every remix of a White Zombie song is better than the original? I don’t think White Zombie completely sucks (indeed, I am fond of several of their songs), but the remix album Supersexy Swinging Sounds is much more listenable than any individual WZ album. Mostly. At least the first half, anyway. Okay, so maybe just the first three songs. The rest is kinda rubbish.

5:24 PM - 19,119. Ghostbusters reference: check. That cup of coffee I just drank, yeah, not helping me focus on the writing, though it has fueled more than a few pacing sessions through the house.

5:29 PM - 19,199. Star Wars reference: check.

5:30 PM - 19,204. Lord of the Rings reference: check. “Time? What time is there?”

6:14 PM - 20,061. Passed tomorrow’s quota fifty-eight words ago. Wish I could get some more done tonight, as at some point tomorrow I have to attend to several school assignments and I’d like to have a comfortable lead on my quota for Friday. Regardless, the novel’s spilling over onto its forty-first page. Whoa.