Gobble Gobble Gobllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..............

Character, I once heard someone say, is sticking at something long after the mood in which one began it is gone...... Speaking of which, stuck is what I am feeling at the moment. Stuck in what, you may ask. Well, in an endless loop; a vicious cycle of sorts... I am finding that my imagination is not, as I had naively imagined, limitless; and I'm constantly fishing into my memory bank which, as someone has attested to on numerous occasions, is not very reliable.... and on coming up empty handed time and time again, I'm having to turn to my limited imagination... see what I'm saying? Don't worry if you don't, but feel free to nudge, push, shove... anything to get me unstuck.

Happy Thanksgiving to all y'all Turkey Lovers and to the rest, have mercy on the swans, they may speak the same language but they are not really related.

fiftee thau; 50,000

I did it people... well, sort of; kinda. It is the middle of the night or early morning... 3:43A.M. exactly as I type this here post and I have just passed an incidental milestone. Every time my story comes to a halt, both on paper and in my head, my first reflex is to hit the tool button and find out my current word-count. This last time I noticed that I just reached 50,000 and something characters with spaces..

LOL! Whatever I can do to encourage myself in this wee hour.. right. Well, sleep on my friends, or for you on the earlier to rise latitudes, good morning y'all.

Truth be told: The story thus far....

So... one week and 3 pep-talks later, I have managed a measly 3000 and someth'n words of a story whose plot and direction has completely eluded me. I am feeling like I probably would be half an hour into running a marathon - after a five year hiatus from the exercise world....... worn, winded and out of my depth. Of course that is no excuse to throw in the towel... but I am keeping mine handy (the towel that is), just in case.

According to the last of the pep-talks, I should tentatively have written at least 15,000 words... which tentatively speaking is tentatively placing me ummmmm right at the starting line... LOL! One might say that I am feeling tentative.

I am apparently at this stage -

".... Week One of NaNoWriMo tends to be all about characters. Our imaginations have been leaving a lot of them on our doorsteps lately, and it’s pretty much all we can do to bring them in, give them names, and teach them the rudiments of steering their battle-yaks. Then our doorbell rings, and we're rushing off to welcome another group of newcomers to the party.

Because of this, the first week of November is largely a matter of crowd control....."

I am stuck in week one.... but I will plod on... or is it plot on. Apparently week two is 'That stage called plot'. Personally I think these pep-talkers are full of it; but I really do need a plot.

For those of you who requested a link... check your emails later on today... but don't start bugging till tomorrow... bear in mind that we are in different time zones... Even Obama has to wait till next year to move into the little white house on the prairie.

997 words and counting.....

It is with a thick lump in my throat that I sit to write this post. My screen is blurry... with tears of thousands, transmitted over the airwaves; it is hard to see, with the flurry of activity.... the fanfare that has taken over my T.V., how many of the electoral votes were cast for me. But that is of no consequence.... apparently, from listening to Senator McCain's albeit touching speech, I have not won this historic election.

Perhaps, it is all for good... given that I can not write nearly as pretty an acceptance speech as the one Obama is giving... that none of those who promised to vote for me were really eligible to vote. It is with a heavy heart that I put away my slogans, and banners and what have you.. and once again take up my pen and paper.... and continue on my month long journey. 998 here I come.......

It's on...... Bring out the Patron

Well.. not quite yet. Some breakfast will have to do for now. Kick off was 7 hours ago and like some of you (Neema) predicted, I got off to a beautiful start. I have written down about five words so far... which is not good going by any stretch of the imagination. But write I have started... and taking a lesson from the infamous character of our folklore - Kaka Sungura, I know that kutangulia sio kufika... directly translatable to 'starting at the front is not finishing'.

Plan.... What plan?

"To achieve great things, two things are
needed: a plan, and not quite enough time."
--Leonard Bernstein

Seeing how I only have one.... the latter, and not the plan, I am so tempted to settle for a not so great thing. But thank goodness for loop-holes. The said plan does not have to be a great plan... or even a good one at that.... right?

It only needs to be one... a plan. So here is me making a plan on the fly.... lol.

So I... and the hundred thou or so other wrimos out there start writing after midnight tomorrow.... that's really Monday for me as my good friend Fifee so *helpfully* pointed out... Apparently my weekends are predictably unpredictable... which is to say that she has no faith in my ability to work on weekends.

I'd like to contest this blatant attack on my character but as it is... Ali Kiba is coming to town... And while I have nothing to do with him getting here, my boys, who have everything to do with it, have me working on selling him out. How am I supposed to move twenty tickets between now and Saturday night... Please holla if you want some.

Ok.. back to the plan... I will be writing the novel on google docs. This is not only because I do not have Microsoft Office on my laptop.... because I have the Open Office equivalent which I hate using... but also due to the fact that that way I do not have to lag the laptop everywhere I go. All I'll be needing is access to the internet.

Yes.. I can just imagine getting bored at an after-party and approaching the dude hosting it....

Kei: Dude... can I use ur interwebs?
Dude: My what?
Kei: Your comp bro... I gotta get on the internet.
Dude: Dude you want porn? I gots some DVDs....
Kei: No is alright... I wanna work on my novel...
Dude: Ati wank on your navel? Dude, what have u been drinking...
Kei: No dude... its this writing competition bro... I have to work on my word count.
Dude: Ok dude... in the bedroom on the right.... (all the time wondering where one gets off counting words instead of booze or even better... boobs)


Not only that but google does have this cool feature that allows one to share docs over the internet with whomever one wants... thus allowing for online collaboration and stuff. While I can not let you help me write... as I think that would be tantamount to cheating... not that that has ever been a problem for me, I can, if you care to watch (literally) my work in progress, give you access to the said work. Just send me an email and I'll be glad to do so.

Just note, though... that I am not looking for critique... If you are so terribly good in writing, please go ahead and sign up for the nanowrimo yourself.... the 50k word count is enough stress for me... I could do without the criticism. Cheering on on the other hand is very welcome as well as any ideas you may wish to share which though in all likelihood will not be used, will be every bit appreciated.

So the plan in a nutshell.... send me your emails and lets all watch as this whole thing goes to hell in a hand-basket:)

Nano what? What nonsense....

So I have two days.... well, one and a half to be precise seeing as how today is almost done... before the start of that writing challenge that I signed up for.... for all the wrong reasons I may add. Actually, I take that back. I signed up because I recognized the contest from last year... and since I had signed up last year, I figured the reasons I had then were still as good this year. I am yet to recall what those reasons were... mostly for a lack of trying. I've been too busy trying to come up with a workable plot and trying not to think of the huge obstacles that are looming in the near future. I have not had much success in either. The plots have been many... almost always being generated by my plot generator during my regular plotting time... my morning shower. Due to too many of the previous nights having been late nights... and the consequential waking up late on the next mornings, my plotting times have been severely limited leading to stunted plot development and hence I have a lot of ugly half-plots lying around in my head.... If only I could gather them and form one albeit disjointed plot. Unfortunately, too many of them can hardly be recognized as plots. Couple that with the fact that the filing system in my brain needs a major overhaul.... and basically I am left with the sad realization that all I have for the contest is one long title and a bunch of naysayers that have taken residence in my head. Still, I have two.... no, one and a half days, to come up with a good story... forget good, a story, any story at this point will do.

Don't get me started on the obstacles.... I could be writing about those well into November, leaving me no time to focus on the contest.