November 20 - The POS

Beginning Word Count - 36,617

I've been referring, off and on, to my "POS".   *  Note:  earlier posts may have called this 2009.  Sorry.  It was really 2010.  I started calling it that early in November 2010, because I was writing this thing at break neck speed.  November 2010 was the very first time I had ever participated in National Novel Writing Month.  I had wanted to do so  many years, but since I was teaching, I was not able to do so.  However, in 2010, I was not teaching.  I had been stopped teaching in 2010 because of a disagreement with the administration at the local university I taught at.  It was simple.  I updated my personal contact information on my online profile.  However, I did not personally call the department secretary and tell her to update her hard rolodex.   My primary job changed about two weeks before the start of term, and I didn't tell them.  I'm sorry, the company I worked for went out of business and I was trying to get all those other ducks in order.  Pardon me for not informing you of that.  Then they demanded that I be available by email 24/7.  My new company had blocked internet sites with web email, so I could not do so.   Rather than being reasonable about being willing to email me at my work email, they said I needed to figure out how to make that work.  I hung up and thought about that.  I decided that I was not going to put up with that from my part time job.  I did not have office hours because I was an adjunct.   And I was sick of how they treated adjuncts like second class instructors and I had had enough.  I was not going to get a smart phone just on the off chance someone needed to email me from there.  I thought about it for about a week, and finally made a decision.  Then I called up my department head, apologized to him, and told him he would have to find another instructor for the course starting in three days.

Some time in early September, I realised:  "This year I can do NaNo!"  So, I signed up.  I had been wanting to do it for years, ever since one of my friends started doing it.   I was very  supportive of her through the process, and thought it was a truly awesome idea.  I also talked another friend of mine around town into doing NaNo.

However, I also knew I had a very strict inner editor.  One of my friends actually told me she wished me luck, but did not believe I could do NaNo...not because she did not believe I could write a 50,000 word novel. She did not believe my inner editor would allow me to just leave things alone.  I would have to fix mistakes I saw.   (I do fix the misspelled words that I see.)

I knew she had a point.  I could not blame her for that.  And I was not certain I would succeed.  However, I wanted to try.

Actually, I had tried once before -- in an April.  I was between terms in April, and April and November both have 30 days.  I figured April would be a fair equivalent.  So, I set out to write in April.   I told myself that I was allowed to write drek.   I lasted four days before I could take it no more.   So, my friend had just cause to doubt me.

But in April, there is no support system in place for this wild ride. In November, there are online forums you can visit and scream your frustration with those who can commiserate with you.   If you're lucky, there is an active regional presence, so you can get together with other crazy people on a Saturday and write.   In April, you're writing in a vaccuum.  It's just you.

And ultimately, when you're writing, it is just you and your keyboard, pen, typewriter, dictation device.  Whatever you use, it is between you and that object.  Still, NaNo gives you the community.  An army of people facing their blank screens and ploughing through rough patches, storming the forts of writers block, and waging word wars.

Eleven months of a year, writers face that alone -- but in November, they do not have to.
So, I had faced it in April.  And I had failed.  I clocked in a grand total of 5,480 (ish) words before I just deleted the file in irritation.

My friend had a valid point.  I had no reason to believe I could do it.   But... Mercedes Lackey was going to write a pep talk.  She's my favorite author, and she had her start in fanfiction!  She graduated to the big leagues!   And, Create Space was giving a free proof copy to anyone who won -- who crossed the 50,000 word finish line.

I wanted that proof copy.   Badly.

And I knew that there was only ONE way I was going to be able to do this.  If I had to scroll all the way through my work every day as I was typing, I would see something horrific, and start editing.   (Editing: That's what December's for!)  And once I started, it was over.

I had to give myself permission to write drek.  That is not easy.  I'm a control freak, so giving myself that permission was really extremely difficult.

So I had a strategy for this.  I had to keep the inner editor in check, not let her know what I was up to.  Once she woke up, she'd reach for her red inked sword, and I was done for.

So every single day, I opened a brand new file and typed.  At the end of the day's writing, I copied the work into the big document.  And that process was: "Open file.  Control End.  Paste.  Save.  Notate word count.  Close."    No reading.   Not a word of it.

I tried to keep it under control.  So I could edit anything I needed to on the day I was writing.  (And I did.  I am sorry, but I am not going to write an ungrammatical sentence unless I do it intentionally!)  

I could spell check.   I could correct typos.   Writing drek did not turn off my inner English teacher!   I'm sorry, but if "could of" accidentally appeared on my screen, that had to be remedied immediately!  (and no, "could of" never did appear.... but "alot" did, a lot.)   I even accidentally did a double comparative once!  (oh, the horror!).   I had to take care of those things.  I even auto correct things now.  It's a habit.  If I feel a typo, I must correct it.

But if I did not like how a sentence was crafted, and I could not immediately fix it, it stayed the way it was.

And most importantly, I was not allowed to delete.  There were a few places where I put [brackets] around paragraphs to indicate they had to go.  But I wrote those words.  I needed those words for my ultimate word count.   They stayed.

But the biggest thing I had to do was decide that my story was total crap.   It was a POS.  Afterall, if I was writing something of value, I was crafting and sculpting.  Each idea would have to arrive perfectly formed.  I would not be able to get past certain phrases that were awkward.   My characters would have to be compelling.   My expectation would be (because I am crazy sometimes) that this work must emerge from my fingertips perfect and ready for publication without any other effort.
I'd written fanfiction.  I've used 'betafish' (most fans call them beta readers.  I call them betafish.) to help me catch typos and inconsistencies.  If FANFICTION needs a tweak before posting and sharing, why would my brain decide that a story arrives perfectly formed from the hands of the author and delivered to the publisher?

I do not know.

But that was how my irrationality worked.  

But I mediated it. 

Initially, I was going to take a short five page story I had written many years ago and try to flesh it out into a novel.  But on October 31, 2010, around 8 pm at night, I remembered an outline I had written in high school for the novel I had always wanted to write.  I have moved many times since then, but I never tossed this outline.  When I did my ruthless purging of trash and other nick nackery, this outline never was doomed for the rubbish pile.  I had always kept it. Even more impressive:  I knew exactly where that outline was.

So four hours before the official start of my first NaNoWriMo, I switched gears and pulled the rabbit out of my hat....or the outline out of the wicker hutch.  

But this was a twenty odd year old outline, and I didn't know if I could make it work.  I mean, perhaps I had never done anything with it because this thing was always worthless.

So I called the work a POS.  And I diligently worked on the POS.

And I averaged over 3,334 words every day.  The first day, I wrote over 5,000 words.  Some days I wrote less, but I never once allowed myself to post a number less than 1,667.    On November 14, I finished my POS.   It took me two weeks.  The story was actually in the 54,000 range, and I did get to the very end of my outline.

I even printed it for the TGIO party, and called it the POS.  And I could not bring myself to read the POS.

As for my friend, the one who did not believe I could do it? She had changed her mind around the time I hit 25,000 words, or one week in.  But she did not tell me that.   When I called her to tell her I had won NaNo, she told me she had been wrong to doubt me.  

Still, I had to wait another twelve days to earn my purple bar.  Oh wait....many of you don't know what that means.

On the NaNoWriMo website and forums, each user has a profile.  We update our word count and see our friends stats.   At the beginning of the month, the progress bar is grey.  As your word count goes up, your bar starts to fill up with blue.   Once you hit 50,000 words, your status bar turns green.   When you validate your novel, your status bar turns purple and declares "WINNER!" in white in the middle.   I had a green bar, but my novel had not been validated. 

I ordered my proof copy -- the thing I had worked so hard to earn, but because I had a POS, hardly felt it was worth obtaining.  I deleted the [delete] areas, and did a quick spell check.  Turned all the NaNo tweaks of did not into 'didn't'  (one word vs two words in word count wordl) so that they'd sound more natural.  And sent it off.

The POS proof arrived about a week after I requested it.  And I read it.

It was not a POS.  

But that's what I call it.

My POS is really called "The House on the Hill."  It is a young adult thriller/horror story about a cursed house.   The story is set in the early nighteen eighties, which now is nostgalgia, but was current for the time of the original idea.  I consciously decided not to move it forward, and a bit of the time I was writing was spent thinking "did we have that then?  Off to the Google Beast!"   While it has a lot of dark in it, it also reflects a little more innocent time.   I am actually very proud of this wee beastie, and would like to see it graduate from NaNo Novel to the big leagues.   Still, it will always be "the POS" to me.... but it is not a POS at all, not to me.   (it's a better love story than Twilight :) )    When I refer to "The House on the Hill," and call it a POS, POS no longer has the standard meaning.  

Today's Word Count:  2,034
Total Word Count:  38,651