Illinoir

This is me overdressed for the sixty-degree weather we were blessed with today.

Word number 45,000: a

You might remember that word 30,000 was also “a”. Before you jump to any conclusions and accuse me of just copying and pasting the last 15,000 words over and over again, keep in mind that “a” is one of the more commonly used words in the English language. Also, keep in mind that these are the only two times I used the word “a” in this entire novel. So keep your criticisms to yourself, you meanie.

Wow…. Wowie wow wow.

Word count: 44713
Percent complete: 88

Dropping references like they’re pennies.

The first band starts – it is Octopus 5. The band members — all eight of them — wear latex gloves and surgical masks. The music isn’t bad — it’s kind of a Garth Brooks meets Pig Destroyer kind of thing – and I’m actually getting into it.

Reading some Raymond Chandler quotes and they all tell me I’m writing a piece of crap in terms of detective fiction. But they’re all brilliant. Check em out:

Raymond Chandler on wikiquote

His writing style was just fantastic. Am I just now discovering this? My apologies for my ignorance.

“I needed a drink. I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation. I needed a home in the country. What I had was a hat, a coat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”

Posing with the photo Jen gave me prior to my first Nano. It helps me embrace both the good and the bad ideas.

Really feel like I’m closing in on the end, not only of the word count (43473) but actually of the story. I have some good images for the very end, I think. I hope.

Decided that once it’s all done, I’m going to put this out there for anyone who wants to read it along with an author’s note explaining exactly what I was going for. That way, all you guinea pigs will be able to help me figure out where it goes wrong, what it gets right, and maybe how to get it there. We shall see.

Want an excerpt? No? Okay.

Word 43434: “car”

[afterthought: too bad it wasn’t racecar. or mom. or dad. or madamimadam.]

It used to be (back in highschool) that I was known as a writer. Sometimes I was even known as the writer. It was such a part of my identity and I loved it. I loved making up stories, writing them down, shopping them around (to my friends).

And then college came and the production decreased. Also, I wasn’t around the same people I’d been around for so long so I lost that public perception of my identity. I probably wasn’t known for much of anything in college, though I did do the radio show for 4 years, so there was that. And there was writing for that.

And after college, I wrote even less, though I was still creating — made a couple short movies, did some interactive development and design stuff, wrote copy for things. …

And now I do some flyer design and web design and other stuff that feels (I think) like it gives me the same pleasure that writing used to.

But here’s the thing: people (from back then) still ask me, “Are you still writing?” And I never know how to answer them. Mostly I’m inclined to just say “no” because I’d love to avoid the conversation that involves questions like, “What do you write?” and “Have you been published?”

In this day and age, what with your computers and your internets, you’ve got so many different avenues for expression. Over the past several years, I’ve written more words into blogs and things of that nature (I was blogging before it was called blogging, dammit — by hand! in a flat HTML file!) but I don’t really consider it “writing” — it’s just… I don’t know. “Typing”?

I’ve written three or four “big” things since college. Three of them were/are for NaNoWriMo and one of them was a rambling and highly experimental Beckettian blather-fest. But it was kinda cool.

Uh, where was I? Dunno.

….I’ll just end with a funny story. A couple months ago, Gregory (my brother) and I were having dinner with several family & friends and someone said something about me being a writer. Some present who didn’t know me said, “Oh, you’re a writer?” and in order to nip the conversation in the bud, I just said, “Nope.” Confusion spread across the table. I realized immediately that I’d probably just made a faux pas, but I wasn’t at my conversational best that weekend and I knew it.
Fast-forward to last week when G and I are at Morseland and Gregory says to someone else almost by way of introduction, “Adam’s not a writer.” And that is why sometimes he can be the funniest dude on Earth.

Here’s a snippet of a 500 word Microsoft Word AutoSummary:

I wonder if I can get my hands on that file.
“It’s not the nicest room.”
I turn the handle and the door opens.
“Okay, well…. “Livvy?” I call her name again, a little louder this time, approaching the door. The room is empty. There’s nobody there. Hard times rolled off her. “Right away, sir.”
I’ll take you home if you’re not feeling well.”
“Your name is Charlie? Don’t say anything, just nod your head if you understand.”
I shook my head.
I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any excessive pain or inconvenience.

Word count: 42651

Wrote this last night and as I’m writing it, I’m thinking, “I’m just putting my doubts about this novel into my character’s mind.” It’s funny: Charlie has several moments where he has these “I can’t go on, I must go on” moments that are really all my fault. This one was probably the most intense. Fortunately, it was followed by yet another revelation (on my part) about what’s going to happen to him and so he made it through again. Way to go, Charlie!

I wonder about this trip to Normal. I don’t even know where I’m going or what I’ll do when I get there. It seemed like such a sure thing when I made the connection. “Go see Illinoir,” they said. So I go down there and see it and what will that do for me? That’s been the problem with this whole thing. It’s all happening in fits and starts. I’m not making any progress towards any goals. I figure out one thing and then six other things pop up and I’ll never unravel them all. I make one connection at the cost of another.
I give up on my papers, stuff them back into my bag, feel the gun. Desperation’s voice in the back of my head tells me just to put it in my mouth and pull the trigger. Rarely is that voice so dark and rarely does it sound so attractive. My hand closes around the grip inside the bag. I feel its weight and power. It’d be so much easier to stop this all right now, arrive in Normal as a corpse rather than a live human with all these questions and mysteries. Who needs them?
I sit like that, folded over in my seat, holding a gun hidden in my duffel, for several minutes and I’m not sure what brings me out of it; what causes me to lower the revolver back into the relative safety of my T-shirts. Perhaps it is my love of a mystery solved that makes me realize that I need to see this through to the end. Maybe it’s the way Kat is staring at me from across the aisle. Disgusted with myself, I withdraw my hand from the bag.
I am weak to be thinking like this. My exhaustion from the events of the last 36 hours along with the alcohol and the stress have all combined to break down all my defenses. I need sleep.

Word count: 41734

Crazy dreams last night…or this morning. I think I woke from them around 6AM, actually in pain.

This dream inspired by: Illinoir, Sleeper Cell, The Big Sleep (wow — that’s a lot of sleep-inspired dreams)

So here goes: In a church (I think) up in the balcony. I am part of some gang. There is another gang in the church, down below. There is a shootout. I have a revolver. Lights go out and shooting stops. I fire one shot at what I think is one of the rival gang members. Lights come back up, rival gang is gone and I see it’s just some guy, maybe a cop, that I shot at. Didn’t hit him. Was very thankful for that. Then wandering about the church and come into a room and am set on from behind by rival gang leader (who looks, unsurprisingly like what’s-his-name the super-bad-guy from Sleeper Cell) who has also tied up some girl (part of my gang? someone I know? not sure). He has one of my arms and something blunt sticking into the back of my ribs on my right side. I resist and he starts turning me around, really hurting my back with whatever it is. Says about the girl “She’s being good. Are you going to be good?” So much pain, I cry out, “Yes I’ll be good.”

Then I wake up and holy crap my back was hurting in the exact spot he was knuckling me. So bizarre. Is it dream imitating life? Life imitating dream?

Lying there, kinda scared to go back to sleep, just because of the pain, but I think I might have gone right back into the dream, or else just half-dreamed the rest of the story:

He lets me for a second — drops me to the ground or a bed or something. He doesn’t think I have a gun, but as you’ll remember, I do. I pull it out of my pocket and put it to his head and don’t mess about with the talking or the warning or anything…. Just pull the trigger.

Guess what? Waaaay too much crime fiction.