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Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

So Much to Choose From

21. A photo of something you wore when you were younger but wouldn't wear now. 7/91(?) ISSA, Illinois State University. Jon Cates & I strike a pose.

Ripped jeans? Brightly colored long shorts underneat? Backwards hat loose atop head? Big glasses? Earrings? Front 242 shirt? Ok, I might still wear that Front 242 shirt, though even that is questionable. God only knows what kind of shoes I was wearing but they were most likely high tops of some sort. Also, that pose and the hair. Well. Yeah. I have it on good authority that Jon Cates still dresses exactly the same as that though.

It’s no secret that word count has suffered lately. Just don’t know where to go with this thing. But I did write some stuff that I liked. It’s pretty much exactly like some stuff from Illinoir, main character examining himself in a mirror and not liking what he finds. I think he’s metaphorically becoming a zombie. It’s a metamorphosis! Trying to capture a total…disconnection? Conscious thought is still there but he is detached, unmoved….

Standing there, looking in the mirror, I was struck by how quickly a familiar face can become completely foreign. Those features, my features, the ones I’d known all my life, the ones I’d be able to recognize anywhere were nowhere to be found. Staring back at me was someone else, someone completely different. A monster, a devil, a demon. A zombie.

I used to be able to stand in front of a mirror and have entire conversations with my eyes, figure out exactly what was going on in my head, what had been buried, and what was bubbling just beneath the surface. I didn’t need therapy, I didn’t need analysis. I just needed my eyes. My eyes, once — according to men and women, friends and lovers alike — my best feature, striking, piercing, sharp and blue were now sunken, dead, dull. My eyes (along with my quick wit and sharp tongue, of course,) my best method of expression, now said nothing to me.They were silent. Dark. Shallow pools of vacant thoughts. Seemingly empty sockets made my face seem skeletal. Skin was drawn tight across hollow cheeks. My nose, once full and fleshy had lost its shape, sunken in. My jaw was slack, my mouth hung open. It seemed a natural expression of shock and dismay but I found that I felt neither of those things.

Indeed, as I observed all this, took stock of the changes, it was with an unnatural calm, the same calm I felt during my dream about being covered with cicadas in the woods. I was completely detached, like it was somebody else that was looking at the features of somebody else. I should have been terrified.

“I should be terrified,” I whispered.

Enjoyment

20. A photo of something you enjoy doing. 11/2009. Adam plays video games.

Video games. My constant companion.  Lots of debate lately about whether or not video games can be considered “art” and I don’t know where I come down on that. Games contain art: graphics, story, even the programming can be artistic. Elegant, beautiful. But are they art themselves? Well. My response is: Blah blah blah. Let me shoot something.

Wakka wakka.

What was yesterday’s word count? Oh. I didn’t post one. Good. Today, we’re at 36,278, and nobody has to know that I wrote absolutely nothing yesterday.

Alright. Here’s the second half of that phone conversation from the other day. Be warned, it’s very sweary.

I heard a female voice yelling in the background. It was unmistakably Paul’s wife, Paulette. No, I’m not kidding about that. You can’t make this stuff up. It was unfortunate, but the heart wants what the heart wants; you can’t choose your soul mate. They were definitely made for each other, right down to their names. If I ever met a girl named Arthurina, I’d want to get to know her because undoubtedly we were meant to be together.
“Paul! Get off the fucking phone! You’re supposed to be tending the fucking grill!”

“Hold on, Art,” Paul said. I could hear the noise of him lowering the phone and cupping the mouthpiece. “I’m fucking talking to Art, Goddamn it!” I could still hear him as clearly as if he were speaking directly into the phone. They yelled at each other like nobody’s business, but it was all out of love. “Get off my fucking back!”

Paulette’s response was not as clear. I could hear that she was yelling, but Pauls hand did manage to muffle that.

“That’s what I’m fucking trying to do, Paulette!” was Paul’s reply. “That’s why I’m on the fucking phone with him!”

Again, Paulette’s muffled response.

“He knows to bring some beer!” Paul yelled. “You think he’s a fucking idiot? You think I’m a fucking idiot? You think I didn’t tell him to bring some beer? You think I didn’t tell him to bring some food? A dish to fucking pass? Like some fucking pasta salad?” Real quick, Paul was back: “Art, you’re going to bring some pasta salad, right?”

Before I could reply, he was gone again. “Yeah, he said he’s gonna bring some pasta salad. Now get off my back!” He brought the phone back to his face. “Sorry about that, Art.”

“No worries, Paul,” I said. “Tell Paulette I said hello.”

“Hey!” Paul yelled away from the phone. “Art says hi!”

Paulette’s response – “Hi, Art! Get your fucking ass over here!” – was clearly audible.

“She says for you to get your –“ Paul said.

“Yeah, Paul, I heard her. In case you hadn’t noticed, your wife is loud as hell.”

“So what’s all this about losing your Saturday?”

“Shit, man, that means tomorrow’s Monday,” I sighed, realizing the implications. “I only get one day away from Cola?” I shuddered.

“What a drag,” Paul said. “But hey, look, you’d really better get your ass over here. You feeling alright?”

“What? Yeah. I feel great. Better than I have in a few days, actually.”

“I guess that’s one benefit of sleeping a day and a half, huh? Maybe you just really needed it.”

“Yeah, I guess. After Friday night, I must have. Dude, it was so crazy. After you left O’Irish, I was about to leave but I heard this noise coming from the woods –“

I was interrupted by another shriek from Paulette: “Paul, get the fuck off the fucking phone and come make a fucking hamburger for your fucking son!”

“Art, I really gotta go. Just come over here and we’ll talk, ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way.”

“Hey. Don’t forget to take a shower,” Paul said, and hung up.

This city’s got big buildings. I like food. Bye.

19. A picture of you at a restaurant. 6/15/2004. 29th birthday dinner. Princeton, New Jersey.

I forget the name of this joint. It was somewhere around Nassau & Tulane. This is at the end of my 29th birthday which was spent touring historic Philadelphia. As you can see, the food was eaten. Also, I am halfway through a cup of coffee and wearing a black shirt.

Our hero has returned home after a long day (and, we learn, a lost Saturday!) Thank goodness Paul has arrived back on the scene.

I found my way into the dining room – it wasn’t so much of a room as the empty space between the kitchen and the living room. I had turned it into a mess of an office: desk, computer, chair, phone, boxes full of stuff I should have thrown away rather than cart halfway across the country. The phone rang again. I checked the caller ID: Paul. I picked up the handset and pressed the talk button.

“What’s up, Paul?” I asked.

“Art,” he said. I could hear exasperation and anger in his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m at home, Paul,” I replied. “I don’t want to be a dick, but you did kind of call me on my home number.”

“Ha fucking ha,” he said, unamused. I could hear what sounded like a party coming from his end of the line. “Why aren’t you here?”

“I just woke up. Say, do you know how I got home last night? Shit got kinda weird.”

“Last night? No. Why would I know how you got home last night? We didn’t hang out last night.”

“Sure we did. We went to O’Irish, stayed there late, left around 9:30. I think. I mean I know you drove off without me, but I thought maybe. I don’t know. Something happened to me.”

“Art, that was Friday night.”

“Yeah,” I said, starting to get a little exasperated myself. “I know. Friday night. Last night. Whatever.”

“Today’s Sunday, dude.” I could hear him sigh and shake his head and then silence. He was probably holding the phone away from his face. Exasperated. “What happened to you?”

“It’s Sunday?” I asked. “Hold on a second.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d never lost a day before. I swiped the computer mouse across the desk. The screen lit up. I moved the mouse pointer up to the upper right hand corner of the screen where the system clock lived. I clicked on it, and it displayed the day and date. It said it was Sunday too, but I still wasn’t convinced.

“Art?” I heard Paul say.

“Yeah yeah. Hold on.”

I put the phone down and looked around for my cell phone. It was where I always put it when I get home: on a bookcase just inside the door. Lying next to it, perfectly neatly, were my keys. I picked it up, pressed a button on the side illuminating the display. Sunday. Noon.

“Paul! I’ll be right back,” I called to the phone, not knowing whether he could hear me or not.

I unlocked the front door, pulled it open. Unexpectedly, it only opened six inches, snapped to a halt by the chain which I must have fastened last night. Two nights ago. It was starting to sink in.

I undid the chain, threw the door open and walked swiftly outside, down the stairs, to the sidewalk. It was a pleasant day and the concrete should have been warm under my feet, but I ran so fast towards the newspaper box by the main road, that I didn’t register it. I skidded to a stop at the box, and peered inside. It was the Sunday fucking paper.

Breathing heavily, I jogged back to my apartment.

“Hell, Paul,” I said, gasping for air. “You were right.”

“You were checking to see if I was right?” Paul asked. “Jesus, Art. Did you actually think I might fuck up what day it was?”

“What? No, Paul, of course not. I don’t think you’re that incompetent. I just…. I dunno. I don’t remember coming home last – Friday night. And either I slept all day and night yesterday, which seems unlikely, or I completely lost Saturday.”

“Weird,” Paul said, not sounding particularly concerned or sympathetic.

“It’s more than weird, Paul,” I complained. “It totally sucks. You know how much I love Saturdays!”

“You do love your Saturdays,” Paul agreed.

Working Title

18. A photo of you at work. 3/15/09 In the office at Morseland.

It’s not all pouring drinks, making friends, and living the glamorous life. Sometimes I have to do actual work.

No, I’m just kidding. Here I am, in the office at Morseland, where I do work on the website, and send out emails, and research new beverages, and try not to make Dave angry. Also, I drink coffee sometimes.

So, ok, the old novels have been posted. There’s a link over there on the sidebar on the right.

Proceed carefully.

Word count stands at 34,011. I’m falling behind the goal pace (36,000), but still ahead of the minimum pace (30,000). It’s always been important to me to get way ahead of this thing. The last couple years I’ve finished a few days early. Prior to that, it was mad writing sessions on the 30th. Nobody wants that.

Also, the prose style has taken a distinct turn. Where the beginning of this thing was structured prose, with complete sentences, the current state of affairs is that I’m just typing out these fragments with long strings of modifiers. To wit:

And came to, thrashing wildly, lashing out, eyes wide open but not seeing for a moment, spitting, trying to get rid of the cicadas in my mouth, but there were no cicadas in my mouth, just Stella, standing back, looking horrified, probably sorry she stopped to try to help me, but saying my name quietly, repeatedly.

It works, sometimes, especially when in the heat of a scene, but let’s try that differently:

I came to, thrashing wildly. I lashed out. My eyes were wide open but I wasn’t seeing anything. I spat, trying to get rid of the cicadas in my mouth, before realizing that there were no cicadas in my mouth. Stella stood above me, at a safe distance, looking horrified, looking sorry that she’d stopped to check on me.  She was quietly repeating my name.

More words. Less…fun? Dunno. But I do know easier to write. Been having a hard time escaping scenes lately, not knowing how to get from one scene to the next. Been just leaving them for later. Maybe slightly-in-the-future Adam will know what to do. I sure hope so. I’m counting on that dude.

The road I was on twisted. Turned. Doubled back on itself. Became a cruel joke of a road designed years ago by city planners who had waited all this time for me to arrive and take it, my desperation providing them with unceasing joy and amusement.

Bonus Milestone

Threes are wild. Word 33,333 was “was.”

Wasted

17. A photo of you drunk. 2/22/09 Chris Chateau and me @ Morseland.

I can’t be sure that I’m drunk in this photo, but certainly my expression would suggest that I was. Those who know me know that I just don’t get drunk that often, and when I am, the rest of you are way too drunk to be taking pictures. I think someone said “make mean faces!” and Chris won because he actually looks mean as opposed to looking like a complete goofball. But, of all the pictures I have of me, this is the one most likely to represent drunkenness. I guess.

Unless you count this.

So yeah. I wrote some wacko shit today. We’re talking cicadas crawling in the narrator’s mouth kinda wacko shit. Yeah, I said it. Also, originally, the lamppost in this excerpt did reply. But, I deleted that.

Word count: 32,048

The noise was faint, barely audible over the sound cars driving on Route 130 at my back. But I heard it again, and realized it came from the woods. And normally, I wouldn’t pay heed to a noise coming from a forest; forests make noises. Regardless of whether anyone’s around to hear them or not, trees fall, birds chirp, animals howl. Even the long, slow process of a plant growing is noisy, creaking, groaning, stretching towards the sun. But this noise was different, deliberate, a click, a whisper, a summons. I took two steps across the lot towards the woods, and suddenly felt the alcohol catch up with me, staggered, steadied myself on the trunk of my car, deep breaths. The noise came again. I gathered my wits, my strength, most importantly, my balance. Surveyed the empty space in front of me, the lot almost empty now, nothing between me and the woods but a lamp post and faded white lines painted on the pavement. I took another deep breath and left the safety and support of the car, the first two strides strong and sure, but once again my balance left me, my legs trying to go in two different directions, I somehow managed to lurch to the lamp post, leaned heavily against its concrete base.

“Well, I definitely shouldn’t be driving,” I said to the lamp with a comical shrug. “That would be bad.” Fortunately, the lamp didn’t respond, even in my drunken state, I knew that would be a sign of more bad things to come. I leaned against it, once again gathering the troops for another assault on the woods. The noise kept coming, slightly louder now, more insistent. It was a tapping, a siren, a steady breeze, white noise, black noise. Calling to me. Drawing me to it. And there I went.

I went more carefully, rightly figuring that slow but steady would win this race. I made it to the edge of the woods, the toes of my shoes just kissing the dirt where it met the pavement of the lot. The noise, loud now, drowning out the cars, a gunshot, a coyote, a promise, a nightmare. I took a tentative step between two trees, looking up, they towered above, blocking out the sky.

My eyes forward, struggling to make out more than shapes in inky blackness, I shouldered my way past tree trunks, through the undergrowth, there were no paths here, just trees, growing too close to each other, struggling to suck up enough resources from the soil, like a reservation, as if trees too had been forced from their land, uprooted, made to move, a trail of tears and leaves, crammed into smaller and smaller plots, truces broken, treaties ignored.

My mind racing, now the thoughts in my head generating enough volume of their own to drown out the noise that brought me there, I stopped, pausing against a tree, waiting, looking for some reason that I had come into the woods at all.

And slowly, my eyes adjusted, and what had seemed to be leaves gently moving in the wind — and there was no wind, the night was still, serene, except inside my head — were them, were they.

It’s Party Time

16. A photo of you at a party. 6/11/2005. I turn 30.

The amount of effort that went into throwing this party for me still boggles my mind. It was an amazing mesh of friends from different spheres. Here we have Karen & Dan, Margaret & Michael and me. Then there’s Dave D, Sean and Sarah. And much joy and love.

Some folks have been asking about this photo-a-day thing and how it relates to NaNo, so I’ll put it out here in case anyone else is wondering. You might recall (or you might not) that a few times I’ve done photos of myself every day during November, just as something else to do in conjunction with writing the novel. This year, I came across this meme which lists 30 photo subjects and I thought that would be more interesting to do than posting what amounts to the same photo of myself for 30 days. So there you have that.

Up over 30,000 words (around 30,800 as of this writing) and I get an idea that makes me want to start all over again. I think I’m going to shoehorn it into the thing I’ve already been writing, but I’m afraid of ruining it for future use. I think it’d be really fun to write though. It’s called Me Talk Zombie Someday. Tentatively.

Anyhow, you’re probably sick of these, but I’m not, so here’s another bit of witty repartee between Paul and Arthur.

We headed outside, into the night and parted ways at our cars.

“See you Sunday?” Paul asked. He was planning a barbecue for Sunday and his wife had promised that some of her few remaining single friends would be there. The idea of a set up excited and frightened and terrified me. It was an amazing opportunity, rife with possibility, but somehow juvenile, unattractive. I had agreed to go, to give it a shot, to make the effort.

“Of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“And be on your best behavior,” Paul reminded me.

“You know, I’m not always an asshole,” I protested.

“Be on your best behavior,” he repeated.

“Alright, alright. I’ll leave the clown shoes and the taser at home,” I said. “But your kids are going to be sorely disappointed.”

“They’ll get over it,” Paul said. “It’ll be nice for them to see Uncle Arthur behaving like an adult for once.”

“They call me Uncle Arthur?” I asked, shocked. “They don’t call me Uncle Arthur.”

Paul sighed, caught himself, like he’d let something slip he hadn’t wanted to. “No, man, it’s just a figure of speech.”

My eyes widened with realization. “They do call me Uncle Arthur. Holy shit!” Impulsively, I threw my arms around Paul. “This is the greatest thing ever!”

“Yeah yeah,” Paul said, escaping from the hug. “Hooray for you, my kids think you’re the ‘shinzle’, or whatever it is they say these days.”

“It’s shizzle.”

“Shinzle, shizzle, what’s the difference? They’re all ridiculous words. Everything they say is gibberish, what’s it matter if I can accurately reproduce it or not?”

More Love? It’s unpossible!


15. A photo of you and someone you love. 12/2009 Tony and I hug.

That right there? That’s love, and there ain’t no denying it.

Not much writing yesterday (580 words) due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. madness at Morseland->3 hours of sleep->bartending->just wanting to sit on the couch and let the world entertain me [instead of constantly entertaining it.]) So. This is why the big buffer of words built up at the beginning (all Bs included at no extra charge) is so important. Was feeling very discouraged until 2 things happened.

The first was that I read a pep talk email from the NaNo folks. I didn’t even really read it. I don’t know who wrote it. I think it was just the idea that someone else who was writing was saying, “Hey! Keep going!” It was the spirit of the letter, much more so than the content.

The second was that I now have a reason to finish. Incentive. Motivation. Drive. People often ask if there’s a prize at the end of NaNoWriMo; if you “get anything” if you finish. Well, yeah, you do: you get a rough draft of a novel. Congratulations! But now, there is something else. Now, there is hockey.

The other reason for not having written much yesterday was lack of inspiration. Kinda hit the wall with ideas of what to make these ridiculous people do. This morning I had some ideas while driving to work… So, we’ll see.

Current word count: 28311

This excerpt is about a headache I…I mean…the narrator had…last night.

The headache was alive, was wet and liquid and slimy, oozing around on top of my skull, between skin and bone, over one eye, then the other, tears flowing freely from the right one, salt sting causing me to squint. The pain throbbed in my ear, silent, but speaking to me in ways I couldn’t have ever hoped to understand. Telling me things I shouldn’t know about myself like, “You are weak,” and “It would not take much effort at all for me to kill you.” I was at its mercy, and the headache, it knew it, could taste my submission, I gave up everything I had, everything I was for it, and still it pressed on, bending my neck, forcing my head into my hands, my fingers massaging my temples, tracing patterns that in other situations could summon Gods or cast spells.

Relatively Speaking

14. A photo of one of your relatives. 10/8/79. Gerald and mom playing Clue.

It says “one of your relatives” but here are two of them. This is cousin Gerry playing Clue with my mom. What you don’t know about my mom is that she was the Clue champion. Nobody could beat her. This photo is amazing because it absolutely captures how Mom played the game. She was relentless. She looks like she’s actually interrogating Gerry. “We have your buddy Professor Plum in the other room, and he left you high and dry! He told us all about how you did it with the rope in the Ballroom. ”

14. A photo of one of your relatives. Undated. (Grandaddy) Paul & (Uncle) Paul.

And looking through all these photos, I found this one as well. I think it’s an absolute fantastic father & son moment. I suppose part of this photo-a-day thing is picking the one photo you want to represent each of the days, but hell, I just love the stories each of these pictures tells….

Word count: 28,044.

Here’s an excerpt. Paul & Arthur are still at the faux-Irish bar (Paddy O’Irish). Arthur’s favorite Cola employees (Cheryl, Tammy, Kelly) are there as well. Charming as ever, Arthur has once again raised their ire…. This whole bar scene was written just so that I could have Arthur say the very last line. This is how far I’ll go for a joke.

Kelly was out of her chair faster than I thought was humanly possible. Her hands flew towards my throat. I instinctively jumped back, but she was a woman on a mission. She was just about to wrap her hands around my neck when, fortunately for me, Paul stepped in between us. He managed to separate Kelly from me and make her take a few steps back.

“Come on, Kelly,” he said, using the voice I recognized as the one he used to defuse potential explosive situations at home. “You know he was just messing about.”

Kelly was still seeing red and was not hearing a word Paul said. “That fucking asshole.”

Paul persisted. “Kelly. It’s Arthur. He does this. He can’t help it.”

“It’s true!” I offered. “I can’t!”

Paul waved me off. “Go sit down,” he ordered. But his parental voice didn’t work on me. I wanted to watch.

Kelly did seem calmer. Her voice was so quiet that I could barely hear her when she said, “I’m going to kill him.”

She sounded serious. I almost believed that she had it in her.

“Kelly, he’s not worth it,” Paul said. “Come on.”

Somehow, that had the desired effect. Kelly cast one more glare in my direction and then returned to her chair. It wasn’t until everyone started talking again that I realized that the crowd at the bar had gone silent as soon as Kelly had erupted. Now the world around us resumed. Paul put a firm hand on my shoulder and lead us back to our stools.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get fired. Or killed,” he said.

“Did you mean it?” I asked.

“Mean what?”

“When you said that I wasn’t worth it. You don’t think I’m not worth it, do you?”

Friendshiiiip. Friendship.

13. A photo of your best friend(s). 2009. Sean, Jake, Tony, me. Sean's backyard. Photo by Sarah Larson.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed with many great friends, and these are amongst the best.

Today, for the first time in the 6 years I’ve done NaNoWriMo, I actually wrote with another Nano’er. Wendy and I met over at Stella for gigantic bowls of coffee and some writing discussion and some writing. As much as I talk about NaNoWriMo with people, I don’t know a whole lot of people who are actually doing it. It was nice to get out of the house, off the couch (and onto another couch), break some of the isolationism of writing, turn it into a social event, exchange some ideas. Wrote exactly 1000 words. Here are a few of them:

“Company policy,” Tammy started, “is that salaried employees don’t receive overtime. End of story.”
“I see. And yet, I know an employee who is salaried and also receives — “ I stopped mid-sentence. “Tammy, we’re going around in circles here.”
“If Therese has a different arrangement, that’s her business. If I were you, like I said, I’d pay more attention to my own business.”
Under my breath, I said, “If you were me, you’d be good looking. And thinner.”
“What was that?” Tammy asked, her face reddening.
“I said, ‘Stiff blue per three, stewed see wood cooking. Bland dinner.’”

Sometimes I amaze even myself.