Caterwauling

10,000 / 50,000 (20.0%)

Now maybe I can go nurse this damned laryngitis that I seem to have acquired today. I’m at a great stopping point — if I keep writing, I’ll probably end up murdering someone. And not necessarily someone fictional. 😉

*Updated to give away music and to note that I’ll be sporadically adding miscellaneous drunken rants at random to the end of this post. Like having a conversation at a bar with me. Lucky you! Only, you don’t get to hook up with me, because I am the only one at this bar tonight. So, not-so-lucky you. 😉 *

Let the debauchery commence!

That’d be two bottles of riesling, a bottle of merlot and a bottle of chardonnay.

If I’m still alive after this, I have a whole freezer full of Skyy, Tangueray, Irish Mist and Kahlua.

If this doesn’t help my novel, then nothing will!

UPDATES

10:25 p.m. Eastern:

Half a bottle of Merlot? Gone. Cheeks? Flushed. Ability to sit upright? Not bad so far.

The nicest thing I have to say about my novel? The words are in consecutive order. All sentences have a subject and a verb — just not, oftentimes, a point. But hey, nobody ever said all 50,000 words had to be COHERENT!

10:30 p.m. Eastern:

I foresee posting some songs tonight. And opening another bottle really, really soon. …

11:45 p.m. Eastern:

Who wants tunage?!?!

12:12 a.m. Eastern:

I stopped with the family at the Starbucks in Breezewood, Pa. I had my first gingerbread latte of the season, after being told just yesterday in Virginia that the holiday stuff wasn’t yet available. Hah. In addition to my gingerbread, the manager brought out sample cups of the eggnog latte for my mom, grandfather and me. Mom hates coffee, so I had hers. 😉

This November is goddamned mystical compared to last year. And even in and of itself. Last year, I didn’t get any of my beloved seasonal holiday coffees because I was so broke. It’s amazing how being deprived of life’s pleasures, big and small, not to mention life’s necessities can screw with your head.

I’m one of those people who takes pleasure in the details — warm, 71-degree days like today, driving with the sunroof open, having not one but both of my favorite lattes today, meeting my family (from 250 miles away) at a halfway point for lunch, a nice bottle of red wine, driving through the Appalachians and seeing oceans of trees and leaves in myriad colors.

During my drive to work — after the Pentagon exit from I-395 , specifically, where the ramp crosses over and drops down onto the George Washington Parkway — I always, always take a moment to look at the Potomac River, the Washington Monument, Kennedy Center and, now, seven trees in a row to my right that are just bursting with orangey-red leaves. Every day, I smile at that juncture. I can’t help it.

Unfortunately, the leaves are crisp and bland this year — lots of old chewing-gum pinks and burnt-sienna shades. No firey reds or lemon yellows or day-glo oranges. No, it’s like I want to take a bottle of baby oil and moisturize the brittle leaves — anything to make them look healthy.

I had a funny experience today. I am always playing with the truckers when I’m driving — they see a young(ish) lass in a tiny blue sports car with a vanity plate (do any of them REALLY know what a blog is, though? I’m getting sick of people mispronouncing it and asking what one is), and honk and flirt.

I had this one truck that was with me for probably a good 50 miles, between Bumfuck Egypt Maryland and Breezewood. We kept passing each other, kept honking as we did it, kept waving. I couldn’t see the driver — my little car sits a couple inches off the ground — I can’t see over my sunroof to catch the face of an 18-wheeler’s driver.

But before I blew off the road in Breezewood, I very obviously stood up and stuck my head out the sunroof (at 45 mph. Nobody ever said I did smart things!). And I would SWEAR it was a chick!

No big deal — I’m easy like that. I honked and waved, and off I went to see the family. It was just nice to have a friend on the road and not somebody trying to mow me down and kill me.

Speaking of which. …

Note to assclown drivers:

You wanna ride behind me and high-beam me when I’m driving 85 mph in the slow lane? Fucking DIE. When you want to blind me, I’m gonna flip down my mirror and ride my brake till you get smart and pass me. Which, good luck — I am one of those bitches who will speed up just so you can’t get in front of me. Also, I just LURRRVE when you DO pass me and you have to slam on your brake because I wasn’t the one driving all granny-like. Suckers.

1:04 a.m. Eastern:

I keep leaving Woo Hoo! comments all over the blogs of other drunken writers tonight. Like, woo hoo! Look what a couple of $20 bottles of wine does to me. Do to me. Fuck grammar — I don’t fuckin’ know. I know, I know — no correcting. But nobody said I couldn’t question!

Was just over at Suzanne’s and saw that she FINISHED NANOWRIMO. Like, done, fini, blew the 50K words the hell outta the water. Congratulations and HOLY SHIT. I only have like a bajillion more incoherent stupid-ass fucked-up thoughts to write. Hooray.

She had a great counter that i so totally have to steal. So that you can see my non-progress as it’s not happening:

8,903 / 50,000 (17.8%)

1:15 a.m. Eastern:

Fuck.

I hate Chapter Three. Fucking abhor the fucking thing. It’s like “factdump.” It’s “Yeah I guess I need to set up this future shit so I might as well have everybody all talk to each other and shit so whoop-dee-fuckin’-doo let’s have everybody discuss their widdle iddy biddy feelings. FEELINGS! ARGH!!!

I hate feelings. I hate being vulnerable. I hate making my beautiful, wonderful lead character have to make herself so raw and exposed — she’s so me, so controlled, so detached, so blase on the surface.

There’s a small-potatoes character who is her enemy. Somebody she helped to put in jail. Somebody she detests with every fiber of her being. I was telling my mom about this mysterious character and she said, “Oh, you must have named him X.” And I was all like, “Yeah, I know you’re psychic and all, but Jesus H, you know my book character names?” and she’s all, “Um, if you’re torturing this character, all I have to do is look at everyone you’ve ever known for possible names.”

She’s right. She’s always right.

The names mean things to me. I don’t just arbitrarily pick character names. Everybody and everything has a place.

The thing I’ve always said about having kids when you’re my age or older is that you can go through baby names websites for 10 months and you cannot come up with the name that you love — the name that you don’t associate with ANYONE you’ve ever known in your day. I joke that that’s reason enough to not even want to have kids — you’re going to name them after someone who annoyed you on a minor level as opposed to a major level, if you can.

But my character — ah, my Stephanie. I love her. Love, love, love her. Her name is the only one that hasn’t changed since the book series inception in 1988.

That came from my fucking French classes. Gah. We were all forced to pick a “French” name — I couldn’t just be Dawn. Worse, I couldn’t be some fucking TRANSLATION of Dawn, even though my name is present in EVERY GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING LANGUAGE THAT WAS EVER CONCEIVED. Like, sunshine and shit, ya know?

But no, I couldn’t even be something dumb like Aurore, because we had a Fucking French Foreign Exchange Student named Aurore.

Now, tell me, Why the FUCK would an exchange student come to Armpit America, USA and take her own language as a for-credit class? What a waste. Snotty French Bitch. Probably wore crepes as tampons, she was so stuck-up.

But I became Stephanie. I hated that, though. My dumbass teacher had to say it with accents and shit. “Stay-fon-EEEE” was what she would call me. Dumb freaking asshole. She had a Polish last name — who the hell did she think she was, making me all Fake French when she was a pierogie with hands and feet?

Ah, that reminds me of Darvin. I adored him — we were French Class Fuckups. Seriously, both of us were so smart, we drove Pierogie Lady nuts. And we always had our heads together. Everyone thought we were dating. If he didn’t have an infant son, I probably would’ve gladly gone along with it (I always had a thing about not dating guys with kids — long story).

But God, we talked all the time. He always called. That drove my grandmother nuts. I never really wanted to know why.

Anyway, Pierogie was asking “la classe” what the French term is for a social error. Now, I knew it was a faux pas. I’m sure Darvin did too. But when she called on him (I forget his French name), he didn’t respond because he wasn’t paying attention and none of us were quick enough to respond to the fucking fake names we had for three years with her.

So she got his attention and asked again. His answer? Fucking brilliant.

“Fook Oop.”

We sat together, and it took everything in me to keep from grabbing him and making out with him. I loved it. (Fook Oop = Fuck Up)

Some chick named Cindi (with an I. We had tons of fucked-up Cindy spellings in school. We had a few Cyndis — after Cyndi Lauper. Not by birth but by choice. Sweet Jesus.) sat on my other side, and she poked me and, in a stage whisper, asked, “Did he just say FUCKUP?”

Which everyone heard.

Ah, I guess I did apparently have fun in high school. Who knew?

1:42 a.m. Eastern:

Good lord in heaven, I’m watching “Laguna Beach.” And I’m almost into it.

Novel? What novel? I haven’t looked at it in HOURS.

2:13 a.m. Eastern:

Stick a fork (or anything, really) in me — I’m done.

‘Nite all. See ya again next year!

I was perusing the NaNoWriMo site last night, and while most people had word counts of zero and even up to 3,000, where I’m currently hovering, I saw bloated counts anywhere up to the 8,000 range.

Seriously, that was Day Two. Did some of these people REALLY start writing after midnight on Nov. 1? If so, when do they sleep/work?

I’m hoping I’ve hit sort of a groove — the words are coming more easily this morning. For now, anyway. 🙂

I just wanted to send lots of luck and love to my blogging buddies who are on this psychotropic hayride: Barb, Buckethead, John, Pratt and Ted. And to those without blogs who continue to encourage me (and/or kick my ass — whichever I need), I wish you all the best as well during your writing journeys.

If anyone else out there is imbibing in this madness, drop me a comment. Otherwise, put on your cheerleader outfit and shake what your mama gave you in support of us!

If you’re so inclined to add me as a writing buddy (thanks, Barb, for the idea!) over at WriMo, I’m dcwriterdawn. And if you want a normal, coherent blog post that has nothing to do with noveling, well, hang in there. I have to come up for air eventually. 😉

I JUST hit yesterday’s word count for my NaNoWrimo fiasco project.

Just got home and snarfed down some crap food for sustenance. It’s now 8:45 p.m. Eastern and I’ve got 1,700 words to write. But first, I need to figure out WTF to write.

I’m so happy, I could just shit.

I wrote the prologue of my NaNo novel. I like to believe I’m brilliant under pressure, but I may be reconsidering that line of thinking.

It’s cool, in a way, though. I never finished last year’s novel, so I decided to pick up with the same characters, but a year down the road. And while I suck at plot development, I am better-than-mediocre at exposition. So, right now, I get to encapsulate all the shit I was supposed to put my characters through, but in just a few paragraphs. Muse help me when I have to start writing real action scenes.

1,000 words and counting. And trying to find the time for this? A way bigger challenge than writing coherent, cohesive thoughts.

I echo the thoughts of one of my writing buddies: “It’s gonna be a long month.”

Gorgeous line, Pat Conroy. Now do you think I could write something like that?

*tapping on head*

“Come on, ideas. Shake out.”

*tapping harder*

“Nothing? Oh, come ON now.”

*bangs head against wall*

“Seriously, that ought to shake SOMETHING out.”

*a thought starts to stir!*

“Ibuprofen? That’s all you can say? Brain, what am I going to do with you?”

*torrent of thoughts dumps into my conscious — I’m too overwhelmed to even think to grab a pen*

*conscious smiles slyly*

I sigh.

“OK, Muse. Next time I ask, I’ll be near my computer. ”

Dear Muse — the ideas? Thanks for them. Now to see if they’ll hold till I get home. And seriously, you want me to make her do WHAT with WHOM?!?! Shame on you, you cheap whore! I mean, lovely Muse. Lovely, lovely Muse. I will indulge you, then, as long as the thoughts actually start to make sense at some point. Love, Moi.

November — a month when it’s perfectly acceptable to have schizophrenia. 🙂

And all through Chez Dawn
The Apple G4 hummed expectantly
Yet the author’s mental state was gone.

As she updated her profile
Panic set in
Because she has no fucking idea
How her novel will begin.

Bestow unto me, my beloved Muse, the opening line that will incite a torrent of brilliant (and even not-so-clever) literature.

The pressure’s on — the clock starts ticking tomorrow. I’ve been thinking about my characters for days. Hell, I’ve been thinking about them for years. I’ve fallen in love with a secondary character and damn near lost interest in a primary one.

I know in two weeks, I will hate them all. But right now, they are my babies, the many facets of my personality, my lovers and friends and enemies, all rolled into words.

And that’s what this is all about — words. Thoughts. Sentiments. Longing. Desire. Vitriol. Love. Passion. Anything but indifference. Losing myself in my fantasies and nightmares and the things I never daresay aloud.

Writing to process the past, ponder the present, plan the potential occurrences that I’d love to happen in my very own life. Allowing them to happen to my heroine. Letting her ache and triumph and live in ways I wish I could. Transferring my myriad fears and my strength into a character the pages can barely contain. Becoming her, living as her for 30 whole days.

Should be easy — I’ve done it for 30 whole years. This month, I get to be who I was meant to be.

Muse, give me strength.

So this is my first bona fide post back at Caterwauling — and my first WordPress entry.

It’s like moving back into an apartment that you left or getting back together with someone you’ve been missing, and you get that sort of cognitive dissonance — like, can you really start over again? I have no intention of picking up where I left off — tempting though it may be — but, rather, of continuing on the journey but in the place where I was happiest. Read the rest of this entry »

With NaNoWriMo coming up sooner than I’d care to admit, check out the list of writerisms of which we’re all guilty yet we somehow cannot fail to avoid. And despite my being (I think) a bona fide grammatical goddess (although it’s not so obvious on this blog! LOL), I should very well be stoned for having more interesting vocabulary than content. Mmm, being stoned. … 😉

And from Writer’s Weekly, World’s Worst Book Proposals. When submitting your finished masterpiece, I suggest using this line: “After all, hard work doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere in life. If anything, working hard is stupid, and theft seems a lot more intelligent.”

With seemingly everybody and their brother on the interview trail (and/or on a Doocing rebound), I saw this on MediaBistro: You can remove yourself from Google searches. If you try it, let me know if it works, ’cause I just got a big surprise the other day when I found that pieces of a website I killed are still very much alive in some parallel dimension. 🙂

On iTunes: Kelly Clarkson, “Behind These Hazel Eyes”

In amazing news, I found Inspiration at a coffee shop, and I wrote till my brains fell out I ran out of pages and my ink-stained hands destroyed my new (totally on-sale) white Nine West purse with the snakeskin strap. But that doesn’t matter — my beloved black-and-pink dream journal, themed “Letting Dreams Run Their Course,” is now officially jam-packed with nothing but.

Now to muster up the courage to read it. 😉 Else put the damned thing away and not ruminate over its contents and start a new one already, themed “Turning Dreams into Reality.”

And while the madness shall stay firmly between the pages of the journal that will ultimately be buried in the box in my closet marked “Bondage Materials,” I still get a giggle when I read this passage (written today) when somebody said something surprising to me as we were eating ribs:

*takes a bow*

That was the only funny thing written, I assure you. The rest is this weird mixture of reality and delirium, expectations and wishes, disillusionment and hope. Lots of roundabouts inspired by my observations but nothing fully quantified. Like a handwritten version of this blog, truth be told.

And while I still truly believe I need some tangible beauty and color and inspiration in my world, I’ve found that I’m perfectly capable of creating my own in the interim. And even regenerating it when all else seems lost and barren and otherwise impossible to swallow. (Heh.)

In any event, until I get wherever I need to go — in every sense — I’ll just keep searching for it in my own mind so that I will know my Utopia when I finally reach it. Till then, I — we — all need to keep believing that such a place exists, else we’ll rush right past it and not even recognize it if it reached out to trip us. And maybe, if I’m right, we’re already more than halfway there, and each experience brings us closer to the “better days” that we’ve been promised.

On iTunes: Martina McBride, “Anything’s Better than Feeling the Blues”