It's in your head...

Here's my second observation on novel writing:

If you do it every day eventually it crowds out all other thoughts so you're just a walking zombie who's disconnected from the real world. You begin to live through the novel, and see things only in relation to the events of the novel, or as possible contributions to it. You begin to see yourself as a character, either one actually in the novel or one who could be. I had to make myself think about other things, because I had all this other crap that needed to get done. It magnified my already ridiculous levels of introspection to the point where I couldn't function properly -- moreso than usual.

Making myself get back to reality (hup there goes gravity) is probably what caused me to forget all sorts of minute but important details, and to contradict them later. If I could ever get myself sequestered in a room and just write non-stop like a real writer there's no telling how great it would be, but I probably would lose my ability to communicate with others in the process.

Jill, I, Matt (one of Jill's 6th-graders), and Matt's mom got to see a stellar NBA game last night -- Mavs vs. Houston. It eventually became Dirk Nowitski vs. Tracy McGrady, but that's not important to this blog. This is not the Sports Ignorant Blog. Talking sports would chase away my already dwindling fanbase. No, I don't want to write about that -- I want to write about the fact that the place was packed to the top with Asians. I'm assuming it's because Yao Ming plays for Houston, and he's an Asian (a Chinese/Asian to be exact), all Asians got a memo (it took a lot of paper) that they must root for Houston. That would explain why they all do. Ok, so not all -- some had team affiliations before Yao showed up, but most didn't. It's really brilliant of the NBA to market to the Asian community (and it's a big community, too -- have you seen the size of Asia on the Risk board? It's worth like 7 points), but they owe Yao some money methinks. I can't think of anyone who brought more fans to the league than Yao, except maybe Bird/Magic/Jordan.

But I was kidding about giving money to Yao. That's just like indirectly giving it to Mao, and that won't do at all.

First Post of December -- The Blog is Back!

I've been indisposed for the entire month of November writing a novel for the NaNoWriMo.org people. (See previous post for my victory celebration). It's actually for myself, since I am currently the only one reading it. To get the 50,000 words finished in time, I had to use the time-honored trick of the "Thrown-together European Ending" that's so popular among film directors who want to sell their TV Pilots to European countries as feature films. I'm stopping writing the novel (which is approximately half-done, and by half-done, I mean the first crappy draft is half-done) for a week or so to "catch my breath" and put my hands on my knees and try to forget that I'm a long way away from being done. I'm sure this work stoppage will cause many continuity errors in the text of the novel itself, which brings me to the only point about novel writing I'm going to make today:

When you're trying to write a novel while working 55 hours a week, it tends to be a very slow and distracted process. I found it especially hard to pick up a scene where I left it off and not contradict myself on some very large personal details. This is because I don't really know what I'm going to write before I write it (shh, don't tell anyone), and have no more than a vague idea of where the scene is going. So I write things and then forget about what I wrote and then contradict it 5 days later. It's incredibly frustrating, and it's also why I'm not so looking forward to getting the first draft finished -- Part Two of the process will be going over the horrible manuscript and correcting continuity errors.

There will be more points about novel writing scattered throughout the blog this month. Get excited.

Because everyone who blogs is contractually obligated to have an opinion on that fight between Ron Artest and the City of Detroit that happened last month, I will now tell you mine. As I write this, suspensions have already been given out by the NBA to all the important parties. Insane Stephen Jackson should be gone the whole year, too, but I can't really complain. And now the fans are being punished. That guy in the white hat with the generic name I don't remember has been banned from the Palace of Auburn Hills for life. That's good. You see, this sort of thing is bound to happen eventually in a highly-charged hate-filled athletic endeavor like the NBA. Fans and players will get on each other's nerves until things explode. But the NBA and society can punish people as a good-old-fashioned deterrant to bad behavior. We're trying to get people to think twice about doing something evil when everything in their bodies is telling them to go for it. The only way to deter people is with excessive penalties. These penalties are the Ego that kills the Id, if those things did exist. Anyway, bravo to the powers that be for stepping in and busting some heads. Let's hope it continues.

Sorry the blog's so amateurish today. It's just hard to get "up" for writing about something 2 weeks old, you know? But it IS one of those events I'll never forget watching -- I kept ESPN on for hours, just watching replays of it over and over. ESPN did a great job of breaking it down that night, by the way. Complete with telestrater-like circling of important things and people before they happened. It was mesmerizing. It's the OJ chase, September 11th, and Juan Nieves' no-hitter all over again. I won't ever forget where I was when I heard about it and saw it.

Unless of course I put in in my novel -- then whoop, there it goes out of my head like my hair did.

I won! Woo Hoo!