Idiot Ghost Hunting Massacre

HUZZAH

2005-11-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

50,000th word: 'can't'
Song listened to when reached 50K: Radiohead - "In Limbo"
Song listened to when 'finished' with novel: Radiohead - "Sit Down Stand Up"
Word Count in .txt Mode: 50,223
Word Count in .doc Mode: 50,236
Now Listening To: Rufus Wainwright's "Hallelujah"

Wow... I don't know what to say. The page they take you to when you win is downright adorable. I'm going to print out my winner's certificate like the dork that I am. I'll probably be ruminating over this for a while so it's not goodbye to this blog yet.

For starters, this monster I wrote is going to need a hell of a lot of editing. A lot of the writing is cringeworthy like you wouldn't believe. For example, check out these gems:

"AUGH!!! BITCHES!!!" yells Ace, crumbling to the floor.

He wanted onions, mayo, tomato, cheese, everything on it. Pickles too.

Oh, there's MUCH more where that came from. Maybe I'll post some more when I actually re-read the thing. Editing will involve actually inserting town names and real highways and paranormal jargon and replacing words like Girl1 or Son2. Also, I completely forgot about chapters until the last couple of hundred words. So the whole thing is in 3 chapters for now. Pfft.

I'll be at the forums reading about how everyone else is doing. I'm pretty proud of myself. The last time I wrote anything was in a writing workshop class. It was one of my fave classes from college and it was totally unrelated to my major! I wrote short stories that had some kind of substance to them though, not this Ghost Hunting Idiot kind of thing. I think my next novel might be in the first person. I work better that way. I'm trying to stay away from the whole literary fiction genre novel-wise though. I could see myself getting annoying very quickly. Okay, that's enough writing for now.

Last sentence for the time being:
Ashes settle around them as they walk away from the chapel.

Thanks to everyone who's given me even the slightest bit of encouragement! It was much appreciated and a major factor in reaching 50K. NaNoEdYe, here I come! =)

CHUG CHUG CHUG

2005-11-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 45,060
Snacks: Many Uh-oh's

I'm doing okay now so I hope I don't freak out in a couple of hours. The whole thing is farce. It's a horrible mix of Real World and Saw. Bad bad bad! Okay, enough writing here. I need to go back to my .doc.

Last Sentence Written:
“Do you mind getting a nice clean glass for me, dear?”

I Can Do This

2005-11-28T22:51:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 42,129
Medication: Robitussin and Multiple fake herbal pills

I have to write 50K by midnight on Wednesday. This is doable, however the novel won't be finished by that day. I have a lot of superfluous stuff going on here. Something tells me NaNoEdMo will stretch out into an EdYe for me. The story is turning into something of an art caper. That is not good. I'm getting ideas for future stories though. My next piece of writing will be a short story.

Last sentence written:
Seatbelts do nothing to keep the other passengers stable.

NOOOOOOO!!!

2005-11-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

"My empire of shit is collapsing in on me!!! Someone get the Febreze!"

Those are actual sentences from my 'novel'. It's degenerated into a mess of random words and curses. I can't think right now. I'm stuffed full of turkey and other assorted Thanksgiving foods. I've got two flans waiting for me downstairs and still I torture myself with this hideous novel. I'm looking through the Nano-Forums for dares. I'm turning the whole thing into farce. But first this, from a thread there:

On a scale of one through ten, rate the following things of your novel.
1 means barely at all, 10 means a LOT. Also, if you want to, list the strongest example of the following.

-How sexual is your novel? (includes even basic things like romantic kissing and caressing, and sexual innuendo)

I give it a 1. I was considering some necrophilia but that's because I read my personal Savior C.P.'s "Lullaby" recently. There are some couples in here but they're not the main focus of the novel. I have one guy who hits on anything in a skirt. There's a tiny amount of kissing, nothing more.

-How violent is your novel?
Overall it's not that violent yet. But the last couple of chapters should garner about an 8.

-How much swearing is in your novel?
Maybe a 5? Phil is the curser, he's like a bouncer. I can't bother to look up an example. Right now the author is doing all the cursing.

-How much substance use? (drinking/smoking/drugs)
5 or 6. Not much. The teenagers do a lot of drinking (duh), I've got one character who smokes a lot and there is some mention of drug-use.

Okay, off to take dares.

7 Questions on Your Novel

2005-11-23T15:43:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Sya!

1) How are you feeling right now about your novel?
It's confusing me. I haven't begun to wrap up all the loose ends and I'm veering on strange tangents with insignificant characters. There are too many mentions of fast food. I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE KILLER IS.

2) Are you satisfied with your word count?
No. I thought I would always be ahead like when I started out. Now I'm withering away.

3) Do you want to get your novel published?
NO. Any publisher who would want my pile of garbage would have to be out of their mind!

4) Which week was the worst for you?
It might be this week. Too distracted.

5) How much time do you spend writing your novel?
I have no idea how to figure this out. One night I barfed up 3K, I think?

6) What do you think of writing two 50000-word novels at a time?
That's the definition of insanity.

7) True or False, you think your novel is worth reading.
Not really. It's kind of lost all direction. It's definitely not a Dave Eggers-type literary fiction piece. Not amazing or profound or out to change your whole perspective on life. Just your standard Horror/Paranormal/Comedy. Hopefully, it'll offer a laugh or two.

So burned out I can't think of a decent title

2005-11-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 31,212
Progress: Insignificant
Ate: Too much chocolate cake
Drank: Not enough coke
Sanity: 14%

"Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?
When in this charming car
This charming man..."

And that's why I don't listen to the Smiths when I'm working on my story. I would just write the lyrics over and over again. Screw my novel. I love those first two lines, it's like my mantra: Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate, Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate. Now here's something really bad for contrast. Last line written:
“I guess not.”

Only 10 days left

2005-11-20T22:27:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 30,730

I've been forcing myself to write. The output is shameful. But I find myself getting ideas for other stories or 'novels' I may want to write about in the future. It's alright for me to admit this one is kind of a throwaway. I mean, horror/comedy? Who does that?

Something tells me the random number generator of the music program I'm listening to is not completely random. It keeps choosing the same 10 songs on shuffle out of a possible 229 songs. And even when it does work okay, it seems like there's too much variety. For example, I heard 'Lola' by the Kinks followed by 'Hate It or Love It' by the Game. I'm not sure that this is good for writing.

Last line written (it sounds more serious than it actually is):
He had to eliminate the summoner.

Things Are Getting Ugly

2005-11-18T14:19:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 24,200
Progress: Bad
Soundtrack: The Strokes "Juicebox" on a continuous loop for the past hour. Trying hard not to rename MC from Adrian to Julian.
Mistakes: Many
Language: Butchered
Sanity: 23%

We're supposed to be up to 30,004 by the end of today?? Great. I see in the genre-count index that Horror has risen from when we were starting off. It's the detailed descriptions of dismemberment and assorted organs falling out. I'm trying to look for anything amusing I can post from my novel but it's all incredibly boring. I'm starting to write really padded, redundant sentences to up my word count. It's strange. It makes everyone sound like they just started learning English:

"Come with me to the library. I need to get a book."

This is bad. REALLY bad.

Last lines written:
Wrek wanted to play a prank on a friend he didn't like very much. The first step involved killing a small defenseless animal.

Halfway Point

2005-11-15T23:12:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 23,088
Stamina: 37%
Idiocy: 98%
Neck: Out of Commission
Bad Dialogue Index: High

Funny/stupid line:
His brains spilled out onto the floor like an overturned pot of spaghetti.

Last sentence written:
That was another way of achieving fame and notoriety.

HOPTZA!

2005-11-13T20:52:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 21,672
Soundtrack: Radiohead's "Kid A" and comps
Death Count: 2 (and a half?)

It's a miracle: I'VE CAUGHT UP. My eyes are killing me and so is my back but it's worth it! I've even surpassed the word count for today by one word. I've rushed ahead to where all my characters meet but it's nearly impossible to have eleven people carry on at the same time so I've eliminated two prematurely. MWAHAHAHAHA! I think my timeframe is really off though. Anyway, here's my last (cliched) sentence:

Everyone stares at the door in absolute horror.

Catching Up

2005-11-12T23:02:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 16,567
Soundtrack: Beethoven, Brahms and T.Rex
Dinner: Toasted Bagel with Mozzarella Cheese

I'm behind a couple of thousand, it's pretty funny. Wizard of Oz and Monty Python distracted me for a bit but I intend to go to 17,500 tonight! I was going to write something profound here but I lost my train of thought. My story's a complete mess. It's like a tall pile of teetering crockery, I keep adding crap to it and soon it'll crash down on me. And get this: I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE KILLER IS! Is it a ghost? A serial killer? That nutty old crone? It's a mystery to me. I should've thought about this before, it would really help with how I'm going to kill these characters. Okay, enough whining, more writing. Last sentence written:

"Okay, we’re definitely heading home now."

Day 10

2005-11-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 13,600
Death Count: Still Nil! Well, maybe 1. I'm saving everything for the end.
Fingers: Frozen
MOJO: Returned

So all I know about Day 10 is that it makes calculating the Word Count I should have much easier. I'm still behind but my Grady Tripp kicked into gear about an hour ago. I was intending to write about other characters but the goths finally opened up! They're wanted by the law now, hehe. They also might've killed someone by accident. Where did that come from? I also do NOT remember writing Jake Gylenhaal's (sp?) name but for some reason it's in there. Along with these other non-novel-related gems:

YAY, more news from the death camp of gulden palace. Today, I would like to discuss mustard with all the fine folks of Yoda County. This is my sub-conscious speaking. I am guilty of writing shit.

FILTH PIG FILTH PIG FILTH PIG FILTH PIG

The father did blah.

Okay, I'm ripping this off from another blog since it's a cool idea and a nice feature to add to daily NaNo-blogs. Last sentence written:

For now, the road is the only thing he knows.

God, what an awful line!! All together now: I smell CORN!

Yuck

2005-11-07T22:23:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 10,362

I'm not where I should be. Predictably, I've run out of steam. Four of my main eleven characters hold no interest to me at all, but they can't die until much later. If I write their death scenes now, I'll feel like I never want to fill in the gaps from when I first introduced them. Stupid derivative characters. How can I make two goths interesting?

Oh yeah, I saw Saw II over the weekend. Now I'm thinking about adding a little torture to otherwise bland death scenes. At this point, the enemy is still a mystery to me. I did have a good writing session on Friday though: I actually wrote something that scared me, not because it was really bad but because it was actually spooky! It's going to be all downhill from there.

Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?

2005-11-04T20:03:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 8107
Soundtrack: More Ministry and Tool's 'Undertow'
Number of Characters Killed So Far: 0

Now that I'm fleshing my characters out more, I may actually be sad to see some of them go. Currently fretting about which ones I will have to kill. 7 out of 11 of them will meet grisly deaths (hey, the title doesn't have the word massacre in it for nothing! In all seriousness, the novel will probably get renamed once I'm finished with it) But at this point I wouldn't be surprised if there are more survivors than I initially predicted or if they're the ones I least expected. But yes, there will be blood.

Most of what I'm writing seems like character studies. I guess they'll fit into the story in separate sections. The whole thing is definitely not in order. Here's a horrible excerpt (keep in mind that this is a paranormal horror/comedy):

Zelda went over to Baxter, grabbed his glasses and put them on the bridge of her crooked nose. She closed her eyes. "You can't get over the fact that your cousin's getting married. You used to have a crush on her, you might still. You wet the bed until you were nine years old and even peed twice in class at elementary school: they nicknamed you 'kid faithful, the gushing geyser'."

Baxter's semi-blind eyes widened in horror.

Holy Crips and Bloods!

2005-11-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

Word Count: 6114
Soundtrack: Two Ministry Albums, "Filth Pig" and "Psalm 69"
Mojo: ON

I'm a writing MACHINE! Yesterday was all doom and gloom but today I got my groove. The words are pouring out of me like snot from my cold-ridden nose! Oddly enough the character who I didn't think I would focus on has jumpstarted me. Her deal is she's a rather batty medium. My quota of 2,000 words a day is going well, however chapter outlines are all thrown out the window. I think it may or may not have helped that I continued reading "Lullaby" this morning. Between that and his recent novel "Haunted", I'm a total Palahniuk rip-off. I think I may even be biting off his style. I won’t say that what I'm writing is any good but it's a definite improvement over the drivel I came up with earlier.

Hey, I think I might actually finish this thing come November 30th. :)

The Smell of Incompetence

2005-11-02T11:16:00.000-05:00

I have thick lines of mucus starting from my nose and collecting in the back of my throat, causing me to gag every 10 minutes or so. You think that's disgusting, you should read my novel.

Worst Line: "What headless baby?"
Stupidest Line: "Yoo-hoo, anyone home?"
Most Redundant Line: "To assist his downward shift in mood, he put on his headphones and listened to the Smiths."

Wow. I have 1,888 words of really bad stuff. Better skip to Chapter 3.

PS: Can any fellow blogger help me out and tell me what code I need to use so I can add Blog Links to the side of my page? I am at a complete loss.

So It Begins

2005-11-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

Handwritten Pages: 1 1/2
Choking Fits: 2
Headaches: 1
Medication: Tylenol

This is not working out as well as I thought. To my credit, the notebook is college-ruled and bigger than most, plus my handwriting is small so I think it's about 3 pages in Word. I feel like I'm giving too much irrelevant information on the characters who are supposed to be the good guys and therefore rather boring. Chapter 2 is going to have characters with irritating personalities. I want to write Chapter 3 real bad. Chapter 3 has the best characters. I'm playing favorites but who cares. Okay, here's the first line of my novel, it definitely needs to get tweaked:

Fortunately, the six year old twins died while sleeping in their beds.

TADA! I AM SUCH A FUCKING GENIUS!!

O Blog

2005-10-27T16:35:00.000-04:00

I am doing NaNoWriMo for the first time this year and am somewhat excited. My genre will be horror/comedy and the novel has no title yet but I'm aiming towards something that sounds ridiculous (like the title of my blog). I have notes, an unwieldy outline and characters so irritating I wouldn't be surprised to see most of them die by the 4th chapter.

This blog will solely house my progress and occasionally (possibly) some entries from my novel that are assclowny. That is all.