Success!

I did it gang. Fifty thousand words in thirty days.




I'm not surprised that I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. I'm surprised that I wrote what I think is a pretty good story. I've written over a thousand poems and recorded about 60 songs as anyone who's seen my website can attest, so I can churn out the bullshit, no doubt about it, but I think this is something special.

It really only took about ten spurts (mostly nights between the hours of 10pM and 2AM) and about 120 beers to produce. I just started writing to see what would come out. To my surprise, reading back, it's actually pretty engaging. I was pretty unsure of things in the beginning. I had no clue what it was about or where it was going. I'm pleased to report that I'm happy with the end result. There's plenty editing to be done for sure but but I actually wrote more than I needed and that was the whole point really. Now I have a fifty thousand word novel to work on.
That's a whole king hell fuck of a lot better than "Gee, I'd like to write a novel someday."

Now comes the hard part: Selling this bitch. I'm going to get an agent and start shilling this thing to the publishing houses and see if I can make it fly. The hard copy is in the mail to the library of congress with the form and the fee to secure the copyright so I can send out advance copies to my favorite bloggy peeps if you ask me nicely and provide an email address.

Much love to you my bloggy peeps. You got me through it and for that I thank you all profusely.

47,750 Words

I only managed about a thousand words last night. I wanted to just go home and finish off this giant beast but events conspired against me. I had to return some crap to the ex and then make dinner. The holiday visiting season is upon us and everyone's hating it, especially me. My own flight to VA to visit my parents is soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them but it's stressful, no doubt.

I'm still really troubled about Pacé's recent death but I decided to leave her picture up. I hope her former boyfriend will send me some better digital pictures of her. I hate that one. She looks like she's already dead in it. I'm going to paint it. I don't know why, but I hope it will be cathartic. Either that or I'm insanely obsessed. She was the inspiration for the most popular songs I ever wrote. It was all bad and painful inspiration, sure, but that's how it goes sometimes I guess.

These lyrics from Mike Doughty's song 'Sugar Plant' come to mind:

"I dream you up on the vast dark bed, believe I love you for each hair upon the back of your neck and I want to kiss you but I can't down on the river by the sugar plant. Earrings weighing down the lobe and nose a lovely slope and your mouth turned down. Shoulders pale and beautiful and angle of the throat your sweet sad stare. I dream you up on this vast dark coast, believe I see you walking towards me arms outstretched like a ghost and I want to kiss you but I can't down on the river by the sugar plant"

http://www.mikedoughty.com

Tonight I will finish come what may; Hell or high daughters.

Rest In Peace Pacé Rabiola

This is my friend and former lover Pacé Rabiola. I hate this picture of her but it's the only one I have. Anyway it's a long sad story but the short version is she died last Wednesday night of a heroin overdose. She was fucked up but I loved her very much at one time and I'll miss her.
She had been trying to get her life back on track, had finally gotten an apartment with her 5 year old sonand moved out of her parents' place, had finally gotten the UNIX admin job she had been studying so hard for and in the end she lost it all. Further proof that if you chase the dragon long enough he eventually catches you. I could drone on endlessly about the evils of heroin but she'd hate that. She loved the fucking stuff. Besides, everybody's got their thing. What's yours?

It's an entirely unimporatant point but in case anyone is wondering I have 45,500 words and two days and thirteen ours to get to 50,000. The bad news above actually inspired me and I did 7500 words last night. So thanks Pacé. I'll consider it your parting gift. You always were a difficult and mostly unwilling and unwitting muse.

32,500 words = 8 days to write 17,500 = 2185 words per day

And that is my score for today! Sorry no post before now, but I have been Super Sick for two days and I couldn't write Jack Shit. So I had two huge word days over the weekend and then lost all the ground I made up by alternately sleeping and moaning miserably on the couch in front of the TV. The price of tending your loved one when she is sick is getting the dreaded bug yourself. Dammit! Whatever. I can still make the deadline. I can't wait for the Thank God It's Over party. Rock on my diamond hard bloggy peeps, rock on. And all you Nanowrimo freaks out there quit reading this and write! Woot! Woot! Here's a pic of us disgustingly happy in Islamorada Fla:

Let the captioning begin!

Mine is "Which way is the nearest bar?" Minor cause for celebration today. It's Saturday and I have exceeded 24,000 words. It's a cinch I'll be past the halfway mark by tomorrow. That means I'll need just 2083.3 words per day. So far I seem to do 2000 words a day fairly easily between 10PM and 2AM. 500 words an hour does not seem particularly onerous. That's less than ten words a minute. Also, lest you think I'm being disciplined about this, that includes copious amounts of pacing around wondering what happens next and regular cigarette breaks. Yes, I fell off the wagon at the wedding in Miami. I'm not giving up quitting (quitting giving up? whatever) but I feel I need the extra stimulant during this process. New quit date: Dec. 1st.
One more thing: I recently went back and read what I wrote so far and you know what? The shit ain't half bad, yo! I'm a bit surprised. Anything else? Thanks to everyone for being so nice to me about my HNT posts and my life in general. I love you all, truly and not just because you like to see me naked. :-) Y'all rock harder than diamonds.

20,034 words down, 29,066 words to go

But only thirteen days to write them in. That's a mere 2235.8461538461538461538462 words per day. No, I'm not kidding. That's what the calculator came back with. It would really help if I could manage to start writing before midnight but I have a beautiful girlfriend who's sick and needs tending to. One must have one's priorities in the proper gear. Lovin' comes before writin'. OK, love comes before anythin'. At least one hopes it does! Another hindrance is I've been doing a lot of this on my laptop and laptop keyboards suck major ass. And don't get me started on the so-called 'mouse' control. Fucker. And finally, as if these excuses for being nearly 10,000 words behind schedule aren't enough, I submit to you that the bottom half of my entire right arm has been oscillating between intense pain and tingly numbness since before I started this fucking project. Needless to say this is not helping. And there's that pesky work thing to consider as well. I hope I can get some big word days in this weekend. Banging out 10,000 words in two days would catch me up. I hate being behind. Unless it's behind Brenda! OK enough yak. Pic:
God how I love this woman! By the way, for those who were asking, this picture was taken at our friends' wedding in Islamorda Florida, between Key Largo and Key West. The HNT post below was taken on South Beach in Miami Florida the day before. The Northeast sucks, we're outta here ASAP. Give me hurricanes ocver snowstorms any day. Booya!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm Feeling Sexy!

Yes, I'll admit it: I'm feeling hot. I have 18,000 plus words. Some of y'all may prefer eight inches but you've got to flaunt what you have. I'm only 10,000 words behind schedule and it's starting to look like I might actually write 50,000 semi-coherent words in the form of a novel by Nov. 30th. I'm only 2000 words shy of 2/5ths done. That's 40% y'all. Anyway, here's my entry for Half Nekkid Thursday. I'm feeling every inch the happy pirate that this picture looks. I really appreciate the support you all give me. You've helped make me a better man and I thank you.

12,500 words = 25% done or 75% not there

Well, I'm halfway to where I'm supposed to be right now. I guess that's something. I keep settling in to write and then getting distracted by sex. Mind you I'm not complaining, just letting y'all know I'm not slacking for crappy reasons. For all you (3) writers out there reading this and wondering how I do it, I'm cheating. No, just kidding. I guess I just have a fertile imagination.
That is to say I have only a passing relationship with reality so it's easy to come up with bullshit. Besides all musicians carry an actor in minor...er...I mean a minor in acting. Also, I hit on a plot that lends itself well to improvising in my natural voice. What else? I mixed my metaphors in my last post. I meant to say I don't want to give away the milk since I'm hoping to sell the cow. Leave it to me to choose a metaphor for sex when descibing my writing AND then fuck it up.

10, 500 words = 21% done

Ack. At this rate even daily I'm not going to make it. I need to up my daily word count or start hitting some big days. My fucking right hand is killing me. I need drugs. Arrgghh! I'm toying with the idea of posting a preview but I really don't want to do that until I'm ready for some feedback. Right now too busy trying to get done. I don't want to get sidetracked with minor points unless I beat the deadline. Plenty of time for edits later. Also I don't want to give away the cow. After all, maybe someone will buy her. Ciao bellas e bellos.

9,437 words down...40,563 words to go.

Yes, I failed to crack 10,000 words this weekend. I suck. I fully intended to write every night, but as it turned out I only wrote during the 2 and 1/2 hour flights down and back. You may say 2500 words in 5 hours isn't bad, but I'm a little bent. Today is the half way point and I'm supposed to have 25,000 words. Suck it. On the upside I had a fantabulous time! Brenda and I travel well together and that was by no means certain before we left. That's especially impressive since the theme of the entire weekend was "Just In Time". As in we made it just in time for everything. One minute later and we would have missed both of our flights, the wedding, etc, etc... if it was possible to be late we were exactly on time. Usually that makes me nuts but I maintained a coolness with my bad self. I took about 150 pictures including a number of highly pornographic ones which I do not have permission to post. Nevertheless I shall provide some eye candy as I go along. The shot above is the quay at the South end of South Beach.
There were a million surfers and more silicone than silicon alley. I much prefer all natural.

7000 Words!

Short post. I stayed up until 3AM writing last nght and got to 7000 words. I'm 1/3d of the way to 1/2 way done. :-) Or, if you prefer, I'm about 88% not done! Thak you all for your love and support. Leaving for the airport. Miami here we come! I hope to have some cool pix. Love yiz.

2500 words!

Well I've now written in brief spurts (mmm brief spurts) for three days in a row and I have a whopping 2500 words. All of 4 freakin pages. That's 5% of the required 50,000 but already 1/3d of the alotted time has passed. I sort of wish I had figured out what the heck this was all about and gotten started on time but that would be so out of character for me it's ridiculous to even think of it, so fuck it. I didn't respond to any of y'all about what it's about because I don't really know yet. I'd give you a breif synopsis but I'm going to wait until I'm stuck or I'm finished before giving it up to the blog-O-sphere. It occurs to me that at this pace 50,000 words will only be 80 pages. That's more of a novella than a novel, don't you think? Most novels I read are at least 300-400 pages. Hmmm. Incidentally, not that I'm looking for sympathy, but I hurt myself working out last week and my right arm has been alternating between screaming agony and total numbness. The Dr. said I strained a muscle that's pinching a nerve and I'll be fine. That may be so but let me tell you it's hard as fuck to type. BTW thanks again all you HNTers for your nice comments. I'd love you all if you'd only stand still. Oh and if I didn't worship the ground my lover walks on. See y'all Mundy, hopefully with at least 10,000 words in the bank.

HNT!

OK, since I'll be in FLA for a wedding working on my NANOWRIMO novel I won't have time to take or post a new HNT picture. Boo, hiss, I know. SO! I have decided to post this picture of me playing bass Half Nekkid! I love this picture but really wish I had taken off the socks. Then I would have been COMPLETELY NEKKID! A little background: I'm playing with the Spanish punk/metal band J&B (Juergistas Y Borrachos) in Madrid Spain. It's the first show of the tour and I decided during the last song to strip WHILE PLAYING. I didn't miss a note. This was such a hit that the band insisted I do it every show, so I did. Thus I got to live the Red Hot Chili Peppers line : "Travel 'round the world gettin' naked on the stage, bustin' people out of their every day cage!" www.tripirecords.com for audio & such. Enjoy. PS- Please visit two posts ago and submit a caption. So far they're a scream! UPDATE: 1261 words in the new novel so far!

610 words!

1 whole page! OK, only 100 more pages at one page per day and I have 61,000 words! Oh wait, that's three months and change worth of days. Rats. Write more; write faster! And hey, don't forget to go to the previous post and leave a caption for the photo! Some good ones there!

So Much To Do!

Well, I haven't made any progress on my NANOWRIMO novel. I thought 1500 words a day or so would be a walk in the park. So far 7 days elapsed and not a word written. Not for lack of inspiration. I just haven't had or made time. Hopefully on my long weekend to Key West Fla at the end of this week I can bang out enough to at least catch up. 15,000 words? Piece of cake.
And now for your amusement; Caption contest! Best caption wins...uh...a prize to be determined.

I'm Psychotic

OK, so making music and writing poetry and painting and drawing and photography and sailing and filmmaking AREN'T ENOUGH! I signed up to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. And I'm four days late getting started! ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH! Details here:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Naked In The Rain

See? Last weeks HNT entry got me a whole 26 comments. This week's much tamer entry? A mere 16. I guess we'll have to go whole hog next week. Oh! Hahahahaha! Sorry. Pun. Thanks to all you lovely people for your nice comments. I tried to say hello to most of the HNT folks who signed the Big O's comments. I bet he'd like being called The Big O. Anyhow I don't expect to be around here much this weekend as The Beautiful Brenda is back from a week of travelling for work so we'll most likely be...busy. See y'all Mundy. Meanwhile enjoy this sailing pic from The Mystic Seaport photo exhibit I went to in Connecticut recently. http://www.mysticseaport.org/ Dig!

I Am Remiss

Big, Long, Dumb, Useless Post yesterday and I didn't get around to taking a new pic for HNT. Here's one from September. One problem with putting up a really good HNT picture like last week it's it's hard to top. I mean, what am I going to put up next? A Nice Fat Cock? OK.

Long and dumb list/meme thingy

I usually avoid shit like this but for some reason I felt like doing this one.

10 Favorites
Favorite Season: Summer
Favorite Sport: Sex
Favorite Time: Midnight
Favorite Color: Red. No, Blue. Ahhh!
Favorite Actor: Mickey Rourke
Favorite Actress: Kirsten Dunst (cause she looks like my girlfriend!)
Favorite Ice Cream: Chocolate
Favorite Food: Thai
Favorite Drink: Beer
Favorite Place: Anywhere on my boat
9 Currents
Current Feeling: Sore
Current Underwear Color: None
Current Windows Open: Word, Outlook, IE
Current Drink: Coffee
Current Time: 11:15 am
Current Mobile(s) Used: Verizon (God they suck!)
Current Show on TV: None (I don't watch TV much)
Current Thought: Sex
Current Clothes: jeans, black T-shirt, black Doc Martens
8 Firsts
First Nickname: E.P.
First Kiss: Nursery school. She said "I bet you're afraid to kiss a girl in school." Not.
First Crush: Tracey McCardle (see above)
First Best Friend: See above
First Vehicle I drove: Suzuki 450 Motorcycle
First Job: Dishwasher at a fancy restaurant in Cambridge Ma.
First Movie: Cinderella maybe? Some Disney shit.
First Pet: Chihuahua named Penelope (Penny nipper).
First Shave: 13? I don't really recall.
7 Lasts
Last Drink : Beer
Last Kiss: Two days ago (she's travelling for work) :-(
Last Time I Drove: 9:30 am
Last Time Shaved: two hours ago
Last Web Site Visited: http://jennatl.blogspot.com/ where I stole this meme.
Last Movie Watched: Sin City
Last Pill I Had: Advil
6 Have You Evers
Have You Ever Broken the Law: Yes
Have You Ever Been Drunk: Duh!
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: That used to happen a lot
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire or Bomb Blast: Yes. In Madrid and NY
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yes
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: Yes
5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: people talking, fans, etc
Things on Your Bed: sheets, down comforter, pillows, clothes, condomes, lube, uh...
Things You Ate Today: a pop tart & coffee
Things You Can’t Live Without: family, friends, books, music, sleep, food, sex..gads I need a lot!
Things You Do When You Are Bored: See above
4 Places You Have Been Today
home, work, on the side of the road after being rear ended by a dork
3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
wallet, keys, shades..I have ton of shit on my desk
2 Choices
Black or White: black
Hot or Cold: hot
1 Thing You Want To Do Before You Die
Play and sing for a stadium full of people

There you have it. Pointless and useless information for a Wednesday morning. Wear it.

The Cold Winds Of November Remembered

Bah. Winter is upon us. Yes, yes, I know, it's only Nov. 1st and the first snow hasn't even fallen in NY yet. I cannot comfortably walk around in shorts, sandals and a T-shirt. Ergo it is winter.
I'll brook no argument. I like skating and skiing and snowboarding as much as the next gen X-er but I still frickin hate the cold. It's going to be shitty non-sailing ass weather from now until about April. I don't care whatchyall say that be suckin' huge big ol' donkey dick. There. I said it.