A few big events happened with this alleged novel this week. First, on the 15th we reached the halfway point of this contest. Second, on the 17th I actually reached the halfway point to 50K words. This officially put me 2 days off pace, but since I usually aim to write as many as 60K words, I was about 4 or 5 days behind. Still, given the odd directions this month has been taking, I’d take 2 days off the official pace.

The two other big events were probably the biggest ones since I first sat down at the keyboard on November 1. I started writing on my iPhone during my commute, which saved me from slipping even further behind. And somewhere around Day 19, I finally figured out what this book is supposed to be about. You might think that 19 days of writing is a lot to do before figuring out what the hell it is you’re writing, but I might say in response that this time around, 19 days was a goddamn bargain.

You see, last year my NaNoWriMo novel was almost entirely plot-driven. I knew that early on and wrote accordingly. I didn’t know exactly where I was going or exactly how I was going to get there, but I had a plot and any time I had my doubts, I had that plot to cling to. This year, I had some situations and some characters, but no driving force behind them. Not that I knew of, anyway. My characters liked to talk, though. They talked and talked and I let them do it in hopes that they’d get somewhere. And on Day 19 they did. On Day 19, one character looked back at all that had come before and proposed a plan. And another character went along with that plan. And before I knew it, I had a plot.

Best of all, it wasn’t like I’d stumbled on something that would require massive changes to the previous 18 days’ worth of work. Nope, this plot grew more or less organically from what had come before. I’m still not sure how that happened.

There’s one last event from last week that counts toward the full NaNoWriMo experience. I spent a couple of minutes at the bus stop Thursday morning trying to figure out exactly what day it was. Last year that happened several times. This year so far, only once. Still plenty of time for a repeat, though.

With just 9 days to go to the end of the month, my current word count is just 1 day off the pace to 50K. I’d like to think I can make it, what with the days off for Thanksgiving coming up. And now that I know what the book’s about, the writing itself should come easier. There’s just one problem, one flaw in the plan. When I figured out where the book needed to go, I worked it over and over and came up with a roadmap to the end that I was happy with. This lasted half a day before I realized that if everything happened the way I thought it should happen, the climactic action would take place without my point of view character present. He actually couldn’t be present, and if he couldn’t be there, I had no way of letting the readers know what the hell was going on.

And so I find myself with 9 days to go, maybe 18,000 words to write, and a plot that, if the reader is going to be there to see it, now requires my main character to go against everything the plot’s supposed to be about. There are worse ways to stack the deck against yourself, but maybe someday I’ll figure out the easy way to do things. And now, a bad excerpt from approximately the point where the plot reveals itself:

“Okay, we need to set some ground rules,” Walt said.

“Seriously? What do you think you have here?”

“Ground rules. What we discuss today doesn’t leave this table unless we mutually agree otherwise,” Walt said.

“Come on, is this really necessary?”

Walt just stared across the table at him, saying nothing. Kyle believed he’d sit like that all day if that’s what it took to get an answer.

“Okay fine. I accept the ground rules,” Kyle said.

“I’ll warn you, this might piss you off,” Walt said. “The first part, I mean. Don’t let it. Keep your head clear and hear me out. This is not a day for rash decisions.”

Kyle nodded his understanding.

“The company, it appears, is throwing in the white towel,” Walt said. “After years of mismanagement and braindead errors, the management team is giving up.”

“You guys are folding?”

“In good time, I’m sure. But first, they’re hiring a consultant to tell them every stupid mistake they’ve made. Every error and miscue, laid out for all to see. You wonder why they’d do this when they have an office full of people who’d do the same thing for free, but there you have it. Management is basically admitting they don’t know how to manage.”

“I wonder if this is why they want my severance check back so badly,” Kyle said.

“Probably, but not for the reason you might think. I’m sure they can afford to pay for this whether they have your money or not. But if the check is still out there, it’s just one more black eye that they don’t need their new consultants to see. One more question they have to answer. One more buck someone has to pass. But get the check back and, at least in their minds, it’s one problem moved to the solved column. Or more likely, one problem that never happened at all.”

“And just when I thought there couldn’t be any more reasons for me to hold onto that money,” Kyle said.

“Attaboy. But if you want to screw them, would you be interested in maybe a more proactive way to do it?”

“Like what?”

“The way I see it is, if they can afford to blow money on this, they could afford to not fire people like you. Their priorities are screwed. But if they want to blow their money on this, I was thinking maybe we could find a way to get that money for ourselves.”

“Meaning what?”

“Well, Kyle, have you ever had a burning desire to be silent partner in a consulting firm?”

Oh yeah, first draft writing fresh from the morning express bus. How can you not love it?

Be back soon. Gotta write.

I’d planned to write a couple of these updates before now. Perhaps as we ease into this one, the mysteries behind their absence will reveal themselves.

I hit NaNoWriMo Day 1 with the best of intentions. It was a Monday, so I spent part of the preceding weekend thinking in the most abstract terms about what I might want to write. I did this knowing full well that no matter what I thought about, until I started tapping the keys, it didn’t matter what was going on in my head. Nothing counted until the word count moved north of zero.

What I did not realize until my fingers hit the keyboard that night is just how burned out I actually was. I was running on fumes. Actually my fumes were running on fumes, which were running on fumes of their own, which were running on whatever caffeine- and sugar-high they could squeeze out of a vintage Reggie bar someone was selling on eBay. I had nothing. And this was a special kind of nothing that I recognized from my college days. I was burnt. Toasted. And my creativity had, as they say, left the building.

This didn’t stop me from writing, of course. Days 1 and 2 followed a pattern similar to last year. Wake up, go to work, work too hard, get home late, scarf down dinner, and write 2,000 words before going to bed at an obscene hour (there have been nights when I could’ve watched the closing credits of any permutation of a Conan O’Brien show before I wrapped for the night). It was Day 3 that jumped the track.

The math of NaNoWriMo has always been deceptively simple. A 50,000-word novel in a 30-day month equals about 1,667 words per day. I’ve always aimed for 2,000, a nice round number that would help me build a cushion against future delays. The problem this time around was that on Day 3, I only wrote about 1,500 words. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, but on Day 4, I was going to a concert, so there would be no time to write that day. And as it turns out, drinking your face off then dragging yourself in to work a full day does not get many creative juices flowing. Simply put, by the end of week 1, I was so many days behind I’m pretty sure I was technically already a day or two behind for next year.

To make matters worse, I quickly learned that I don’t type nearly as fast on the iPad as I thought I did. Plus, the iPhone app I’ve previously used to write short stories nom longer worked due to an update gone wrong, so there would be no catching up on the bus or during a bathroom break at work. It was bad enough I was so burned out, but now my tools of the trade were abandoning me too. It was a given that I’d have to quit. The only question was how long it would take for me to admit this.

Then things took an unexpected turn. I found a chunk of Saturday where I got to write a lot of words in a row. And the app makers sent me a code to a new version of the app that didn’t crash every time I tried to type something. I suspect the original app was updated by longtime Happy Friday readers. Combine these two events and, well, I’m still so far off pace it’s no sure bet I’ll get to 50,000 words this month, but the chances are better than they were on Friday. This is good, since I hate to quit.

I’m hoping to find time for a couple more of these updates this month to talk about the huge difference between what I’m writing this year as opposed to last year, which also helps explain why there’s a much better chance of failure this time around. Until then, here’s a really bad excerpt, so you’ll understand that the literary world won’t be missing out when this novel never gets finished:

“Kyle, thanks for coming,” Tony said. “We didn’t call you away from anything important, did we?”

“No, don’t worry, I have the time.”

“Good, good,” Tony said. “I just want to let you know, you’ve been doing a heckuva job lately. Really great. Hitting it out of the park.”

“Yeah, Kyle, the company really appreciates what you’ve been doing. Excellent job, really. Kudos.”

“Thanks,” Kyle said, unsure if he should say anything else.

“You’ve been an integral part of what we’ve accomplished the last few months,” Tony said. “Couldn’t have done it without you. You should realize that.”

“I was just doing my best,” Kyle said. “It’s the only way I know how to work.”

“Oh, yes, I know that, Kyle. You’ve been like that since we hired you, and don’t think it’s gone unnoticed. You work hard and you get the job done. That’s the kind of thing we appreciate around here,” Tony said.

“No doubt,” Paul added.

They shared the same bland smile too, which Kyle wasn’t expecting. He looked down at the blank page of his notebook and then back at his boss, whose expression was unchanging.

“Thanks,” Kyle said.

“You should know this,” Tony said. “Too often, especially in today’s environment, we don’t let you guys know that we appreciate your efforts, and we really should.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s something we need to do more often.”

“Really? Wow. Thanks again. I have to say, when I got your email I was sure you were going to lay me off.”

“Oh, we are,” Paul said. “But we thought you should know how much you’re appreciated around here.”

“What? Appreciated? How is this showing me that?”

“Well, in a perfect world, we would have had this conversation a few weeks ago,” Paul said. “That’s what we need to get better at. The timing.”

“I can’t believe this. I thought we were done with this.”

“We are now,” Tony said.

“Not to sound like too much of a ghoulish ass, but I really thought that after Rudy died, we’d get a break from all this.”

“If only it were that simple,” Paul said.

“This has nothing to do with your work, Kyle,” Tony said. “This is just a math thing. We had to get the group under twelve, that’s all. It’s just math.”

Kyle had always hated math, and this wasn’t going to improve that relationship. It took him another couple of seconds to work through the list of his immediate coworkers to come up with a number already less than twelve.

“But without Rudy, we’re there right now,” he said.

“We’re keeping Rudy,” Tony said.

“How can that be? He’s dead.”

“Yes, that’s true. But Rudy’s a rock around here. He’s done amazing work for us. You know that. You learned from him. We all did. That’s not a resource we can just walk away from,” Tony said.

“Walk away from? He died. How are you walking away from anything?”

“We just want to respect the man,” Tony said. “He’s got an enviable work ethic. His attendance record is impeccable.”

“Not anymore,” Kyle said.

“Kyle, that’s hurtful, and frankly beneath you,” Tony said. “Rudy gave his all to this company. He had his surprise heart attack while working at his desk after hours. How do we just forget about all that just because Rudy’s dead? He’s left behind a legacy, Kyle. We have to honor the legacy.”

“But he’s dead. I have three projects due this week. How is Rudy’s legacy going to help finish those?”

“That’s something I’m going to have to figure out,” Tony said. “Of course I’d rather have you here to finish those off, but we can’t just walk away from a resource as important as Rudy.”

“If anyone walked away, Rudy did. Except he didn’t walk away. They wheeled him out. I was here. I saw it.”

“Kyle, please, don’t be rude. Have some respect,” Paul said.

“I just don’t understand. I’m a living, breathing man who can bang out those three projects in a couple of days. I don’t understand how I can lose out to a guy who died two weeks ago. Can you understand why I might have a problem with that?”

“Fair enough,” Paul said. “Just please believe me when I tell you that Rudy brings some intangibles to the table.”

“intangibles?”

“Yes, intangibles. This decision wasn’t made lightly. It was very close. We almost chose you.”

“Oh, good, I came in a close second to a corpse. Is there any chance I can get that written in a letter of recommendation? That’s bound to get me lots of interest out there.”

“Kyle, really. Have some respect,” Paul said.

“Respect, really? Why don’t you have some respect for me, Paul? You tell me you think I’m a good worker, so why not pick me over the dead guy? Maybe Rudy has intangibles, but at this point I’ve gotta beat him in tangibles, right?”

Tony chuckled. “That’s actually pretty funny,” he said to no one in particular.

Paul sighed and leaned forward until he was slumped on his forearms, which were crossed over each other on the table. He shook his head just enough to be noticed.
“You have to understand something, Kyle,” he said. “Your group has to have fewer than twelve people in it. There’s no way around it. That’s the new company policy. Non-negotiable. However, on the flip side, you can’t have fewer than ten. This is an old guideline and for now it’s equally non-negotiable. We’d love for you to be one of those less-than-twelve, more-than-ten, but there are a couple of reasons why Rudy is the better bet right now.”

“Seriously?”

“For one, Rudy no longer draws a salary,” Paul said. “That’s a huge savings right there. No salary, no retirement withholding, no taxes paid because of him. And even more important than that, Rudy doesn’t need any health benefits. That’s another huge savings right there.”

“It’s not a really good health plan,” Tony said. “I’m not sure if you ever had a reason to find that out, but it costs you and the company a ridiculous amount of money any time you have a health issue. So this is potentially huge.”

“Maybe if the health care plan was better, Rudy wouldn’t have died in the first place and you wouldn’t have to use his corpse as a way to save money on it,” Kyle said.

“We’re aware of the irony, yes,” Paul said. “But in the current economic climate, Rudy’s a better employee dead than you are alive.”

Kyle looked again at the blank page in his notebook and saw that it now mirrored his immediate future — big and empty. He wanted to take his pen and slash through this depressing page, but his arms were frozen from the shock he was still experiencing. His hands began to shake so he pulled them under the table to make sure no one could see.
“Is there any math that swings things back in my favor?”

“You’re single, right?”

“I live with my girlfriend.”

“Kids?”

“Not now.”

“You own your house?”

“Rent.”

“Any credit card debt? Other loans? Gambling habit?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Are you prone to sickness?”

“No more than average.”

“I see.” Paul looked off into space as if he were calculating something in his head. After a few quick seconds he snapped back to reality and shook his head.

“Sorry, but no, there’s no way. Rudy saves more money than you bring in. We have to go with him. We’ll provide a generous severance, though. It’s more than Rudy got.”

“That seems fair. Rudy left on his own. He didn’t deserve a severance,” Tony said.

“Good point,” Paul said. He looked back at Kyle. “See, Rudy isn’t getting the best deal either. These things happen.”

“This? This insanity never happened anywhere else, I can promise you that.”

“Kyle, I’m really sorry it didn’t work out. You’re a good worker. You have lots to offer plenty of other companies.”

“Not as much as Rudy,” Kyle said.

“Fair enough,” Paul said.

“I bet you do better on an interview, though,” Tony said.

“Oh good, there’s the second paragraph of my recommendation. This thing just writes itself.”

“I’m real sorry, Kyle,” Tony said. “If things get better out there, I’d hire you back in an instant.”

“Could I work for Rudy?”

“That would be up to him, I suppose.”

“Okay, we’re done here,” Kyle said as he pushed back from the table.

“We still have to work out things like your severance and your last day,” Paul said.

“This is my last day. And you can mail the severance to my house.”

“There’s also some paperwork to sign.”

“What do I have to sign? You guys just gave me the boot. Do I have to sign my approval of that boot?”

“It’s boilerplate.”

“Did Rudy have to sign it?”

“Kyle, this is not your finest hour,” Tony said.

“No kidding,” Kyle said. “Mail me whatever you need me to sign. If the check’s big enough, I’ll sign it.” He backed toward the door, leaving behind his notebook, since it was technically company property.

“Kyle, I was serious about hiring you back,” Tony said. “A couple of months, this all blows over and I’ll give you a call.”

“That sounds great, Tony. Should I send my resume to the morgue or the cemetery? Which one makes it more likely I’ll get rehired?”

Tony shook his head and sighed. “Good luck, Kyle.”

Who doesn’t love the smell of first draft in the morning? I’d better figure out how to get some vampires in there soon or I’m screwed. Thanks for reading. Be back soon.