Current Bedside Reading: The last thing I wrote.

Commentary: It sucks.

My iPod Is Singing: “I’m no Heifetz, but I get by.”

It’s said that, during or just after childbirth, women often say, “I will NEVER do this again.” Then, a few years later, their memory of the pain has faded somewhat and they decide to have another child.

Something similar is probably at play in my decision to enter the 3-Day Novel contest this year. Mind you, I’ll be doing it without a camera up my ass. I’ll be sleeping in my own bed and I’ll be foraging in my own kitchen and I’ll be able to take a shower without signing out and driving to a hotel. I won’t be interrupted to do three daily challenges in which I can, potentially, lose even more time than I lost doing the challenge itself.

I guess it’s the speed-writing version of the difference between drug-free childbirth and having an epidural. I am definitely having the drugs this time.

I’m going write what some people called a “middle grade novel”–short chapters, about 20,000 words in total, and maybe a handful of illustrations (though not by me.) I wrote YA for Nanowrimo because I figured, YA is complete at 50,000 words and that’s what you’re supposed to generate. In the case of the 3-Day, you’re expected to write between 20,000 and 30,000 words, which is where middle grade novels fall, so that’s what I’m doing.

Here’s how I see this breaking down:

Total time: 72 hours

20,000 words = 14 chapters at 1,430 words/chapter

2.5 hours, on average, per chapter = 35 hours of writing

Daily numbers:

12 hours and 6,667 words per day

8 hours of sleep per day

4 hours per day to do anything else, such as ablutions, eating, and looking after pets

Obviously I hope that my writing goes more quickly than that–I put that average in because I want to be prepared if I’m having trouble with tone or if I need to go back and make changes.

I’ve put together an outline because, as I’ve often said on this blog, I think that’s the key to a successful 3-Day or Nanowrimo attempt.

I’ve also put together a playlist. Having a playlist to listen to helps me get into the right headspace and it helps me maintain whatever tone I want for the writing.

I’ve booked Tuesday, Sept. 7 off work, because I won’t feel like doing a damned thing that day, and because I’ll have to do all kinds of things (laundry, cleaning) that I didn’t do all weekend.

I don’t expect to win with this book, or even place. I do expect to write something that’s technically sound and reasonably clean, because I planned for it well and because I usually write acceptably under pressure. I don’t think, though, that middle grade fiction is what the 3-Day Novel partners at Arsenel Press are looking to publish. It might be considered a bit of a cheat to be writing for children in the first place. Also, I’m writing a noir about my dogs. For children. So the audience for that is, I’m thinking, limited to… no one?

Still, I want to write something that’s complete at 20,000-ish words and middle grade novels are about the only publishable things in that category.

Anyone else doing the 3-Day? What do you have planned?

Current Bedside Reading: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Altruistic Armadillos, Zenlike Zebras: A Menagerie of 100 Favourite Animals

Commentary: Masson, asked to choose his 100 favourite species, made many of the same choices I would have made. Dogs, obviously–nearly all the canids, in fact–but also octopusus and goats and ravens and rats. He also missed a few of my favorites (tegus and oscars, for example), but I was surprised, in general, by the number of shared favourites we had.

My iPod Is Singing: “There ain’t nothing back in Jersey but a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind… and a dream that I was chasing, a battle with booze and an open invitation to the blues.”

But which novel? I have four waiting to be written.

Current Bedside Reading: David Roberts, True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent on Annapurna

Commentary: Normally, if I heard someone had lost all of their fingers and toes, even if they lost them climbing a mountain of their own free will, I would feel bad for them. Not in Maurice Herzog’s case.

My iPod Is Singing: “Good things come to those you hate.”

My regular weekly post is in All Posts.

In short, it was extremely difficult to get a job of any kind unless you were (a) connected to someone who could get you a job or (b) smokin’ hot. Being neither of these things, I took the only route I could find where having good grades actually mattered–I worked as a page for the main branch of the library. You had to have an A average to work there. If your grades slipped, they fired you.

For tax reasons and because many of us were in school, we could only get 14 or fewer hours a week, but it was something.

It was a good job in some ways and not in others. You might think, if you love to read, what could be better? Well, think of it this way: how about going on a diet and then getting a job in a Purdy’s outlet? You’re not to touch the merchandise. Books are everywhere and you’re not to read them on the job because, to be fair, you are supposed to be working.

I was a circulation page, which meant I had to do some of the nastiest drudge work in the library system. We envied our counterparts in Fine and Performing Arts. “Life is worth living in F&PA” was one of our mottos. They didn’t have to check an entire row of Chilton guides to make sure the bastards were in the right order.

That job was called “shelf reading”. Every Saturday morning, we each got a section of non-fiction assigned to us. We’d drag ourselves upstairs and check every goddamned book on every shelf of that section to be sure the books were in the right order. If a book was more than three or four books away from where it should have been, it was considered “lost” (on the theory that anyone looking for it might not be able to find it) and was pulled and put through the computer system, in case anyone had a hold on it.

A senior staff member would check random areas in your section to be sure you were doing the job well. Coasting wasn’t really an option. Also, we were a bunch of nerds who were desperate to be patted on the heads and given cookies, so many of us would have felt bad about that. We did the work.

It took forever and crossed your eyes and gave you a headache, especially when you got a section with many small volumes or a tendency to be messy (applied science–including cookbooks and the bastard Chiltons—was usually the worst on both counts.)

One of the few joys of the task was that you would see every book in your section. You’d find tons of cool books you would never have discovered any other way. I used to pull anything that looked interesting and tuck it under my footstool for reading on my break, or at home, or when I was ahead of schedule and the senior staff members weren’t around (I said we were nerds, not angels.)

I also found a lot of books that puzzled and amused me. Some make sense to me now that I’m older and better-informed. I now know, for example, how the book “The Bells of Hell Go Ting a Ling a Ling” got its name and no longer giggle at the thought of it. But some of those books will always be entertaining to me. I’d like to share a few of them for you here.

There were illustrations, you guys. Photos. I will spare you the details.

Not, surprisingly, published by NAMBLA.

Speaking of NAMBLA publications, I hear 198 of these are legal in Thailand.

This, on the other hand, is probably not legal in Thailand.

Oh oh, it’s magic, when I’m with you...

A VHS tape, not a book… but no less delightful a curiousity for that.

Nothing against the theory, but I prefer the practice.

Dog and Bastard, may I present Wesley Wyndham-Price?

Introduction by Tobe Hooper. Okay, probably not, but they should consider it for the next edition.

Oh, the decomposition outside is frightful…

This is not a nickname most men would choose for themselves.

Current Bedside Reading: Denis Woychuck, Attorney for the Damned: a Lawyer’s Life with the Criminally Insane

Commentary: I’m not the sort to let a little strangeness freak me out, but Denis Woychuck is a much more relaxed person than I will ever be.

My iPod Is Singing: “Nothing in my dreams that isn’t creepy-crawling.”

Anyone?

Current Bedside Reading: Alice Domurat Dreger, One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal

Commentary: I get your point, Alice. I got it 100 pages ago. Still getting your point. You can stop anytime. Also, you are either uninformed or flat out lying about Chang and Eng rarely getting into arguments.

My iPod Is Singing: “Like a mouth full of rain.”

My regular weekly post is below.