JaNoWriMo '02

If you think this looks slovenly, you should see my apartment, where housekeeping has been neglected for 31 days and counting. Dirty dishes teeter on every available surface, flat or not. Underwear (clean, I'm fairly certain) is draped over my futon. The kitchen is dangerous. It's almost as though I were just another dorky Chicago bachelor with no woman to look after him properly. The novel's power of illusion is mighty!

By utter and total coincidence, my novel's protagonist grew a beard, too. Oh, and he ended the novel by boarding a plane for Europe. Eerie, huh?

I did something else rash: I started growing a beard. Part of my reasoning was to mark myself as a new person, one unencumbered by my old rules or by the new ways of Silicon Valley. And it would mark distance from Mariah, who had always said she loved my smooth skin right after shaving. Just another of life's little things that she loved.

But I also grew it for the trip abroad. My theory was that the more I let my hygiene slip, the better I�d blend in in Europe. Perhaps I�d even stop bathing. I figured that would come in handy in France in particular. After I went a weekend without a shower, I went to my neighbor and asked him: �So, do I smell French yet?� I took his confused, horrified look as an affirmative.

For the record, neither I nor my protagonist think the French smell -- much -- but it amuses us to pretend we do.

It's finished. It's horrifically bad, but as a favorite colleague once said, I like the doneness of it. And now, no more writing. No more editing. No nothing, for at least a month.

Final stats for January 2002:
1 novel
16 chapters
132 pages
50,758 words
8 pounds gained

Thursday, January 31

Tears dripped freely, creating small puddles of sorrow on the copy of Wired ("Nano, nano! How microscopic robots are turning heads -- and profits") that sat on the coffee table.

And with that, I must leave for work, and I'm afraid I won't get anything done there. I should be home by 9, which will give me three hours to write the final 2,372 words. Three hours? Plenty. That's more than four seconds a word!

Palo Alto had an ordinance against gas-powered leaf blowers, so the day laborers had to sweep up leaves by hand. (Please pardon me. These details have very little to do with the plot. Although there is the theme of immigrant striving, at this point, at 10:35 a.m. on Jan. 31, I�m just trying to inflate my word count. 46,785. 46,786. Hey, neat! Every time I write a number, the number goes up by one! Why didn�t I think of this sooner? 46,808! Going meta rules!)

Wednesday, January 30

Just get me to the airport
And put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane

Have I neglected to mention that on Monday I leave for a monthlong trip through Europe? And that I haven't started to pack or learn any important phrases? And that I haven't had a chance to make any plans more specific than choosing which airports I will fly in to and out of? Ha ha! Ho ho! Oh no oh no!

I got the butter, fresh parsley and saffron that Mariah needed, plus some milk, a gallon of water, four bottles of chianti and 12 frozen dinners. In the event that Y2K calamity struck, we�d be fed and drunk for three days. After that, Mariah said, it would be Paper Rock Scissors (best two out of three) to see who got to eat the other.

In front of me a woman had half-filled her cart with canned foods, water and ice cream. She reached for some batteries, clearly a "just in case" impulse buy. Should disaster have come that night, it appeared her plan was to survive on corn, apple sauce and pecan praline. I supposed there were worse ways to start the apocalypse.

Sad but true: I have resorted to shopping lists to pad my word count, which now stands at 45,808.

"Let's make it strip Scrabble," she said, "to make it interesting."

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe what she was suggesting.

"Are you saying Scrabble isn't interesting?"

Mission unaccomplished. I fell about 700 words and a Diet Coke shy of my goal. At 44,331 words, I'll need two more remarkable days.

Tuesday, January 29

I shall now attempt to write 3,400 words in the next three hours. It should make for a fun little drinking game. Whenever I get a writer's block, I shall drink a glass of cheap wine. Whenever I feel sleepy, I shall drink a Diet Coke. Wine. Coke. Wine. Coke.

What happens when I am blocked and sleepy? That's when I shall weep and drink the cold, wet tears of desperation and futility.

Monday, January 28

40,032 words, meaning I must average 2,500 a day for the rest of January. I've managed four 2,500-word days the entire month, so to do so consecutively will require a miracle. Or four.

Friday, February 1

Thursday, January 31

Wednesday, January 30

Tuesday, January 29

Monday, January 28