As I mentioned before I took a recent trip to Iowa City because Nancy Andreasen wanted to take a picture of my brain. She’s a Big Deal neurophysician who’s doing research into how the brains of creative folk do their big, weird think-makings.
The plan was for me to go in, get my brain scanned, have an interview, then do some tests that measure cognitive function.
It was going to be a full day, so I drove down to Iowa City and spent the night. The morning before I went into the hospital, I was nervous.
Specifically, I was nervous about what shirt I was going to wear.
While I was driving down to Iowa, it occurred to me that if, say, lightning struck the building when I was in the MRI, I might develop superpowers of some sort. And on a day when you might develop superpowers, the shirt you wear is a pretty important decision. As they say, clothes make the man.
Because I hadn’t planned ahead, I only had two good options. One was my Legend of Neil t-shirt. And the other was my tried and true, Joss Whedon is my Master Now shirt.
At first the Neil shirt seems to be the front-runner. While pixelated, Link’s powers are nothing to scorn. In addition to a cool pan-dimensional inventory system. I could throw bombs, shoot fire, and engage in some implausible but terribly convenient music-based teleportation.
Plus, when I was at full health, I’d be able to throw my sword. Or shoot lasers out of it. I was never really clear on that.
Despite all this, I went with the Whedon shirt. While less tangible, Whedon’s storytelling prowess is more in keeping with my lifestyle. If I could add his powers to my own, I would become nigh-unstoppable. Plus, I hear that due to contractual obligations, he can call up Alyson Hannigan at any hour of the day or night and have her drive out to his house just so he can smell her hair.
That’s a power I wouldn’t mind inheriting. It would be nice to cross that off my list of…
Okay. Hold on for a second. Time out. I’ve got to tangent away for a moment.
Here’s the deal. Sometimes, late at night, when I’m low on sleep and writing a blog, I write stupid bullshit that strikes me as funny. This isn’t a new thing. In addition to my novels, I’ve been writing ridiculous humor pieces of one sort or another for almost twenty years now.
What’s different now is that I’m doing it online. Also, these days a ridiculous number of people read the blog. People link to it. Sometimes 7-8 thousand people a day stop by to read what I write.
Usually I don’t think about it much. But every once in a while I get a terrible thought: what if someone reads this?
I’m not talking about us geeks. I write this blog for my fellow geeks to read and laugh at. I’m worried about one of THEM reading it. Y’know. One of the cool famous people…
What if a couple years from now I’m at some party out in LA, and I get to meet Alyson Hannigan? A mutual acquaintance waves her over and introduces me as “New York Times Bestselling Author, Patrick Rothfuss.”
She smiles politely. Nods. But wait… there’s something more. I see a flicker of recognition in her eye. I get excited, thinking, “She’s read the book! She knows who I am!”
Then she says, “You’re that pervert who wants to smell my hair!”
I freeze in place, trying to think of something witty and disarming to say. But all I can think is, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why did I ever write that blog? Why didn’t I just post up tour dates on my website like all the other authors? Why didn’t I write nice safe blogs with funny pictures of my cat? What is wrong with me that I’m compelled to tell these weird fucking stories all the time?”
Then, with the fluid grace that comes from years of experience, Alyson maces me. I fall to my knees, clawing at my eyes and saying something garbled about the fact that all humor is rooted in transgression. But before I can make my point clear, Alexis Denisof steps up and proceeds to give me the beating of three different lifetimes in the space of about 45 seconds.
Which sucks, because that means I probably won’t ever get a chance to smell his hair either. So that’s two things that are never getting crossed off my list.
Jesus. You see? I can’t stop. I swear there is something wrong with my brain.
Speaking of which, *that* was supposed to be the point of this blog. Showing you the picture of my brain.
So here it is:
(Click to Embiggen)
It’s actually a computer model that they generated based on the MRI scans. If any of you can find the spot on there that compels me to endlessly make an ass of myself, I’d appreciate it if you’d point it out to me. Maybe then I could do a quick Dremel trepanation and let the demons out or something.
Wearily yours,
pat
NaNoWriMo – Epilogue
So last month I got all riled up and decided to try NaNoWriMo.
I walked into the experience full of hubris. Despite the fact that I was starting a week late, I was sure I’d be able to stride in, thunder forth 50,000 words, then still have time to make a delicious sandwich, invent a perpetual motion machine, and wrestle a bear before the end of November.
After all, I thought to myself. Am I not a published author? Have I not published over half a million words of fiction? Am I not, in fact, Patrick Rothfuss, international bestselling author, polymath, iconoclast, and haptodysphorian despoiler of women?
In the heat of the moment I forgot that in addition to being those things, I am Pat Rothfuss, who took fourteen years to publish his first book, and four to publish his second. And while *Patrick* Rothfuss looks pretty good on paper, *Pat* Rothfuss is, at his heart, something of a slacker, a dabbler, and a hooligan. What’s more, I am prone to obsessive revision and a certain degree of linguistic faffery.
So let’s jump straight to the ending of the story. Did I win NaNoWriMo?
Well, there are two answers to that.
If by “win” you mean “did you manage to write 50,000 words by the end of the month?” then the answer is a resounding, “no.”
Not only did I not write 50,000 words, but I broke pretty much all NaNoWriMo’s rules from the very beginning.
You’re supposed to start a novel and stick with that project all the way through the month. You’re supposed to move ever-forward, never looking back, never stopping to revise.
I did none of these things. This is in part because I am a contrary person. (See above, under iconoclast.) But it’s also because I prefer to adhere to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it. And to me, the spirit of NaNoWriMo is writing 50,000 words.
This I did not do. I was short by about 15,000 words. So no matter if you’re looking at the spirit or the letter of the law, I’m a loser.
Despite the fact that I failed to hit the 50,000 mark. I consider the experience to be a huge success. Why?
Writing is usually a very isolationist activity. Heading onto the NaNoWriMo website every day and seeing how other folks were doing make writing just a *tiny* bit social. Sure, I was spending hours alone in a room, but I was spending all that time alone with other people. If that makes any sense to you.
For example, I found out fairly early that Veronica Belmont was taking her first run at a novel this year. So I wandered over and looked at her stats.
Specifically, here’s the graph that charts how many words she’s written every day:
See her powerful lines? See how she’s been on track since day one?
That means she’s been writing the 1,667 words you need to produce every day to reach 50,000 by the end of the month.
By comparison, let’s look at my graph:
Now I *did* start a week late. But even so, you have to admit that my graph looks…. um…. sad. One might even call it “wretched” or “sickly.” A particularly scathing person might even use the word, “flaccid.”
I wouldn’t use that word, mind you. But someone might.
When I contacted Veronica to see if she was okay with me using her stats in my upcoming blog, she said something along the lines of, “No problem. Thanks for reminding me I need to get my writing done for the day. I should really quit playing Skyrim…”
Her offhand comment filled me with a burning shame and fury. She was beating my ass AND PLAYING SKYRIM AT THE SAME TIME?
Fueled by shame, I wrote 15,000 words over the next four days.
It wasn’t enough for me to hit 50,000 words. But it was enough so I could end the month with my head held high.
So not only was it fun. It was motivating as well.
No matter how you slice it, I got 35,000 words in three weeks.
I made serious headway on one project that I’ve been putting off for a while, got a start on another, and finished a third one entirely.
It’s a good feeling, getting those smaller projects done. And as an added bonus, it means y’all are going to be seeing some other stories in the next year while I’m still slogging away on book three.
Around the 10th day I found myself thinking things like:
I wrote 700 words today when I was answering fanmail. That counts as writing, right?
To which I had to reply to myself: No. It’s not really writing.
What about the e-mail that I wrote to my editor and agent? That counts as writing, right?
No. You *are* typing words, and it’s part of your job. But it’s not getting work done on a publishable story.
What about the questions I answered on my translator forum?
Ummmm. No. Doesn’t count. It’s not producing new material.
What about the thousand-word blog I wrote? That’s a story. Kinda. And it’s new material.
No. Shut up. Shut up and write.
Ultimately, it made me come to grips with a platonic truth: Only real writing is writing.
Other stuff I learned:
Normally I like to have 3-4 hours free to write. But just 30 minutes can be productive if I knuckle down hard.
Sometimes they’re big reasons. You want to spend time with your adorable baby. You have to take a business trip. Maybe you’re trying to get your awesome yearly fundraiser organized.
But y’know, there’s always going to be something going on. You’re tired. You’ve got a sniffle. Your roommate is being a choad. Your girlfriend wants to make out. You just discovered a cool tower defense game….
You can either let those things stop you from writing, or you can write. It’s that simple.
On one memorable day, I sat down knowing that I had to meet Sarah soon. In the hour that I had to work, I wrote a thousand words. It felt pretty awesome.
Later that day I came back to the computer and worked on revising the story. I worked for 3 hours and by the end of I was only up about 250 words.
I don’t regret taking the time for revision. Wordcount may be impressive, but revision is vital for a good story. Those 250 words were really important.
(This was, by far, the coolest part of NaNoWriMo for me.)
It was the last day of November, and I had painted myself into a corner. I hadn’t been good about writing my daily 1667 words, and I was paying for it. I was only at 32,000 words for the month, and feeling rather ashamed.
I wrote late into the night, then slept in my office. I woke up about seven hours later and sat right back down in front of the computer again.
I opened the story I’d been doing most of my work on over the month, (it’s a novella, set in my world). That’s when I remembered a little idea I’d had the day before when I was walking home.
The idea tickled at me. So rather than potentially forget it, I opened a new file and jotted it down. I jotted down the first line of the story, too. And the first couple of sentences.
Then I finished up the introductory scene. Then I did the second scene too, because it was short, and it was obvious in my head.
And since things were going well, I did another scene. And then I saw how the middle should go. And I was having fun, and it was turning out pretty cool, so I jumped in and started writing that too….
I knew I should be getting back to my novella so I could blaze some trail. I wasn’t going to get a lot of words out of my new story. It was stylistic, the POV was odd, and the language was very lean. But it was turning out really good….
After I finished the middle, I realized it would be stupid for me to do anything other than press on until the end. Because I knew exactly where it was going.
So I finished it. Beginning to end, it took me seven and a half hours. I was exhausted and excited. I’d never done anything like that before.
That final day sort of summed up my entire NaNoWriMo experience. Technically, I failed because I didn’t churn out a huge number of words. But realistically, I rang the bell hard and won the fuzzy pink elephant.
And you want to know the funny part?
You want to know the final wordcount on the story?
1667 words.
No kidding.