Words count. Especially 50,000 of them.

I wrote 53,842 words as part of National Novel Writing Month. 
But who's counting? Me and frequently.

I enjoyed the writer's life and remembered the years in my 20s and 30s when I believed that I would make a living as a writer. Of course, it was much easier at that time because I smoked cigarettes. That makes writing much easier although it makes your insurance premiums higher and there are apparently health risks.

                                     (these guys got to smoke, big advantage)

It is not coincidental that my 17 year old main character (or mc as we call him on the ChiWriMo facebook page) smokes cigarettes and has an Ace of Spades Zippo lighter.

The reward for all that writing became the word count. To write 50,000 words in 30 requires writing 1,667 words a day. Putting this in perspective, last Tuesday column (11/29/11) by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times is 891 words. In terms of bulk then, it is writing 2 Thomas Friedman columns a day and unlike Thomas Friedman you have to make everything up. (There may be room for debate on whether TF is making things up but that is another blog post for another blogger)

Don't know if TF is a smoker

The NaNoWriMo site has an excellent stats tab that show daily progress in a graph form as well as an estimated completion date based on a running average of your production.

Now that I have typed all these words, I have to decide what happens next. Do I edit what I've written? Turn it into a screenplay? Create a puppet show?

Time will tell. As it stands now, I am only happy with one line in the book.

Doris is the mc's aunt (by marriage, not blood).

Not that my own family showed a lot of affection but the only thing Doris could nurse was a hangover.

My wife had an aunt Doris but she was very nice and not at all like the character in the book.

By the way, I am winner of the 2011 NaNoWriMo.

Since its inception, several books written during NaNoWriMo have been published.

• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen ^[23]
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which spent time in the New York Times Bestseller's List.^[24]
• Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• BreakupBabe by Rebecca Agiewich
• Take the Reins by Jessica Burkhart
• The Movie by Bosley Gravel
• Livvie Owen Lived Here by Sarah Dooley
• Losing Faith by Denise Jaden
• The Compound by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen^[25]
• The God Patent by Ransom Stephens

I will advise when I make this list.

(this post is 441 words and a bunch of them are cut and pastes from wikipedia)

Local man types fas.t NaNoWriMo in full m.f. effect

I subscribe to the Gotham Writer's Workshop e-mail newsletter. The reason for this can be found in this charmingly out of date profile of the author Amy Shearn. (what about being a mother of two super kids and having another book published and starting a play school and blogging for Oprah)

Cute Picture don't you think?

Anyhoo, I get this e-mail that says there is a National Novel Writing Month and November is it. The deal that you write a novel of at least 50,000 words in November and then they send you an e-mail certificate. And there are lots of online and dirt world sorts of things like forums and write-ins but I couldn't figure how what powers my Icon should have.

I am up to 9719 words, a little above the 1666 average I need to keep.

Here is what I know about this organization and it comes from Wikipedia. It started in San Francisco in 1999 with 21 participants. In 2010 there were over 200,000 would be Flauberts et al. And to date for 2011, they have raised $379,587 from about 10,000 fast typists or about $40 per person.

Wow...