Where to?

So here's the results of my little foray into the nanowrimo. I finished. Yep, at just before 10:00 pm on November 30, I submitted my 50,063 word completed manuscript to the nanowrimo website for verification and apparently their jacked up system disagreed with the almighty Bill Gates and Microsoft. 49,933 words is what they claimed I had copied and pasted into their little program. "Okay," I thought, "that's not a problem. It's not even 11:00 yet." I figured I had plenty of time to write 67 words.

Did that and more. Now I had a completed manuscript of 50,250 words and it was only 11:01. Select all. Copy. Got back to the nano site. Nanowrimo 2010 is closed!

Huh? "But it's not midnight yet," I exclaimed. "Since when does the day end at 11:00?"
"Dad, it's time for bed." My boy Danny apparently doesn't understand his father's need to set the Universe in order.
"Not now, son. I think I just got screwed."
"Turn the computer off, Dad, and step away. It is what it is."
I stopped myself from randomly clicking things on the nano website that obviously weren't going to solve my dilemma. He was right. I knew from the get go this whole venture was going to end badly. This was just the icing on the cake. A 50k word meandering exhibition of how NOT to write a book. Lesson learned...I guess. It was time to move on.

So what did I get out of my experiment. Well, I have what some would consider an accomplishment to be proud of. I have completed a novel. Big deal. I now have several completed novels and I'm sure before I leave this rock and move on to the next stage of existence, I'll have completed several more. That wasn't the point. I guess if anything I might have polished some skills in the stream of consciousness area. Let it flow, don't look back, just write, baby, write. Over the course of the month I averaged over 1500 words a day, bumping my average up considerably from my normal, pounding out of a first draft, pace. I also added more hours per day to my writing schedule than my usual hour in the morning before I have to get my ass over to the job that pays the bills (or at least some of them). So I guess I could say now I know I can do it. Terrific. I'll be sure to put that in my memoirs that will probably never get written because I've certainly got a lot of rewriting and editing to do.

Which brings me to the big question that I started the month of December off with. Where do I go now? Surprisingly a writing project has presented itself that, while not something I would have ever thought of on my own, has the potential to not only make me some money, but also broaden the scope of my skill set. I'll divulge more on this as it unfolds, but for right now I'll just say the timing is perfect. I have two first drafts to work on rewriting and as we all know, rewriting and writing aren't the same creatures. I always hate getting into rewrites because I feel that as a writer I should be writing something new at all times. But once I start writing something new, the older stuff that needs work usually gets pushed aside. For example, the rough draft I have of my book "Paramount," which has been sitting for almost exactly a year waiting for me to get back to it. It's become somewhat of an elephant in the room when it comes to my file folder where I stick my work. This morning I opened that folder and, for the first time in a year, went through the first couple of pages. Yeah, maybe it has potential.

As for my Nanowrimo novel "Auto Focus" (working title only), it will be there. It's not going anywhere, and neither am I. I already wrote about distractions, well, I'm certainly not lacking any of those. Maybe I'll get back to "Auto Focus" (again, that' just a working title only) before 2012 rears its ominous head.

Hee Haw