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 Month of Dreams (Ruinous Bets part II) (again)
by Patrick Clapp
 (*edited for reality)
Here comes the rubber match (again). A long while back I took a gamble that if I told several hundred people of my intention to write a novel, the fear of failure in the eyes of those who know me (and many who do not) would be motivation enough to write fifty thousand or so words. I won that ruinous bet, and I was satisfied with the results.
The next year I prepared for a repeat performance, but with a few slight modifications. I only told my roommate, I did not post my word count, and I was no longer a student. The last point makes a difference, I believe, because National Novel Writing Month is typically recognized as occurring in the month of November. November is a notoriously terrible month for students as it is broken up by a major holiday and buttresses up against the last few weeks of the Fall semester. Not really the ideal time to shirk duties you are paying to receive.
But January...January is the perfect month for students to take up the pen or the keyboard or whatever and attempt a novel. The weeks prior to it are spent unwinding (unless you are unlucky enough to attend an institution like Harvard that forces students to sit for exams after the semester), and for most the new semester does not start until the month is mostly complete. If you are not a student...if you are, perhaps, recently graduated and still treating yourself to all the indulgent time-wasting pastimes you had denied yourself for too long while you finished your degree...January is most definitely not a good month to attempt a novel.
I failed miserably at my second and third attempt. A few days in, my roommate left for Orlando (work got really busy). My ideas dried up (not so much dried as much as sucked, and my predilection for online games overcame my desire to write (also, sleep). Two conversations stand out from that time which sounded the death null of my second great adventure. The first was an agreement with my roommate that since we had successfully completed the mission the year before, this year we did not need to tell anyone what we were doing. Stealth writing. That worked...in that we did not tell anyone that we were writing books, and subsequently did not have to tell anyone that we were giving up on writing books. The second conversation was the actual death knell argument filled with wonderful logic.
Nanowrimo is a terrible way to write a book. Forced enslavement to a keyboard for two to four hours a day for thirty days is not a feeling to be cherished. Completion and victory are the feelings that are cherished, but the journey itself is not the best way to go about producing such a work. The logical defeatism that worked so well in year two was this:
"If I want to write a book, I want to do it right...I want to take my time with it and make something I am going to like...not something that was birthed from my body like the Titans emerging from the forehead of Zeus." Also there was the prospect of more online gaming.
Well, this time I am actually going to go for this thing during the month of January November. I am determined to use the same strategy as the last book. Roughly two thousand words per day with several fifteen hundred word days thrown in here and there (mostly on Wednesdays - not because it is the first day, but because it is a day when certain gaming associates are not playing volleyball or watching Smallville).
Unlike last time (the time I won), I already have a working title (which I am not going to share yet). And so, here is the contract and the schedule of events. Feel free to mock, but cheers and sympathy also do wonders. Did I mention how awesome the month of January is?
Form: #A30/31/50K
The Month-long Novelist Agreement and Statement of Understanding
I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000 word novel in one month's time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such a enormous undertaking. I understand that notions of "craft." "brilliance." and "competency" are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.
During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky, dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing proves should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.
I acknowledge that the month-long, 50-000 word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.
Signed - Patrick Clapp
Date - October 31st, 2006
Novel Start Date - January November 1, 2006
Novel Deadline - January November 31, 2006
.....DAY................TARGET......ACTUAL
January November 1........1,500..........1,631
January November 2........3,500..........3,797
January November 3........5,500..........5,821
January November 4........7,500..........7,889
January November 5........9,500..........
January November 6........11,500........
January November 7........13,500........
January November 8........15,000........
January November 9........17,000........
January November 10......19,000........
January November 11......21,000........
January November 12......23,000........
January November 13......25,000........
January November 14......27,000........
January November 15......28,500........
January November 16......30,500........
January November 17......32,500........
January November 18......34,500........
January November 19......36,500........
January November 20......38,500........
January November 21......40,500........
January November 22......42,000........
January November 23......44,000........
January November 24......46,000........
January November 25......48,000........
January November 26......50,000........
January November 27......52,000........
January November 28......54,000........
January November 29......55,500........
January November 30......57,500........
January November 31......60,000........
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