National Novel Writing Month: Finish Line

Word count: Forty-eight thousand, eight hundred, sixty six. That reads alot better than 48866, the counter on the bottom of the microsoft word document. (I actually type in TextEdit - no page numbers, no word counter. Makes it feel a bit more like a typewriter, without the annoying clacking, or the ink. I tried typing with a typewriter once. Not a success.)

I'm just over a thousand words from finishing the National Novel Writing Month goal of 50 thousand words. That is good. It is also good that I am not quite fazed by the notion of one thousand words. I have maintained a good, steady, true pace. I write for an hour, maybe more, besides all the creative mind work at my unpaid internship. I work out for an hour, maybe less. I just bought my first ever set of gym gloves. I never wanted to be one of those gym glove guys, mainly because with my physique, it seemed a little bit pretentious. Then I saw a guy who was Peter Parker without the spider bite, complete with coke bottle glasses and long skinny arms, a white tank top and short black shorts. That motherfucker has a gym glove, shit man, I'm a fucking guido boxing king by comparison. There goes my italian american demographic.

Most of the paragraphs in the novel (it's still not a book, yet - maybe in another hundred pages) read like the one I just wrote. Vague. Wandering. Perhaps insightful, perhaps obnoxious. There's editing material.

Of course, the problem is, I'm not even halfway there. Not close. Activity still must happen. Twists must be coiled. Lives must be cut short, unexpectedly, sorrowfully. This current chapter (3 of 5) I want to be a real gothic romance. Mistaken identity. Misshapen love polygons. Mind rape.

I've been exceptionally content the last few days. There is a desperate part of my mind that can't stop screaming that it's only temporary. The plan was always to show up to Gaieties on Wednesday clean shaven and cut haired. But girls keep giving me mixed signals. Some say keep it all - grow the scruff. Others say lose the half-beard, keep the long flowy hair. All I want is a definitive answer. Then again, it will be nice to meet with people I haven't seen in awhile and not get their two-second what-the-fuck-is-on-your-face stare. My uncle George made the first Jesus crack. Bless you, my son.