That's all I have to say.
 

...in the previous entry, when I said that I would produce a real entry and answer emails and such. Instead, I have been writing like mad, and broke 50,000 tonight. 50,136 right now, but I'm a little bit on a roll, and will probably best that yet tonight. I'm about three-quarters through the plot, though I suspect I will rush it a bit because it's almost the end of November, and I have years ahead of me to rewrite and retool.

Anyway, I am very thrilled. Carry on.

 

         How do you pluralize the last name "Devereaux"? I know that, pronounced aloud, it would just be "Dev-a-ros," but how do you spell that?
         In my NaNovel, I've written Devereauxes, but it looks so awful.
         It's a French last name originally, obviously, but they're so American, several generations in the United States, no one speaking French, and anyway, it's other people (specifically, news anchors) saying it. How do I spell it? How would I spell it in French? How would I spell it in English? Is there a standard way to show pluralization of foreign last names?
         I suppose it isn't a big deal, but every time it comes up, I take several moments to rethink it. It's taking away from the flow of writing.
         In other news, I have realized that since I never watch the evening news on television - preferring newspapers or stories online - I don't have any idea of how news anchors speak or how stories are introduced or how long a particular story might be discussed or, pretty much, anything about it. Maybe I'll make myself watch it tonight. It's sort of important to what I'm writing right now, and every piece of newscaster dialogue I've written sounds so stilted and lame.
         At least I'm writing. That's an improvement over last week. And tomorrow, nine hours on planes and in airports: plenty of time to nap and be productive both.
 

         At one in the morning, it gets increasingly difficult to spell the word "Kyrgyzstan." It doesn't help that many spell checkers don't think it's a word (including Writing.com's: the line above glares read at me. Wrong! Wrong! Sorry, it's spelled correctly). I added "Kyrgyzstan" to the Microsoft Word dictionary, but then whenever I wrote "Kyrgyz," as in the language or the ethnicity, there it was, that squiggly red line, angrily demanding that I try again.
         I used to have the spell checker turned off on Word, because it was so irritating, telling me to spell things differently or rearrange my sentences in weird, stupid ways. But I can't figure out how to do it on Word for Macs. I'm sure I could figure it out, but...waste of time.
         Anyway, my paper ended up being pretty good, in my opinion. I am almost an expert on modern Kyrgyz politics now. The only problem: I forgot to change the title.
         Whenever I write a paper, I give it a funny interim title while I'm still working. It makes me laugh a little, lightening my mood somewhat while in the throes of an intense writing session. I always change it to something more professional before the end...
         ...except last night, when I forgot, and electronically submitted a paper called "Kyrgyzstan: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same."
         Sigh.
         I guess it could have been worse. The other interim titles I had at some point during the past two days were "Bakiyev to the Future," "Race for a Kyrgyzstan" and "Kyrgyzstand By Me." Those might have been harder to explain.
         I'm bad with titles anyway. See above.
 

         Sigh. It's so hard to find the "My Blog" link now. I keep going to the spot I'm used to finding it, only to click and click and get nothing. Well, one time I clicked on "contests" instead, but it's hard to reorient myself. Hopefully I'll get used to the changes soon. When my mind isn't addled by NaNoWriMo, perhaps...
         Speaking of: I broke 15,000 words this morning, which is good. I'm two days ahead, which makes me very pleased, especially considering that I have a paper due Monday, two due Tuesday, and a proposal due Friday. The plan for today: NaNo for an hour; work on the Monday paper for an hour; NaNo for an hour; work on the first Tuesday paper for an hour; NaNo for an hour; finish the Monday paper. I am getting better about measuring out my time. Good at it? No. But better.
         Tonight is my friend D---'s birthday party, which will be awesome. I haven't hung out with him or any of my study abroad friends in quite a while (besides in Russian class, which obviously doesn't count). I am quite certain that the entire night will just be people getting plastered and dancing to crappy pop music, but I could use some of that. Just not too plastered, or I won't be much help in tomorrow's early morning writing meeting.
         But it will be really fun. I can feel it already. I might even get E--- to come with.
         I've been dreaming about NaNo, and it still hasn't helped me figure out how to show the unease my main character has when someone with her same name dies. And I keep making notes to myself in the margins of the page about things that need to be fixed in the rewrite. Is it pathetic that I'm already seeing the fractures in the story and how to fix them?
         Hey, at least I'm not trying to fix them. That's what next year (or the next, or the next) is for. Also, fixing the problem that all three of the teenage boy characters are essentially indistinguishable. Yeah.
 

         It is almost fitting: for my 450th All This Useless Beauty entry, I start NaNoWriMo anew.
         Considering how underdeveloped the idea is, it's going well so far. Chapter One, finished, comes in at 3461 words. That's long, really long for a YA chapter, but I can already see what I'll cut and move elsewhere. I'm just not doing it right now. Because that's NaNo, people. Writing in chapter one a bunch of filler that you'll move elsewhere but you need to get it out, vomit it onto the page, so that you don't forget.
         I remember writing Recommend Me a few years back: I made extensive notes, with index cards for the various events and characters. I had a stack of at least eighteen or twenty, and the night before NaNo, I commandeered the kitchen table and spread them all out, rearranging them again and again until it all fit together. I redid that several times over the course of the month, so sure I didn't want to miss anything. It worked for RM, but this novel -- I'm too embarrassed to include its stupid working title -- isn't that way. This is far from the distilled idea I had for RM. This is entirely seat-of-the-pants.
         Some people, I've heard, make big spreadsheets with all the information they want to include. Chapter by chapter, listed in order in Excel. This is sort of like the 21st century storyboard, connecting the dots and doing summations easily, so it can all be indexed later. I might need to do that in the rewrite of this novel: I need all the dates to match up. But for now, it can all just take place on generic June and July days.
         Onward, readers, to chapter two! Death before dishonor.