The NaNo Chronicles: Days Five, Six and Seven . . . Too many days, too little writing

Days Five, Six, Seven and Eight

 

Yeah, I suck. I suppose I could play the “Life Got In The Way Card,” but I know there was time to work on it in there. I did have a couple of newspaper stories a day on Saturday and Sunday, and there has been some other stuff going on, but basically I just let it sit. It’s actually Day Nine as I wrote this, but I did hack around a little with it yesterday. I did something the NaNo folks say not to do. I went back to the first chapter and did some proof-reading and some minor re-writing. As of right now, at 10 a.m., I am at 5,722 word. Of course, that’s a whole lot of days behind, so I am just not going to do the math.

 

I am using a cool program called Scrivener, a book-writing program that just came out for PCs. It’s a long-time Mac program. The Scrivener folks really smart and offered it to NaNo’ers free for the month with a discount for the program when it comes out. I haven’t spent too much time figuring it out. I should have done that during the last week of October. Oh, well. I have not figured the spell-checker out yet. Just haven’t gotten to it. I have to admit I was sort of amazed at how chippy the initial copy was. There were more misspellings than I expected.

 

So here I sit, thinking about how I need to do the dishes, clean the bedroom, read the Internet, run errands and do just about anything other than writing this thing. But . . . I think it’s important, kind of like the daily jogger who decides to run a marathon. I am a writer, and I can do this.

 

I am feeling I am at the point that I sometimes observe on the football field. I will be watching a game from the sidelines, look at the clock, the score, the field position and the down and mutter, “Big play, this.” I mutter a lot on the sidelines. So I am thinking it’s late in the first quarter, and we have the ball at midfield, and it’s third-and-one. We’re down 14-0, but we’re not getting outplayed. We turned the ball over once, and we know we can score on them and stop them if we need to. So, “Big play, this.” We’re going to fake pass and run a draw up the middle. We get stopped, we’re hosed. But there’s always the chance our guy can burst up the middle and into the end zone, then it’s a one-touchdown game. We’ll know later today, after I finish this exercise in procrastination.

You can make a sports story out of anything

By Joe Bagadonuts
Daily Bugle

LAKE GEORGE, NY -- With 11 days remaining, the race for the team fund-raising title at the Lake George Polar Plunge for Special Olympics is heating up.

Team Momentive, Inc., an 11-person group from a multi-national corporation headquartered in Albany, had raised $4,101 as of the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 9, buoyed by the fact that three of its team members are in the top five in individual fund-raising. Team captain John Scharf, the official spokesman for the corporation, is at $1,185 and is one of only two plungers who have topped the $1,000 mark.

Agni Dentati, trying to win the team title after finishing second the last two years, is at $3,145, which is close to a team record. Bill Toscano, who is getting ready for his seventh plunge, is leading all individual fund-raisers with $1,295. Agni Dentati, or "Sheep With Teeth," is a seven-member team made up of six members of the Society For Creative Anachronism and a sports writer who will be writing a column about making the Plunge.

The third place team, at $1,885, is Max's Buddies, led by Lisa Jackoski, whose son Max is a Special Olympian at Lake George High School. Combined, the three leading times have accounted for almost exact 25 percent of the $22,868 raised so far. There are 38 teams and more than 220 plungers already registered, and more teams and more teams and plungers are expected as the event gets closer.

The Lake George plunge is one of a dozen planned statewide with an overall goal of $1 million, The season's first plunge, into the Saint Lawrence Seaway, took place last weekend and raised $18,000. The second, in Plattsburgh, is scheduled for this weekend.

Readers are urged to go to the link for Agni Dentati and donate to one of the individual team members. There is also plenty of time to join the team and get in on the excitement of submersing yourself in Lake George in November.

Edited to correct typo and update totals.