This year, regional word counts were one of the features added to the NaNoWriMo website. Portland ranked 11th in the world, ahead of NYC, Boston, and San Francisco, with a collective total of 3,756,412 words.
Last night was Portland's TGIO, the party celebrating the end of NaNo. There were heaps of things to eat, oodles of interesting people, and lively conversations in every corner. We had shared a remarkable experience, even if we hadn't actually all been together or even met before, and now we shared the buzz of triumph. It was pretty great.
But the best part of the evening was when people took turns reading excerpts from their novels. What an incredible diversity of imagination, tone, style, and personality! They covered the gamut from hilarity to heartbreak, with narratives of bad dates, battlefields, bandits, road trips, drug trips, dockside brawls, people with wings and people with tentacles. It was hugely entertaining. And there was something so satisfying, on such a primal level, about a group of people just sitting around telling each other stories.
Thinking of that now, I also recall that phone conversation I had with my songwriter friend the other week (he needs an alias; let's call him Bombadil). I was giving Bombadil an overview of my novel, and he interrupted me to exclaim, "You're telling me a story! This is so cool! ...And we're adults!"
What is wrong with us, that this sort of experience is so unusual? Because I have a strong sense that it is something we were meant to be doing.
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Last year, a friend took me out to lunch just so I would spend it telling him the story of my novel. It wasn't just me talking, either -- I'd start telling him the backbone, and then he'd ask a question that was explored in a sideplot, and then he'd ask if that character could really be trusted and I'd respond with a troubling incident that happened elsewhere in the story...
Very cool. Halfway through lunch I told him he could just read it if he wanted, but he said that he didn't like reading, he just wanted me to tell the story...
Sounds like the kind of friend you'd want to keep around.
I saw that! It made me happy. And "Holy Tango" made me even happier.
The novel will not be available for viewing until it has undergone heavy revision, and that won't happen until I can stand to look at it again! Thanks for your interest, though; I'll be sure to let you know when it's become something I'm willing to share.
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