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Report Card (26 Oct – 1 Nov '09)

weight: 138.8
exercise: all unintentional
books read: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño (page 163 and continuing)
blogs written: 1
photographs edited & posted: 2
cumulative time alive: 33 years, 2 days
stress factor: 3.0
NaNo word count: 2588
ribs consumed: 10
slices of cake: 3

Tonight, I am officially a novelist… for a month, anyway.  In the space of a couple of hours I was able to crank out just over 2500 words.  At that pace, I can take the weekends off (not that I intend to do that) and still hit the 50,000-word mark.  I can say that, at the moment, I have a well-defined point A and point B.  It is getting from one to the other that is going to be tricky.  I am going to try to avoid giving too many plot points away, as this is a rough rough draft and all is subject to change.  I wanted, though, to at least give a tiny snippet of what the work-in-progress looks like.  At one point in my opening chapter, my protagonist, a traveling musician, is asked by a group of village children to sing a song.  Here is his song:

        There was a tiny little worm
        in a tiny apple core,
        he liked the apple-y taste so much
        he ate it more and more.

        The apple it was juicy.
        It was plump and round and red.
        And the worm, he ate his apple walls,
        and his tiny apple bed.

        He ate and ate until there was
        no apple to be found.
        And then he chewed right through the skin
        and plopped onto the ground!

There you have it.  The first 5% is finished.  I’ll be sure to let you know when I find a plot.

Report Card (19-25 Oct ’09)

weight: 138.8
miles jogged: 0
audits completed: 1
hours slept: insufficient
books read:
    infinite jest (completed, enjoyably infuriating)
    hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (completed, amusing)
    true love: a practice for awakening the heart (continuing)
    2666 (begun)
blogs written: 0
photographs edited & posted: 2
field goals blocked by Mount Cody: 2
blogs lovingly ripped off by this blog post: 1

I’ve decided to replace the twitter recap (which has been dwindling as I have slowly realized I have nothing to say that is so important it must be immediately vomited onto the information superhighway) with this weekly report card idea (see above).  Hopefully this will be more fun for the reader and more useful to me for keeping track of my progress through life, literature, etcetera.  I do seriously intend to get back into a respectably healthy shape and to read more/write more often.  (In fact, I am considering an endeavor that will jumpstart my creativity in typically grand style.  More on that tomorrow.) 

Perhaps seeing these goals in print (a la my jog-log that sadly sputtered and died a few months ago) will spur me on toward my vague but irritatingly ever-pressing and eternally distant goals.  I know I am always on the fence as to whether this web space should be a private log or a journal for the masses.  I’m still teetering, searching for some balance between the two.  The listed goals on the report card may be expected to vary and be replaced over time.  Also, if there is some way I can use this format to embarrass my wife in a way that will tickle her instead of infuriate her, I promise I will do that as well.  Thank you for your brief attention to my life.  Now go on about yours.