Yes, technically I have won NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month competition (competing with one’s self) put on by The Office of Letters and Lights to write a 50,000 word novel within the month of November. They gave me this cool little image and a certificate.  Really though, my novel is crap.  The ending is terrible and there’s a number of loose ends that I didn’t tie up because I got tired of writing and couldn’t find a good way to make them work in.  To be fair, the first 500 words are okay.  It’s all down hill after that though.  But hey! It was a lot of writing… and I finished it with a story…. sort of.  I might go back and re-write/revise a lot of it, or I might just do a whole new story next time around.  We’ll see.

Today I will pass the 90% mark on my NaNoWriMo novel. Yesterday was technically Thanksgiving day as celebrated by America, but in terms of simultime, it’s still going on right now. Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated the same here in Japan as it is in the US, but they’re not completely unaware of our celebration. As with most American holidays though, the Japanese don’t really get the point, but that’s okay! They celebrate a “Labor Thanksgiving” day around the same time in November. I am planning a turkey-less thanksgiving potluck feast with my English Conversation class. Hopefully I’ll be cooking some whole chickens instead, but it will depend on what’s available. I could’ve ordered turkeys from Foreign Buyers Club. But for the number of people I’m cooking for, I really didn’t want to be bothered with trying to roast multiple full sized turkeys, especially without an oven of my own. It’ll be a Japanese thanks giving, and that’s perfect, since I’m in Japan.

Well, as I pass the 75% mark of my novel and start realizing the need to wind down the story and tie up all my plot and such I also realized that I need to write down some of the things I discovered along the way. It would be a waste to go through all this, have a bad 50,000 word novel, and forgotten all of what I learned up to now. So here’s a brief list of some of the stuff I thought about while I was writing.

-50,000 Words really isn’t that much, especially if you have a lot of characters you want to describe.

-It would have helped a lot if I had known all the major conflicts I wanted to put in so that I could story board them ahead of time.

-I find my characters magically progressing through the plot rather than experiencing any interpersonal conflicts that would make it interesting.  I kind of pretend like they happened anyway and write about what I wanted to have happened later on.

-I think it’s better to introduce most of the characters fairly early, only 1 or 2 to come in later.  I just didn’t get a chance to really flesh them out so they end up just being tag-a-longs.

-I have no idea what a subplot is.

-My characters need more motivation for their weird actions, I’m having to figure that out as I go and it doesn’t always seem genuine.

-A running tab of the characters and their background info would be a useful reference sheet so I wouldn’t have to scout back through and see what I wrote 20,000 words prior.

-Consistency would have been good, I think I lacked that when I drastically changed the way my protagonist acted without much of a clear catalyst.  Dynamics are fine if they make sense…

This morning I participated in Hidaka Village’s annual Mohei Marathon, which is actually a half marathon event including a 10k, a 3k, and a 1.5k run as well. Most of my students than ran participated in the 3k and 1.5k, largely depending on their age. I ran in the 10k placing 81/121.

I managed to run the whole thing in 58′21″ which I thought was pretty good. I was happy to keep the time under an hour, meaning I averaged roughly 6 minutes per kilometer. When you figure that a kilometer is the better part of a mile that means I was probably running between 8-12 minute miles throughout the run. I’m not a runner, I occasionally got for 1-3k jogs to stay healthy but I haven’t done a distance like that since high school. It was fun and I think I’ll probably participate next year too.

I’m still behind on my novel. Im going to force myself to catch up tonight and tomorrow. It’s getting more and more difficult to just write crap because I’m rather connected to what’s going on, even though what I’ve written so far isn’t that good. I want to try to make it good, but I really need to just focus on finishing for now. Even if I try to make it good that doesn’t mean it will be good and I think some of the best parts I’ve written up to now were things I hadn’t planned that just came out while I was trying to meet the word limit.

December is for revisions, November is for spitting out more words per hour than you ever thought you could! w

25,000 Words, half way, getting there. The Plot pieces are assembled. Now it’s more or less time to just knock em down one by one. Havn’t figured out the ending yet. It might be a shocker.

So, I’ve decided that the JET Program is a lot like College. Except that we’re the foreign teachers, the campus is way spread out, we are the opposite of broke, and we start out the program with a drinking problem rather than ending it with one.

So that analogy doesn’t really go that far unless you force it. But there’s some inkling of that feeling of peer colleagues that’s a little different from “real” work life but resembles the feeling of peer classmates and drinking buddies.

Also all JETs don’t have a drinking problem, just Kochi ones. Just kidding… Kochi JETs don’t have a drinking problem, they’re just generalizably talented at drinking, whereas everyone else is less so.

I’ve broken the 10,000 word threshold with my novel. I’ve never written this much of a single story before and it’s awesome. I more or less know where I’m going with it and I’m largely pleased with my writing so far. No, it’s not publishable quality, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Besides, maybe after a finishing and revising a few drafts it could be. Check out my user page on NaNoWriMo’s website

Okay so it’s purely amazing how much time difference the most direct mountain roads and the toll expressway have between eachother. It took us like 6 hours from The northern part of Kochi prefecture to get to the middle of Tokushima. Then it took only 1.5 hours to get back by toll road. Granted the toll was like 20$ without the ETC card thingy, but still it’s totally worth it for how much easier of a drive it is.

Anyway, Iya Valley was gorgeous. The leaves were every color leaves can be. Walking on the vine bridges was pretty scary even with the cables laced through them. Lots of places to twist your ankle if you’re not careful, and they move whenever someone else takes a step.

I had my first Onsen experience, and it was awesome! Pretty cheap place that only cost 1000 yen (10 bucks) and it was pretty nice. Felt great afterwards, I’d do that every weekend.

Sweet. I am rockin and rollin’. Actually that’s a cover up, but my true emotions are a well guarded secret that only the characters in my NaNoWriMo story know about. I’m pumping them full of feeling, sapped from my real life wants, desires, hates, fears, and fantasies. It’s awesome, Novel writing month kicked off and I’ve already passed the daily quota of 1666 words I’m over 2300 and plan on doing near 3000 by the end of the night.

Right now I’m cooking up some chicken, cabbage, bean sprouts, and left over stir fry. Gotta get some nutrients before our trip to Iya Valley tomorrow. Matt and I are going outside the prefecture for the first time since we’ve been in Kochi. Totally stoked to see one of Japan’s “Hidden Valleys”. After that we’re meeting up with my friend from Tokushima.

Saturday Tyler and I made our way down to Irino beach. I tried out my new surfboard. It’s fuckin’ difficult, but that’s okay. I loved being in the waves and trying my best to ride them in to shore. I couldn’t stand up on this board, but I think I’ll be able to after a few weeks of practice in spring. It was glorious to be out on the beach again and it reminded me once more how much I love this prefecture of Japan.

The awesomest thing ever, last night a semi-coworker from the town office had a halloween party for several kids from the village. They actually organized a neighborhood trick-or-treat. I was blown away. The kids costumes were so legit too, and the neighbors loaded them down with candy. It was just like Halloween in the states would be on a good year. I’m so happy about the people around here and how open to new things and new ideas they are. P.S. Halloween is not a Japanese holiday, they mostly just decorate stores and such and have a costume party or two. Trick-or-treating is still a foreign concept entirely.

I posted an HD video tour of my apartment on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCAaXd0wKfw Give it a look see. The thing I’m about to say at the end of it is, “I might put some flowers out here”