Saturday, December 5, 2009

Completion of NaNoWriMo 2009: Finding Methuselah

As I had indicated in several previous blog posts, I participated in National Novel Writing Month this year. It's an event where people try to start and finish the first draft of a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. At around noon on November 30th, I completed my goal and reach 50,197 words! It was a lot of work and I am very proud of myself. My NaNoWriMo page is here.

Some other interesting 2009 NaNoWriMo stats:
- There were 167,150 participants, up 40% from 2008's total of 119,301.
- There were 32,173 winners, i.e. 19.2% of the participants reached 50,000 words.
- There were a total of 2,427,190,537 words written.

Some people asked for more information about my story, so I wanted to provide it.
- Synopsis
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 26

Finding Methuselah: Synopsis

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Below is the synopsis for Finding Methuselah. Beware, the last sentence is super cheesy!

Alan and Susan have two children, a son, ten-year-old Jace, and a daughter, seven-year-old Sarah. The family lives in Chicago and leads a very normal and happy life. Their lives get shaken up when Jace is diagnosed with leukemia. Everyone handles it differently but surprisingly, Jace handles it the best. Susan is distraught at the possibility of losing her son. Alan's outlook is, “get the treatment, put it behind us, move on with our lives.” As for Sarah, if her brother is handling it well, she follows suit. Jace undergoes chemotherapy and the cancer goes into remission.

Months later, during a routine screening, signs of the cancer appear again and it has spread to numerous places throughout his body. After a few more tests, the doctors determine that even aggressive treatment would only slow the cancer down, at best. Jace opts to forgo any treatment and to live the remaining time he has without the suffering he went through during his first rounds of chemo. Susan slowly accepts her son's decision and his inevitable demise, but Alan doesn't. He's angry that things didn't work out and he feels that his son is giving up.

The next few months are spent with the family spending a lot of time together, enjoying each others company, and enjoying life. Jace feels okay most of the time, but he feels weaker as time goes on. One day he tells his parents things he's been reading about and makes a request. He explains how a certain species of tree, bristlecone pines, are the oldest living things on Earth and one specific tree, named Methuselah, is considered to be the oldest living life form on the planet at nearly five thousand years old. His request is to travel to Inyo National Forest in California and find the tree. It might not be easy though – Methuselah's whereabouts are not made public to protect it.

His parents okay the trip and Jace suggests that only he and his dad go. Susan reluctantly agrees, hoping that the time together will help Alan accept their son's fate. The two travel to California and set out on a journey to fulfill a dying boy's last wish and ease a father's fears of the future.

Click here to go back to read more about Finding Methuselah.

Finding Methuselah: Chapter 10

Click here to go back to read more about Finding Methuselah.

This was an interesting chapter to write. It's the chapter where the family finds out that Jace's cancer is back. I had already written a chapter that took place inside of a doctor's office and didn't want to do another one. What I came up with was to highlight some of the normal families in their neighborhood, how things aren't perfect, but they're normal. And then from there, it moves on to Jace's family, which was a normal family who has now run into this bad time, but from the neighborhood view, it might not even be known. It's told kind from a kind of pulled-back-looking-down point of view.

I like the chapter and I like the different feel it has, but I'm just not sure that it works with the rest of the story.

Oh, and upon reread, I noticed some tense issues, I seem to switch tenses throughout the chapter. And there are some awkward sentences. So keep in mind it's a first draft that's been reread once to fix glaring mistakes.

Chapter 10 – Regression

[Redacted]
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Finding Methuselah: Chapter 12

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This chapter takes place after Jace has explained to his parents that he does not want anymore chemotherapy. It's the first of several chapters that deals with the family just trying to find some normalcy in their lives. I really like the playfulness of most of the chapter. I enjoy writing playful scenes and they're the ones I enjoy reading the most after I've finished them. I had forgotten some of the details of this chapter and it made me smile while reading it. The aquarium visit that gets mentioned happened in a previous chapter.

Chapter 12 – Living

[Redacted]
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Finding Methuselah: Chapter 26

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This chapter takes places after Alan, Jace, and a forest ranger named Thomas have made it to Methuselah. It's after dark and Alan and Thomas hike back to the truck to get sleeping bags to sleep out. Jace is left alone for awhile.

While reading this chapter all the way through for the first time after writing it, I wondered if it was too sugary. I would have to read it within the context of the whole story, I think. In any case, this is the last chapter of the book. It's only an excerpt, about half of the chapter – I can't give it all away!

Chapter 26 – Sleeping in the Shadow of Infinity

[Redacted]
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