James Joyce, NaNoWriMo Legend
NaNoWriMo
A Play in One Act
Dramatis Personæ:
MIKE:
So, Steve, you do NaNoWriMo this year?
A Play in One Act
Dramatis Personæ:
- STEVE
- MIKE
MIKE:
So, Steve, you do NaNoWriMo this year?
STEVE:
You didn’t hear?
MIKE:
Hear what?
STEVE:
I finished my novel on the morning of November 30. Submitted it to Nan [Talese] that afternoon. On December 1 it was in every bookstore in America. A few days later, in a glowing twenty-two-page celebration, James Wood hailed it as “fucking awesome.”
MIKE:
Holy shit!
STEVE:
First time a New Yorker critic ever dropped an F-bomb in a review. At least that’s what Nan says.
MIKE:
Congrats, man!
[The two men ceremoniously high five.]
STEVE:
Thanks! How ‘bout you?
MIKE:
Eh, it went all right. I had a killer Bildungsroman goin’. I was knockin’ out 10,000 words a day, at least. Then… Ah, you know. I had to go down to my folks’ place in Indianapolis for Thanksgiving, then I had to be up early on Black Friday to catch all them deals. Next thing you know it’s frickin’ Advent already and--
STEVE:
Oh, Mikey…
MIKE:
I’m telling you man, the book was frickin’ killer up to that point.
STEVE:
Well, what’s this Bildungsroman about? I mean, aside from the moral and spiritual growth of your presumably male protagonist.
MIKE:
Oh, jeez. What wasn’t it about? Starts with a boy in fin de siècle Davenport, Iowa. He goes to Yale in the early 1910’s, befriends a colorful bunch of East Coast aristocrats, almost loses his soul... Graduates, moves to New York, plays piano in a ragtime band in Harlem, contracts gonorrhea from a protégé of Isadora Duncan… FUCK. What else? Oh, he befriends Houdini, fights in World War I with the French before the U.S. gets involved, then blah-blah-blah, bling-bling-bling, my man becomes a cereal magnate.
STEVE:
Damn! That sounds tight.
MIKE:
Honestly, it is. It’s a nod to Hemingway and Fitzgerald with more than a little Pynchon tossed in. I mean, I got 30 pages where some unnamed optometrist talks to the protagonist--
STEVE:
Hold up. Does your protagonist have a name?
MIKE:
Fuck no!
STEVE:
Good. Keep going.
MIKE:
Right, so this optometrist just goes on and on for 30 pages about the aeronautics of biplane design—for no reason!
STEVE:
Sweet. [Pause.] And then you fucked up.
MIKE:
Well, not really. Look, I only got like 40—maybe 50,000 words left. I see him becoming a monk eventually, a la Thomas Merton.
STEVE:
Makes sense. Now here, listen… I want you to do something.
MIKE:
Shoot.
STEVE:
Take your manuscript, some lighter fluid, and a book of matches down to the lakefront.
MIKE:
What?!
STEVE:
Let a little fellow named Fire do some editing.
MIKE:
No, Steve, listen--
STEVE:
Douse the manuscript. Light a match. Then watch the whole thing burn.
MIKE:
No, no. Dude, I can’t.
STEVE:
Burn it. Every single page. When the fire goes out, kick whatever remains into the lake, and let us never again speak of this book-that-might-have-been.
MIKE:
I can’t do that, Steve!
STEVE:
You have to.
MIKE:
Dammit, I put my heart into this! I am so close!
STEVE:
Close has nothing to do with it. You tried—and then you fucking failed. You FAILED, Mikey. NaNoWriMo is many things, but a game is not one of them. It’s like James Joyce said, “If you don’t write it on a dare in 30 days…”
MIKE:
“…then it’s not a novel.”
STEVE:
Exactly. Look, cousin: I love you like a brother, which is why I gotta be so goddamn REAL with you. You fucked up.
MIKE:
[Long pause.] I know.
STEVE:
You fucked up bad. It is not my job as a fellow writing hobbyist to sit here and fluff your goddamn pillows. I won’t do it, bro. It would be a dis to you, and worse—it would be a dis to the novel.
MIKE:
I know… I know. [Long pause. Very long. The actors just chill for, like, nine minutes. Maybe thirty.] You’re right. I must do this.
STEVE:
It will make you a better writer.
MIKE:
Come with me. Come… while I burn it.
STEVE:
I’m afraid I can’t do that, Michael. There can be no intermediary at this rendezvous with yourself.
MIKE:
Well, can you drive me to the lake?
STEVE:
Oh, yeah. Sure, that’s no problem.
[Three hot chicks enter from stage left, cross through the foreground, and exit stage right. STEVE and MIKE are both like “Wha!?!”]
MIKE:
Hey, Steve. You never told me about your novel.
STEVE:
Hmm. Right. Well, it’s called NaNoWriMo. The whole novel is two guys talking about NaNoWriMo. Drinking beers. Doing shots. Just hanging out in a bar. A guy named Steve… and a guy named Mike.
MIKE:
Oh my God.
STEVE:
Yeah, man… Yeah.
[Extremely slow fade, then CURTAIN. Somehow this all needs to be staged so that, as the lights go out, the audience is like, “Oh snap! That all happened in my mind.”]
You didn’t hear?
MIKE:
Hear what?
STEVE:
I finished my novel on the morning of November 30. Submitted it to Nan [Talese] that afternoon. On December 1 it was in every bookstore in America. A few days later, in a glowing twenty-two-page celebration, James Wood hailed it as “fucking awesome.”
MIKE:
Holy shit!
STEVE:
First time a New Yorker critic ever dropped an F-bomb in a review. At least that’s what Nan says.
MIKE:
Congrats, man!
[The two men ceremoniously high five.]
STEVE:
Thanks! How ‘bout you?
MIKE:
Eh, it went all right. I had a killer Bildungsroman goin’. I was knockin’ out 10,000 words a day, at least. Then… Ah, you know. I had to go down to my folks’ place in Indianapolis for Thanksgiving, then I had to be up early on Black Friday to catch all them deals. Next thing you know it’s frickin’ Advent already and--
STEVE:
Oh, Mikey…
MIKE:
I’m telling you man, the book was frickin’ killer up to that point.
STEVE:
Well, what’s this Bildungsroman about? I mean, aside from the moral and spiritual growth of your presumably male protagonist.
MIKE:
Oh, jeez. What wasn’t it about? Starts with a boy in fin de siècle Davenport, Iowa. He goes to Yale in the early 1910’s, befriends a colorful bunch of East Coast aristocrats, almost loses his soul... Graduates, moves to New York, plays piano in a ragtime band in Harlem, contracts gonorrhea from a protégé of Isadora Duncan… FUCK. What else? Oh, he befriends Houdini, fights in World War I with the French before the U.S. gets involved, then blah-blah-blah, bling-bling-bling, my man becomes a cereal magnate.
STEVE:
Damn! That sounds tight.
MIKE:
Honestly, it is. It’s a nod to Hemingway and Fitzgerald with more than a little Pynchon tossed in. I mean, I got 30 pages where some unnamed optometrist talks to the protagonist--
STEVE:
Hold up. Does your protagonist have a name?
MIKE:
Fuck no!
STEVE:
Good. Keep going.
MIKE:
Right, so this optometrist just goes on and on for 30 pages about the aeronautics of biplane design—for no reason!
STEVE:
Sweet. [Pause.] And then you fucked up.
MIKE:
Well, not really. Look, I only got like 40—maybe 50,000 words left. I see him becoming a monk eventually, a la Thomas Merton.
STEVE:
Makes sense. Now here, listen… I want you to do something.
MIKE:
Shoot.
STEVE:
Take your manuscript, some lighter fluid, and a book of matches down to the lakefront.
MIKE:
What?!
STEVE:
Let a little fellow named Fire do some editing.
MIKE:
No, Steve, listen--
STEVE:
Douse the manuscript. Light a match. Then watch the whole thing burn.
MIKE:
No, no. Dude, I can’t.
STEVE:
Burn it. Every single page. When the fire goes out, kick whatever remains into the lake, and let us never again speak of this book-that-might-have-been.
MIKE:
I can’t do that, Steve!
STEVE:
You have to.
MIKE:
Dammit, I put my heart into this! I am so close!
STEVE:
Close has nothing to do with it. You tried—and then you fucking failed. You FAILED, Mikey. NaNoWriMo is many things, but a game is not one of them. It’s like James Joyce said, “If you don’t write it on a dare in 30 days…”
MIKE:
“…then it’s not a novel.”
STEVE:
Exactly. Look, cousin: I love you like a brother, which is why I gotta be so goddamn REAL with you. You fucked up.
MIKE:
[Long pause.] I know.
STEVE:
You fucked up bad. It is not my job as a fellow writing hobbyist to sit here and fluff your goddamn pillows. I won’t do it, bro. It would be a dis to you, and worse—it would be a dis to the novel.
MIKE:
I know… I know. [Long pause. Very long. The actors just chill for, like, nine minutes. Maybe thirty.] You’re right. I must do this.
STEVE:
It will make you a better writer.
MIKE:
Come with me. Come… while I burn it.
STEVE:
I’m afraid I can’t do that, Michael. There can be no intermediary at this rendezvous with yourself.
MIKE:
Well, can you drive me to the lake?
STEVE:
Oh, yeah. Sure, that’s no problem.
[Three hot chicks enter from stage left, cross through the foreground, and exit stage right. STEVE and MIKE are both like “Wha!?!”]
MIKE:
Hey, Steve. You never told me about your novel.
STEVE:
Hmm. Right. Well, it’s called NaNoWriMo. The whole novel is two guys talking about NaNoWriMo. Drinking beers. Doing shots. Just hanging out in a bar. A guy named Steve… and a guy named Mike.
MIKE:
Oh my God.
STEVE:
Yeah, man… Yeah.
[Extremely slow fade, then CURTAIN. Somehow this all needs to be staged so that, as the lights go out, the audience is like, “Oh snap! That all happened in my mind.”]
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