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It's not whether you win or lose, but how they count the words.
Published: 12/2/2008 4:55 PM
Last Modified: 12/2/2008 4:55 PM

OK. So the annual National Novel Writing Month came to an end Sunday at 11.59 p.m. And after a month of seemingly ceaseless typing, I posted my manuscript to the website to have its word total tabulated. The word processing software I use had it as being around 45,000 -- 5,000 short of the required total -- but I was thinking that perhaps the NaNoWriMo tabulators would see things a little differently. Count hyphenated words as two rather than one, for example. Round up to the nearest thousand.

I checked the website a short time later, and had one of those moments when you think that maybe a person's eyes can literally shoot out of their sockets and stretch one's optic nerves like so many bungee cords.

According to the official tabulation by NaNoWriMo, I had produced during the month of November not 45,000 and change. No. As they reckoned it, I has come up with 190,819 words.

I have no idea where they got that number. It's not the total of characters in the manuscript, it's not a multiple of the word count that I came up with.

It was -- no other word for it -- a number plucked out of the ether, as arbitrary and as meaningless as a politician's smile.

Still, I did accomplish much of what I set out to do by taking part in this event. The doing is all -- and the work is far from finished.

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James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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Past Articles By James D. Watts Jr

2/15/2013		'Concept/OK' exhibit ends Saturday
2/14/2013		Symphony to host piano soloist
2/14/2013		Broadway tours bring 'Shrek,' improv musical to Tulsa area this weekend
2/14/2013		Arts roundup: Improv reigns at several upcoming theater events
2/14/2013		'Lion King' returns to Tulsa PAC June 4
2/12/2013		Review: Signature Symphony reprises '100 Years of Oklahoma Music'
2/11/2013		Tulsa Symphony's concert salutes diverse American music
2/10/2013		Cherokee artist weaves messages into baskets
2/10/2013		Tesla Quartet set for Tulsa residency next week with variety of activities
2/10/2013		Jim Murphy wins 2013 Anne Zarrow Award
2/10/2013		LBJ chronicler Robert Caro to speak at TU on Tuesday
2/9/2013		Theater review: Playhouse makes "Barefoot in the Park" believable

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