Laptop Never Finishes Updates

My laptop has been updating since 7am and it's now 3pm. It's still on ONE of TWENTY ONE updates. It says do not unplug, which I did not but I did shut it down because this is ridiculous. This is also the 2nd time it has happened. The first time I shut down (A couple of weeks ago) and when I turned it back on it took me to my desktop and everything was fine. But now, it's not taking me to my desktop. The instant I turn it back on it says Installing ONE of TWENTY ONE. How can I get this to stop? I have important documents on my laptop and I take online classes. I don't want my computer to install ANY updates. Honestly, I really dislike windows 8. I never had such problems with windows 7 and this is so frustrating.

Hit keys control alt del. When the dialog comes up, hit Task Manager. Scroll to Windows Update and stop the process. You can disable automatic updates. In Desktop mode hit Winkey-x then hit p key to get control panel. Click Windows Update.. when it opens click Change Settings. When you disable automatic updates, you can still manually check for updates. So if an important fix comes out, you may still put it on.

Edit: if you feel one of the last updates hosed things, if you have a restore point previous to the updates, it should fix you up.

I tried doing that just now but it's not doing anything. It still says "Keep your PC plugged in. Installing 1 out of 21 updates".
Uggh Somoene please help, I can't be the only one having this problem?

You pressed control alt del and what happened. "Tried doing it" doesn't tell me what reaction there was.

Edit: this article looks helpful:
How To Recover From a Frozen Windows Update Installation