I'm quite pleased.

Thanksgiving weekend was one of the reasons I hesitated before signing up for NaNoWriMo. It's always filled with family obligations, which, no matter how enjoyable, are still obligations. Now that I've reached that 50,000 word limit, I'm quite happily going to take the weekend off to play with my family. Monday morning, I'll buckle down to write the rest of the first, rough draft.

... to those of you who live in the U.S. and celebrate the day. Happy Autumn to those elsewhere and Happy Thursday to everyone else.

My hands have held up better than expected, but they're still fairly weak. So I pretty much took the weekend off, adding only about eight or nine hundred words. I also needed to re-set my focus on the story itself.

Been there, done that.

Now for the rest of the book!

Goal reached? Check. 51,819!

Novel complete? Non-check. 51,819.

I still have a lot of story left to tell. Realistically, at least another fifty thousand words, but I'm well into it and the characters are evolving on the page. I like them. Some more than others, and I need to add a little bite to a couple of them, but that's an easy tweak in the opening pages.

Oh, this is fun!

The last couple of days have been very busy, but not, regrettably filled with writing my book. But there are times when family comes first, and this was one of them.

Today, however had been a productive day, and I'm closing in on the NaNo goal. I'm rather pleased about it.

48064 / 50000 words. 96% done!

I'm getting there. I'm realizing that it might end up in the 110K range as a sloppy first draft, but I won't know until I get there. I'm loving writing the story though. It's so much fun.

One of my favorite moments: "When we were aboard THAT DAMNED BOAT WITH NO NAME we discovered....".

The NaNoWriMo method of writing is hot, sticky, and splashed across the page. No stopping for extraneous wanderings through lists of names of boats, glorious or otherwise.

As of five minutes ago my word count was 44,488. I'm 89% of the way to 50,000.

It's all good.

Yesterday was my four-year-old nephew's birthday party, and it was controlled chaos. No wonder my sister-in-law chose to hold it at his favorite play place. There was a light-up dance floor, an enormous ball pit, slides, and climbing tubes galore.

A great time was had by all the kids and some of the parents (some, like my mom, climbed into the ball pit with the kids.)

With that being said, I wasn't terribly productive yesterday, but I did manage sixteen-hundred more words. Oh, and I scribbled an idea for a scene on the back of the directions to my nephew's party. Do they count?

In any event, the count of yesterday was 41,860. If I add the scribbling it's 41,900!

Woot!

84%.

It was a very productive day today.

40,225 of NaNo's 50,000 word requirement. Woot!

And even better, as far as I'm concerned, I'm about half-way in the arc of the story, so I'm very pleased.

Bound by a seasonal ritual condoned by their parents, Kalina and Archon are destined to marry and have a child. When Kalina travels to Taara, her dower property on the island country of Saylon, she uncovers traces of her father’s scheme to expand his empire, using her in the process. Disgusted by the possibility, she seeks to thwart those ambitions.

Suspicious of the power Kalina wields and the possibility she is her father’s willing accomplice, Archon abandons her in an attempt to avert the disaster his father has courted by yoking Archon to this alliance.

Separately, they will fail.

Can Kalina and Archon overcome their distrust to work together and save Saylon?

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.
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I think this version's significantly better than the first.

It's surprisingly helpful to have something pressing to focus on, and I was able to write for a solid couple of hours this morning.

My pace may have slowed a little, but I was very happy to be able to ignore any distractions. The rest of the day I can't account for.

I've managed to reach 36,367 today. 73% of the way to 50,000.

I hope all is well with all of you.

There has been a death in my family, and I'm afraid my focus isn't quite what it should be.

I hope to return you to my daily word counts tomorrow.

Spam of the day!

Word count: 31,303; 63% done.

It seems my re-focusing efforts yesterday didn't go amiss. I managed to pound out another flood of words this morning. I've found my heroine. She was a little shrouded before now, but I think I'm beginning to like her.

Oh, and I've managed to write 3,651 words today.

29,178 of the 50,000 NaNo-required minimum, and 29,178 of the 80,000 I'll most likely need to complete the story arc.

I'm feeling very optimistic.

Today was mostly organizational; glossary building, adjusting the outline, and filling in some of the blanks. With that being said, I was surprisingly productive: 3,600 words, bringing my total word count to 25,527. Woot! 51% of 50,000.

Today's going to be my slow and restful day. I wrote 2,196 this morning, and my hands hurt so I'm stopping.

Typing at a consistent pace and then stopping early-ish isn't a bad thing because it gives me a chance to adjust the plot to accommodate the direction my characters seem to be headed. Handwriting isn't as hard on my hands, so I'll be drawing maps and jotting character notes today.

I've also been able to coax my older son into conceptualizing some of my planet's inhabitants. He's come up with a couple of fascinating hybrids.

Look! I found a word count widget!

It's up to date.



POST SCRIPT: As of November 9, 2009, the widgets no longer track. I suspect they were part of the server crash NaNoWriMo suffered on the 8th.

And for my Friday post ... 16,598.  33% of the way to 50,000 words.

I definitely won't be able to finish this story in fifty thousand words.  It'll need to be closer to eighty-five, but I'm not fussed.  I've long thought a fifty thousand word story was too short for a novel.  It's skimpy.

I may readjust my word count calculator!

Have a good weekend all.

13,553 of 50,000!

27%

I'm very pleased.

10,203 ... 20% done!

Two chapters in.  Woot!

Yesterday, I flailed and meandered all over the page trying to write a synopsis for the story; fortunately, it was easier to distill this morning, and I'm sure I'll continue to tweak it until I'm finally satisfied.