...to one and all!

... but so little on my own book.

The documentary I've worked on for the past ten years is now a two hour first cut! We're at the note-making, and editing stage, and there is interest in it.

I've been editing for a friend, and his first book is in print! He's writing his second book now.

I've been hired to ghost write a book for someone, and it's a much slower process than expected. I don't know that I'll do this again, but he's a nice man, and I have the skills to help.

My own book has undergone several significant adjustments, and I'm eager to roll up my sleeves and tackle its new outline. I think it'll be much, much better than originally drafted!

And, most importantly, it's the holidays. Many happy returns of the season, and joy to you all.

It's been quite some time, but it's been an eventful year.

The good and bad news about NaNoWriMo is that it pushes you beyond the envelope, beyond a story's outline, and into the unknown ... and sometimes the unrecoverable.

At long last, I have wrestled the wayward manuscript and steered it onto a more solid course. I'm working on the new first chapter, after which the old first chapter will follow (slightly modified.)

Whew.

I wasn't sure it would ever happen.

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.