50,025!

Well, it turned out not to be interminable after all. It may suck, but it's finished and in a while I hope that icon over there reflects that I am a dad-gummed winner.

45,000!

I'm starting to crank it up, I must say. It's getting easier somehow, even though in places I'm saying stuff like and then they all talked it over and decided what to do and then they did it. A new character leaped into the fray and now we're racing to the end. I actually may not finish the story before I reach 50K. Man, it feels good to be writing so quickly and happily again.

40000!

This is a slog. I just wrote a thousand-word information dump, which is of course toward the end of the novel and should be artfully interwoven into a riveting narrative much earlier. Whatever. The words are there. And I actually think I need to have a bit more of this historical sweep before I move on, so I know what the hell I'm talking about. But at this point, I think I may be able to do 2000 words a day and make it to the finish line. Interesting. I'm tired though. Very tired of this awful novel. I wonder if it has any redeeming value at all. But it's so close to being done that I will finish it. And this is as bad a blog post as Interminable is a novel.
Excelsior!

30,000!

I keep plugging away. I am already only 1000 words short of where I ended last year. I am glad Nano had Neil Gaiman's pep talk yesterday or whenever it was. About hating your novel. I pretty much hate it right now. But as he advised, you just keeping adding words. I will keep adding words. And right now the end seems WAY too close. I wonder if I can add another 20,000 crappy words to this crappy novel.
Onward.

25,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night I sprinted and wrote 3,752 words to reach the magical, mythical midway point. The last scene I wrote I like. It was scary in the Alfred Hitchcock "suspense is waiting" sense.
And the very strange think is that focusing so hard on Interminable somehow unblocked a bit of my brain and this morning I woke up with a much clearer sense of where I need to go with this (hopefully) last edit of my novel Reply All. It's like peripheral vision. At night, I can see my black dog Lucky in the dark backyard only when I don't look directly at him. We used to use this at camp, too. If we were sneaking down the hill at midnight to "pull capers" in camp parlance, we'd look away down the hill so we could see if the counselors were standing by their cabin in the shadows waiting to catch us.

20,000!

Broke the 20,000 mark last night. I'm a bit behind and will have to hustle to reach the mid-point (25,000) by tomorrow. Possibly do-able.
I finally got them into some action again and that goes a lot faster.
This is actually easier than it may sound. The whole trick is sitting down. Once I start to write I can write pretty fast. But the first hour or so is a matter of a paragraph, check my word count, another paragraph, check the word count, futz around with the Excel spreadsheet. Check my e-mail. Writer a paragraph, check ... well, you get it.
Finally though at about the 500 word point, things seem to break open. If I had more discipline I could write thousands of words, but I tend to (ahem) pace myself. But too, there's a bit of a reason for that. I deplete and need a night to recharge and let my subconscious work on the story, so I have something halfway interesting to write the next day.

10,000+ and counting

Well, my YA fantasy novel that I've dubbed Interminable is coming along nicely. I broke the critical 10,000 mark last night. Right on schedule, no more, but (hoo-ah) no less.

And I sneaked out a scene last night that actually made me cry. Dogs, of course.

I kind of like Interminable, but it's typical of my stuff. It doesn't perfectly fit in any real category and thus as usual will probably be totally unpublishable. But at least it's only in one character's POV and is chronological. And has a plot, albeit a bit meandering at this point, and lots of action. Mass executions. Dire beasts, etc.

This next 10,000 words will probably be hell, especially because right now I intend to slow down the pace a little and build in a bit of history and community formation. Give my heroine a little rest, although the anxiety and danger doesn't really abate. It's a breather. But may make me have to push a little harder to keep up the word count.

Here's a definition of interminable that I find quite apt,
endless: tiresomely long; seemingly without end

Can't wait for Vol. II Incomprehensible, and III Inconceivable

Word 5190

It's getting more painful the longer I push. I've written 60 words this morning. I've also done the dishes, paid my bills online, checked all my e-mails, washed the dog's dishes, am gazing longing out the window at the leaf blower (the county starts its first annual leaf-sucking rounds in our neighborhood tomorrow). I'm looking at my scrawled outline and can't read some of it. It sucks anyway. This is what writing is like. The fun part is staring out the window imagining it. The hellish part is sitting down and trying to squeeze it out onto the computer screen.
And I'm only 9 percent ahead of where I was last year on day four and I feel like I've been tremendously more productive and disciplined.

Nano '07

Started today on a brand new novel--a young-adult fantasy. Feels quite strange to be back in YA after a couple of years on two adult novels, one of which is in its seventh draft, and the other just beginning a third. I may cheat and work a little on the second adult novel but for the most part this year's Nano experience will be by the books--one month, one first draft of a brand new novel.
I am in Excel spreadsheet heaven.
Of course my friend Teacakegirl is already so far ahead I can't even see her dust. She's always like this.