victory!!

I finished NaNoWriMo today!

Week 3 was sluggish but week 4 was very productive. I am very happy to have reached the goal and would say that for the most part I enjoyed the process. The best part really is how much affection I have for my young protagonist Paige Turner; she's a neat person and I love listening to her thoughts and observations.

Go ahead, congratulate me!

:-)

keeping on pace

After twenty days, I have 34,468 words, so I'm currently on pace to reach 50,000 words by Nov. 30. I would really like to finish on the 29th so as to have a "day of grace" but I don't know if that's do-able.

Allison wanted to read what I had done by yesterday so I printed off 44 single-spaced pages. She really liked it; she had a big smile on her face as she read. I asked what she liked best and she said "It's very realistic, and the characters are doing the same things I'd be doing in school." (Even though the book is not based on her or on any kids or teachers she actually knows.)

If that isn't good motivation to keep going, I don't know what is!

half full? half empty? half crazy?

As for my NaNo writing, I'm nearing the halfway point, which is great, because tomorrow is day 15 of 30. I've managed to write every day, and as of now I have 22,721 words. What I'm finding out:
- For an exercise like this, it is great to have a preteen narrator who likes to chat. I can just let her blather and digress while I watch the words pile up.
- I should probably have had a better plan in advance. I made a sketchy outline of plot events but I think I am going to run out of them before I run out of month!
- I need to not forget to exercise because I am spending so much time sitting at the computer.
- I only have 27,000 words to go.
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

seven days of NaNoWriMo makes one weak

This is day seven of NaNoWriMo and so far I've written a grand total of 12,365 words. I updated my total on the NaNo website; they measure your progress on a little bar like a thermometer and it is neat to see it almost 1/4 full. But I have to write that amount three times over again. Argh.