Day 29: The End!

I went to the library this afternoon to write with the most awesome Legolas, my young writer friend. We were writing from 1:15 to about 5:45 p.m. I composed over 8600 words of prose and FINISHED my 2008 NaNoWriMo Novel.



Some Stats:
Total Words Written--50,172
Avg Words Written Per Day--1730
Avg Words Per Hour--3436
Word #50,000 was "changeling."

So this cat is officially a four time winner of National Novel Writing Month, AND I have now completed a total of seven full-length novels in my adult life.

Yay, I'm a winner! And life can resume it's regularly scheduled madness.



Now I'm going to go read a book...

End of Day 27

It's almost 2:00 a.m., technically on Day 28. I just reached 40,000 words. I'm going to bed now. *collapses*

Words to Date: 40,096
Words to Go: 9,904

Day 26: Still pushing forward

I've been steadily pushing forward and writing as much as I can. Tonight, I've been doing some timed writings and challenges with some of my young wrimo friends. 

Legossi gave me a challenge: "I say Mangy has to put a monkey in her story. And the monkey's name is Alowishes the fifty-fifth. And he likes brownies." Here's what I came up with...

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The bartender walked up to Mighty and rubbed a towel over a chrome flagon. He was a moniker, completely covered in a dark brown fur that looked almost black in the dim lighting. “Alowishes the 55th at your service, sir.” His round snout and wide mouth contorted as he spoke, but the light brown eyes set above his muzzle were filled with wisdom.

“Alowishes the 55th?” Mighty asked. “You come from a long line of Alowishes…es.”

The moniker nodded his head solemnly, then set the flagon before Mighty. “What shall it be?”

Mighty thought for a moment. “What is the house special tonight?”

Alowishes leaned forward and raised an eyebrow, turning his forehead into a cascade of wide wrinkles. “The brownies, sir.”

Mighty blinked. “Brownies? Is that a drink?”

“Oh no, sir.” Alowishes straightened up and walked down the length of the bar. He retrieved a pedestal with a transparent shield bubble over it. When he came back, he set the tray in front of Mighty. “Brownies,” he said with absolute reverence.

Mighty peered at the offerings. They were indeed simple chocolate brownies with a dusting of some sort of nut on the top. He shrugged. “A brownie it is. And perhaps a flagon of milk to go with it.”

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More to come!

Words to Date: 33,157
Words to Go: 16,843 (I tell you--that actually looks doable!)

Day 24: Little help from my friends

So my friend MightiMidget and I have been word warring. That is, we have been doing 10-minute timed writings, but we've done ours with a twist. We will give each other a challenge to add during our 10 minutes, a dare, if you will. Then we write, and afterwards share how we incorporated the challenge.

Tonight, Midget said that I must put a talking Coke can into my story. So this is how it came about:

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Doxal smiled, curtsied, then opened the can. Instead of releasing the usual hiss of escaping carbon dioxide, a voice came out into the quiet of the hall.

“Mighty Myllon, I have a message for you.”

Mighty's eyes widened. He walked on his knees to Doxal's side and stared at the can. He looked up at Doxal. “Did you just hear...”

She nodded, her own eyes filled with curiosity.

Mighty took the can from her hands and turned it over. As he did so, the voice began to speak again.

“The message is from your father.”

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Though I am still incredibly behind for having only six days left to complete, I am oddly optimistic that I'll still finish. Let's see if I make it...

Words to Date: 26,616 (and still counting tonight)
Words to Go: 23,384

Day 13: Finally making progress

I have been woefully behind and completely neglectful of my NaNo novel. It isn't that I don't like the story or the characters. Indeed, they are very fun to write and they keep getting into trouble, so that's always a good thing for the life of a novel.

Life is just busy, and the fact is that I don't have time during the week to write. My writing times have been the weekends for the last couple years, and unless I make a concerted effort, writing just does not happen Monday-Thursday. But I'm going to try to get at least 2K a day and more on the weekends until I have that nice little cushion again.

Tonight, I wrote 4,000 words. I was originally going for 2K, but my friend Nia challenged me to 4K, and I achieved it through a series of timed writings with some of my fellow wrimos over IM. Wahoo!

Since I have no energy to edit an excerpt after a 3.5 hour writing marathon, I'm going to offer to you two of the many horrifying (UNEDITED) run-on sentences I am forced to write when under pressure, which my inner editor wishes to bludgeon to death come December 1.

Mighty did not even want to get into the whole fact that he would like to be her friend if she would be a little friendlier, but right now, he had a meteorite cavern and cave system to maneuver around. These tunnels were made by the miners, so they were somewhat even, but since the area had been abandoned, any of the caves might have fallen in or there could be abandoned equipment in there just waiting to be an obstacle for him to run into with the Lasso, should he be careless and inattentive.

Words to Date: 16,013
Words to Go: 33,987