Kitten Scribbles

...I wrote 14,302 words today. My fingers hurt. I may quite well have developed carpal tunnel. But I finished the #%&@ novel.

Slightly over 2k of said words were at work, during lunch break and while I was waiting for my simluations to run. The other 12k were written at home, between the hours of seven and midnight. K did not let me watch basketball (the meanie) even though Maryland was playing Minnesota. He cooked dinner and all but fed it to me. At about 10:30, I found out I could type much faster if I didn't use capitals. At about 11, I stopped going back to fix spelling errors (I typed with my eyes closed). And thus I made the 50k wordcount, with ten whole minutes to spare before the deadline.

I owe K, and I owe melindaloquita for the silly cheering. And my deepest thanks to bkleber for being understanding when I stood him up for rock climbing, just so I could finish this piece of ridiculousness.

And now, to bed.

K went out drinking with his boys and I've been left alone for a good chunk of the evening: 2600 words typed out and saved. I'm definitely having fun this year. I've created characters with some interesting faults, which means I have plenty of ammunition for plot details. And I'm having much better success in keeping myself from doing any revising (last year's giant weakness). That's for December.

It's early days yet, though. We'll see how I'm doing in week 2. Besides, I might not have time in December to do any editing at all... ( cut for personal stressors )

Besides, I have over 9600 words to my credit so far, and they're even mildly coherent. So: booyah. :)

edit: 12:08AM and the boys are back; the kitchen is full of tall guys holding beers vodka sprites straight vodka (oh dear) and talking in cheerful loud voices. I will probably have to drive someone home. I think the writing is done for the night.

There was a fire drill at work today; we all piled outside and admired the beautiful weather. S___e is in the middle of nowhere and it's absolutely gorgeous, no buildings in sight of my workplace, nothing but winding roads and autumn trees and gently rolling hills as far as the eye can see. The sky was blue and the sun was bright, and even the people who had come outside with clipboards and calculators were kicking back and chatting. A few people even started putting up the volleyball net. Sadly, they called us back inside before we could get a game going.

Anyway, it's the first day of Nanowrimo and I'm at 2156 words already, with a ghost of a plot in my head and a snarky character to play around with. Not bad, all told. (Probably helps that K's been in New York all day; I had all evening to bond with the laptop without distraction.) Props to dokein for finding Willie; it's an awesome freeware that does exactly what I need it to do: monitors my wordcount while allowing me to write in TextEdit. (Thank goodness for barebones word processors; u$oft Word is way too distracting.)

I think Nanowrimo is making me gregarious. It's a funny concept: for a month, participants take a very private exercise (writing) and make it into a very public enterprise. You make much of your writer's block, your plot consistency, your personal struggles; it's made more fun by the fact that tons of other people are doing it with you. No more writing in closed-off rooms; these people like to gather in coffee shops and hear about one another's characters. Turns the normal concept of writing on its head. Brilliant idea, really.