Daily Archives: 28-Nov-11

Meanwhile, in Kay’s tale …

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So amidst my own writing, I’ve been serving as typist for Katherine on her YWP effort.  She chose to do a 5K tale this year — above the age-recommended level (3600), but the same as last year.  That’s let her cruise a bit; as the sidebar graph shows, she’s been blasting ahead at the Write-Ins, and then doing nothing in-between (like me, but moreso — but, yeah, I’ve been a bad influence).

But she’s also doing it written longhand, still being slower at typing than handwriting (not through lack of encouragement on our part). And, at that, she’s beating some of the adult typists at Word Wars …

And as I’ve been typing up her story, I’ve been damned impressed by her turns of phrase.  Even if she’s lifting bits and pieces from other things she’s reading (excuse me, that’s called an homage), and even if I need to do a bit of spell-correction, it’s still pretty cool that it’s falling from her pencil that way:

Will didn’t think he could stand that kind of rejection, so he kept on treading slowly, with his head down, with the weapons and shield weighing him down, sapping his remaining strength.

That’s pretty spiffy, if you ask me.

Coming down to the wire

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It’s November 28th … do you know where your novel is?

So here we are, in the final few days of NaNoWriMo. The tension is mounting.

Okay, so it felt like, today, I was in the middle of coming down with the same flu / illness / malaise that Ginger’s had since shortly after arriving, and Margie has had the past couple of days.  I felt badly enough that I headed home from the office early.

But I still sat down and typed a bit before dinner.  And typed a bit after dinner.  And … well … managed to kick my words out for today.

(Click to enbiggen.)

So you can see the problem I’ve had here — way too many days of not doing nothing.  That’s my mea maxima culpa.

The past few days, though, have been a pretty sweet, dedicated curve.  And I punched past the number I needed to write today, doing just under 2600.  That means if I manage 2400+ the next couple of days, I hit my victory mark.

Woot!

More importantly, I got through the not-very-expected climax of the tale, wherein the villain is confronted (and dispatched, and dispatched courtesy of the protagonists, and yet not without some grave sacrifice).

Which means that the next two days are denouement, explanations, settling accounts, resolving stray threads, and overall finishing not just the wordcount, but the story.

Short of (knocks on wood, crosses self, fumbles at various religious pendants around the neck) falling too deathly ill, I think … I think … I can make it.