Today my friend who is a NaNoWriting Buddy, too, and I drove to the all-state write-in.
Where was it? You may ask.
In my 'hood! I'll tell you. Where I spent my formidable years growing up. Today I found myself at the Salem Public Library with a bunch of other writers from the Salem area and from Eugene. I don't know if there were others from the Portland area. No, wait, I do know - someone mentioned Sherwood. There was also someone from Grants Pass.
We arrived about halfway through the day, but in enough time to join in the continuous story, some word sprints, and to partake of the NaNoAura of writing in community and challenges and the sound of keyboards being hit repeatedly and pens and pencils dragged across paper. The winner of one word sprint wrote about 920 words in ten minutes. Amazing! No, it wasn't me.
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| photo from The Amateur Gourmet |
What was new is that one of the characters is having a little affair of sorts, while the girlfriend is off taking care of the possessions of a dead friend. And it turns out that the bartender is also an excellent cook and much was said about the flaky biscuits and the midnight after sex breakfast meal. Eggs, bacon, and biscuits.
I can also see there is probably another death on the horizon. It may not happen and may only be a scare, but it looks like it. I may still have a conflict on which to draw out the rest of this novel. And not just the cheating bartender.
It's amazing the cliches that come out in the word sprints. But that's okay. Probably I needed to get them out of the way to get to the good stuff.
My ending word count today is 20,034, which could be enough to hold me through Monday with no further writing. That won't happen; I do plan on writing each of the next two days. But I love having a cushion in case things get busy and I fall behind. I am hoping to get this novel done by Thanksgiving - I've done that in three of the past four years. The first of the theatrical interpreting preparation workshops is on December 1st and I want a little time in the days before that to make sure everything is in order. I can do it all even if I have to wait to turn in my NaNoNovel at 11:59 pm on Friday, November 30th; but it would be great to have the novel wrapped up (at least the first 50k of it) by Thanksgiving weekend.
And the total words I wrote today was 4,483. Not bad.
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