Writing Whirlwind

Since beginning NaNo on November 1st, I've written 60,003 words, which is an average of 10,000 words each week. I'm absolutely shattered, but determined to keep this pace up until I type 'The End', ready for me to work on the second draft in the new year in the brand new Novel Race. Next year, I'm planning to be one of the winners!

Slightly sore head

Well, as could have been predicted, we didn't even make it out of the restaurant once we got talking, so no skating and no German Market action, though plenty of red wine (and an ill-advised limoncello, which I'm blaming for my feeling of wrong this morning). We also managed to embarrass our waiter, who seemed to have an uncanny knack for appearing behind the person saying something outrageous (often me). He overheard anecdotes about day-glo nylon thongs, phallic glassware (and gestures you should not make with them) and enthusiastically joined in a conversation about suet. We're going back on Friday, and are hoping he'll be working again!

On a more writerly note, I managed my 1000 words pre-wine, so they all, more or less, make sense.

Second wind

So far I've managed over 1000 words each day, though as this is just since Sunday that means, technically, twice. It sounded more impressive in my head... I've done some more this morning on the train, and should manage 1000 again, though hopefully before I hit the town with my Knitting Circle coven-mates for our Christmas Night Out. With the prospect of ice-skating, followed by mulled wine (NOT before the skating. That would just be foolhardy) and waffles from the German Market, any words I produce later on this evening will probably be slightly squiffy ones.

Luck, or the lack thereof

I seem to be having rather bizarre luck at the moment, and not in a good way. Not even in a bad way, just in a rather frustrating and strange way. I normally either bring my lunch from home, or buy something from Boots or Tesco in town. On Thursday, I decided to go to Sainsbury's, which is a bit further away than the alternatives but I would also be able to buy ingredients for supper. I knew they were doing some building work there, but it's been going on for about 6 months. Somehow though, I'd managed to choose the only weekday during the whole process when the store would be shut all day. These things happen, so I went off to buy a sandwich elsewhere.

Then this evening, I remembered that I've been meaning to change my mobile bill to e-billing rather than paper, but had never managed to do it at work because I needed my account number (why this has to be different to my phone number, I don't know, but it is). I had my account number on a bill so logged onto the site. I registered all my information, went through the FAQs about what e-billing entails and then went back into the 'Your Account' section to change my details, but it had gone. I had logged into my account TWO MINUTES before the site went down for planned maintenance until 8am tomorrow. My timing really sucks.

Time off for good behaviour

When I finished my 50,000 NaNo words, I (almost immediately) came down with a horrible cold. My voice is nearly back to normal, and I haven't had a huge coughing fit for 2 whole days now, so I have started to feel as though the break I was taking from writing might have grown a little long. I don't want to lose the momentum I had during November, but when my head hurt too much to think properly and I was sneezing over everything, writing wasn't really an option.

In the middle of all that, I also went away twice, first to an isolated 17th century cottage in Snowdonia, and then for a night in London including a big curry with some chums. I got out of the routine I had created for NaNo, and writing didn't fit so easily into my gallivanting as it did in my normal everyday life. Now I'm back at work, and in my (freezing cold) flat for the weekend, I'm writing again. Only 246 words so far today, but it's a start. And I'm going to keep writing, one word in front of the other, until I get to the end.

Almost celebrating...

On Friday evening, when I was travelling down to London for a weekend of frolics with friends, I crossed the NaNo finish line, ending my journey with 50,023 words. While this is certainly a cause for celebration, the story isn't yet complete, and that's what my real goal is. I can't stop now. I think I'm over halfway through the story (though it might be surprise me and be longer or shorter than I expect...), so am beginning the downhill section. I've got a bottle of pink champagne waiting in the fridge for the day I type 'The End', and set myself a revised deadline of December 31st. I'll update my word counter to show the target as 100,000 words tomorrow, but until then, I'm enjoying having it look like I've finished!

Confused...

I am seriously obsessive about backing up my work. My NaNo WIP is currently on my laptop, my work PC (so that I can work on it at lunch-time, never during the working day... Honest.), and a memory stick. Also, whenever I finish a chapter, I copy it into a new Google Document and also into Scrivener, the novel-writing package I have on my laptop. I'll be using this to edit it once I've finished the first draft, as it is much more flexible than Word, which is what I'm using for NaNo.

The Scrivener project stats tells you lots of things on top of just a simple word count, including how many paperback pages you have written, and this is what I've generally checked when I've added a new chapter. I copied in Chapters 17 and 18 this morning, and happened to also notice the word count for the project. In Word, I had reached 37,801, as you can see today in my word counter bar. When I looked at the Scrivener word count it said 37,910! I really don't understand the discrepancy, and am inclined to believe the Word total with the belief that it's better to get to 50,000 then realise I've actually done more when I validate it on the NaNo site than the reverse, but it still makes the scientist in me slightly nervous. Which one is right?! There is a discrete total of words (unless there's something funny going on with hyphenations or contractions) and I want to know what it is! Argh!