Wow, I made it!

Hard to believe, but I DID make it this year, despite everything that tried to get in my way. I reached my 50,000 goal more than two hours before midnight. And like a good doobie yesterday, I went ahead and made my yearly donation to Nano to keep it going.

I think this year has been the worst for funding; there are so many people participating, but very few who are willing to even put up $5 to help keep this thing going.

It's not much to ask for a program that has done so much for writers world-wide. I'm one of them, and I've donated at least $25 every year, along with buying merchandise, and this year even making an in-kind donation for their startup as well. Any funds above and beyond what is needed to run Nano is donated to building and furnishing books to libraries in third world countries. This is a good cause and how can I not donate to such a great cause?

I hope others who participated this year will find it in their hearts to donate as well. Even $5 will help. Let's not let Nano fall to wrack and ruin because we were too cheap to help support their funding needs. Without Nano, we'd not be writing novels, and we wouldn't have the fabulous forums to hang out on, and we would not have all the cool widgets and etc. to work with during Nano.

'nuff said. I think I need to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow I'll continue writing, as I've not finished my story, just my 50,000. I have a long way to go.

35,000 words but it's still early

I realized this past weekend that I'd written 32,000 words on my Nano, which is wonderful. However, in the line of my story, I am only about four days into the storyline itself, which is actually supposed to run about four months.

So I'm looking at this 32,000 words, figuring I'm about 1/10th through my story or less, and who's going to want to read a book that's 300,000 words long?

Hmmm. There's a lot of detail I'm trying to cover. Much of what I'm writing is explanatory; it needs to be explained in order for the reader to understand the story. There is a lot of terminology that the ordinary reader wouldn't understand. This is different than anything I've written before, so it is taking me some time to work through it. It should make the editing process interesting, at the very least.

I am up to 35,000 words as of today. I hope to get to 50,000 this weekend. However, I'm going to be bogged down by family plans that I don't normally make this time of year, so that may limit what I'm able to produce. But I still have until next Thursday, so I'm sure I'll make it, if only barely.

Another Circus!

Tonight we'll go see Ringling's show. This is their last stop before folding for the winter. I missed last year's show because I was in Colorado on business; this year at least I will get to see it. Even though the circus in my book is not Ringling-style, it's still good to see the acts that are out there, and how the "big boys" do it. Ringling is still the biggest of the big boys, although that may be changing.

I'm over 27,000 words in my novel and I'm still in the beginnning of the story. It's only been three days in my characters' lives. This book is going to be huge, at this rate. But I should make my 50,000 for Nano easily, since we still have basically two weeks. I'm buzzing along. Some nights writing is easier than others. But I can produce 2,000 or more words an hour when I get on a roll, so it goes by quickly.

Back Home

Well, I'm back home after a week in Colorado. I didn't get as much writing done as I'd like, but I did put a hurting on it. I'm at about 13K now.

And I have an overbooked week this week, so we'll see how much I actually get done. Today is already booked up for most of the morning and afternoon. Tomorrow night I'm on a panel for a round table discussion, Tuesday night I have to go the library for the Young Nano Writers group that I'm part of, Wednesday is my social night with a local group (and I can't get out of it), and Thursday we're supposed to be at the Ringling show. I guess I can call Thursday research if I have to.

LOL

I have a couple hours this morning so I'm going to write and see how far I can get.

Boy, is this HARD

I've had a lot more trouble writing this year than I have in past years of Nano. I may have burnt myself out a bit early on with the whole research thing. Now I'm trying to catch up.

As of this moment I'm at 9,000 words plus and plenty of time to get out another thousand or two before bed. This is my last night in the hotel with quiet to write, so I should take advantage of that while I can.

Tonight's soundtrack is the CD from Cirque du Soleil's Quidam. Nice music, sucky show. LOL

Lily Lake

Every year when I come to Colorado in November, I make sure I drive up along the Peak to Peak Trail, a scenic highway that runs from Estes Park all the way to Nederland. It is a beautiful drive, and no matter how many times I do it, I still love it.

This picture came from this year's trip. My picture from two years ago ended up on the cover of my second NanoNovel, now published through Lulu (link to the right of my blog). Every time I go, it is different, but somehow still the same. This year the lake was starting to freeze, and there was some snow, but not much. It was snowing over the highest peaks, but only flurrying where we were.

Now, today I start my conference, and tonight I'm going to have to buckle down and do some serious writing. SERIOUS! I am so far behind. Agh!!

Writing and Having Fun!!

I did manage to write last night, almost 2000 words. I'm glad, because I was feeling like I was falling further and further behind. I had a really nice day yesterday, driving around in the mountains with my friends, so it is worth it that I'm behind, but still. At least my altitude sickness is gone this morning, and I feel normal again. Today we are heading into the mountains again, and tonight I should get some good writing done. The rest of the week should yield better results for my writing, as I'll be in a hotel room with nothing to do in the evenings. Yippee for me!

I'm in print!!

The article about me and my erotica appeared in today's Riverfront Times. It's a positive article, and appeared at the top of the Unreal column in the actual paper. This is the FIRST feature of the paper each week, which means I appeared at the very beginning of everything, just past the table of contents pages. That's pretty darned cool.

And I'm also happy that the article spins me and big girls in a mostly positive light. It is said sometimes that prejudice against fat people is the last "safe" prejudice. I don't know about that, but it seems that it's okay to bash fat people.

I, for one, don't care one way or the other. I'm old enough not to have to explain myself to everyone, or to have to justify my human womanhood.

An Excuse to Write

I managed about 3700 words yesterday, despite having a meeting last night that kept me from writing last evening. That's pretty good.

Today I am home again, but not willingly. My van won't run this morning. Well, it runs, but badly. This van has a problem with popping off vacuum hoses, and when it does, it runs rough and won't idle. So, I took it to the shop and hubby brought me home. I really did need to go to work today, though, so this is really a bummer.

But, maybe I'll get another 3700 words in today. That would be good!

Ready, Set, WRITE

The Big Write is HERE!

I hope everyone enjoys the experience. I will try to still post almost daily, but no guarantees!!