The author blog of C. J. Ivory

Tinkerer with words. Dresser-Upper. Adorer of Steampunk and VictoriaNoir fiction. Occasional Lawgineer.

November 24, 2011

The Business End of NaNoWriMo

The other day I was having coffee with a dear friend, and she asked me how NaNoWriMo was going.
"Well," I said, in a devil-may-care-manner, "I'm six thousand words behind target, but I'm not worried. I've never lost a NaNo challange yet."
She nodded, obviously very impressed with my cavalier confidence. She even seemed not to notice that my coffee cup shook as I set it back in the saucer.

Happily, Gentle Reader, I am no longer six thousand words behind target. After a mammoth effort and some wordage of questionable quality, I am now only 5,666 words behind target.

Hmmm.

The issue, I think, is that time has a terrible habit of zipping by when I'm not watching. Just when I think I'm catching up nicely, one day tips into the next, and suddenly I have to play catch-up plus 1,666 more words.

It doesn't help, Gentle Reader, that I live at the cutting edge of time zones. This is a fact that usually brings with it a perverse and illogical smugness: Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia from her house, but I can see TOMORROW from mine, etc. However, in November my chronological advancement means only one thing: NaNoWriMo ends a day earlier for me.*

So at present I have six days (including today) to get tothe 50k mark. I currently have just over 36k, so that's 14k in six days, which is... carry the 2... 2,333 words each day.
Right. Well, that's do-able.

After all, I've never lost a NaNo challenge yet. *cue nervous rattle of coffee cup in saucer*

 
Slinking off to NaNoLand,

Charlotte


* I know exactly what you're about to say, Ms Mathematics. Nobody counts the extra day I have at the start.

2 comments:

Trisha said...

Good luck Charlotte! I know you can do it! I'm going to have an interesting few end days this year too...hehe.

Charlotte Jane Ivory said...

Thanks Trisha - I seem to have run out of storyline at about this moment, so I'll be writing by the seat of my pants for the rest of the month! I never saw myself as a "pantser" until now :)