Miracle I got anything down today.  In fact, I started writing at 3am.  Yes folks, 3am.  COMMITMENT.

I had a long (very stressful) business meeting today and when I came home (after a short nap in a failed attempt to escape the stress followed by a not un-stressful business phone call) I had to write Monday’s She Has No Head! column…so that took up my allotted “writing time” for today.  Nonetheless, I had a scene in mind and thought I could get it down, so at 3am I dragged my laptop out and here we are.

I’m exhausted.  Time for bed and the hope for a bit more time to devote to writing tomorrow.

Today’s word count: 1,077

MS total word count: 45,132

I also hit 150 pages, so that’s nice.

Inspirational image for a scene I wrote today:

This is a great representation of my main character Tessa's victorian house.

This day should have been a bigger word count, but I just had so much catch up to play after a busy week, not to mention getting home exceptionally late on Friday and having to do some work as prep for a meeting Sunday.  Writing kept sliding down the list.  Still, I did manage to sit down for a couple hours and get some pages down.  Tomorrow I might lose completely as I not only have to go to a meeting for at least six hours, but I also have to write/finish writing She Has No Head! – so we’ll see.

Today’s word count: 1,694

MS Total word count:  44,055

Inspirational image for a scene I was writing today:

Worked a very very long damn day.  Wasn’t even going to try writing tonight, but had a bunch of ideas and scenes brewing despite the exhaustion and so I gutted it out.  So glad I did.  Got a lot of great stuff and a semi-decent word count.

Today’s word count: 2,037

MS new word count:42,361

Inspirational image for a scene I was writing today:

it's a long story.

Nice. Despite a hell of a lot going on today I still managed to bang out 2,027 .  This takes the MS total to 38,548.

Tomorrow will be tough though.  Long day at work, plus at least two CBR Reviews to write. Got to stay on path however as it looks like I’m going to be working Sunday.  That, plus a column due for She Has No Head! is going to make things VERY tight this weekend.

Inspirational image for a scene I was writing tonight:

Mmmm...weapons!

Solid start.  Wrote 2,021 words tonight, which brings me to 36,521 total for the MS thus far.

But even though today was a commute to the office day which usually means less time available, the front of my week is always easier than the back end, so anything less than 2k today would have been a disappointment.  Didn’t love anything I wrote, but I got from point A to point B and it all works.  I’ll make it prettier later…or eventually cut it, time will tell.  Mostly I’m pleased because I wanted to stop at about 600 words, but forced myself to keep going and cruised past my 2k/day goal…okay only by 21 words, but still.

Inspirational image for something I was writing about today:

A 1971 Jaguar E Type - my character's is silver, but this is damn close. So pretty!

So last year was my first official (though actually non-official) attempt at NaNoWriMo.

In a way I failed massively (didn’t come close to making my word count goals) but in another way it was a massive success.  As I put down 20k+ in a reasonable amount of time and advanced my worldbuilding for that particular book (Pariahs) dramatically. I still only have about 30k on that book a year later, but with reasonably good reason, and the worldbuilding is solid (though still missing pieces) and my outline is nice and tight.  More importantly I am still excited about the book, which is kind of huge.

All that said, I have two projects vying for my attention this year (Pariahs and a new project), and I’ve decided that I have better momentum and enthusiasm on the other newer project, so I’m going to focus on it for NaNo this year in the hopes that I can get to the finish line.  As of tonight I have 34.5k already on that book.  So 50k will likely take me through to the finish line, or at least very close.  I’m actually pushing very hard and trying to get there BEFORE November ends, but this should be a reasonable way to track how that goes regardless.

So, like last year, I’ll be unofficially tracking my progress (primarily via word count) here on 1979 Semi-Finalist.  I continue to be paranoid about titles (when I have a great one) so let’s just call this project SK.  And here’s an inkling of what it’s about. 

For those of you out there also doing NaNo – best of luck!  Now…GO!

SK = Tessa Battle and her axe 'The Black Dove'...