Look at me.  I’ve got that yellow tape across my chest from bursting through the finish line.  My story’s not quite done, but the NaNoWriMo folks don’t care:  I hit 50,000 words and they gave me this keen icon.  Wasn’t that nice?

Now, to finish the story and find a nice dark drawer to put it in for the next year, or maybe ten…

I just finished Chapter 12, which means there are only 4 to go, about 6000 words.  I’m on track to finish this just in time, assuming there’s no blatant falling down between now and Thursday night.  I may not blog between now and then, because it’s been hard to think of anything but finishing.  Yesterday I wrote 3500 words just to catch up after a couple of days of slacking, and let me tell you that was some tense writing.

So, here we go.  Wish me luck, and I’ll see you again on December 1st, with my winner’s badge or on it.  (Okay, it’s a horrible metaphor.  I’m getting used to crap writing.)

This is the point where blogging isn’t so attractive, so imagine something witty here.  It’s a bit of a slog to get to 35,000 words, which (despite what the little sticker says) is my goal by the end of tomorrow.  Still, I’ve successfully imprisoned both of my main characters, and I think they’ll most likely kill them in the morning.  That must count for something.

Not much to write about today, but I feel obligated to do so.  (I think that comes with the territory.)  Chapter 8 is finished now, which means 6 chapters to go.  I’m well into the part of my outline that has the most question marks, so the characters have started doing their own driving.  All I know is that they need to end up at a certain library with a certain point of view by chapter 11, but they get to choose their own path to get there.  That’s actually sounds a lot more future-focused than I actually am; it’s just a way of saying “i write what the voices tell me.”

Oh, and yes, I skipped another day.  Technically I did write 13 words yesterday, but that was just so I wouldn’t get that sad little empty spot in my progress chart again.  It was a long day, and Doctor Who won out over Technomage.  I’m still on track, both in terms of word count and the two-days-per-chapter thing.  I can’t miss another day like that, but… well, I just can’t, I guess.

Finished chapter 7 today, which is halfway through my newly-revised 14 chapters.  Halfway through the word count, too.  That’s a handy thing, because the month is halfway gone as well.

It’s really starting to feel like I’m over the hump; the characters are moving themselves along, I’m writing over 2000 words in a sitting (which helps with all the procrastinating I do), and the plot is shaping up quite nicely.   I got a bit talky with this chapter, but I made up for it at the end by having one of the main characters kick some a$$ with his own brand of tinker-fu.  I’m really looking forward to these next few chapters, because the other main character now gets to learn some of that tinker-fu from the master, which means I get to figure out how it all works.

Let’s just hope I can think of a reason for it all before I have to write an ending.  But hey, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.