10,000 Words to Go

The end of November is near and I've just passed 40,000 words on my NaNoWriMo project. It's been going well. Getting the time to write daily has not been a problem, but upping my word count per day has taken some time to get going. I had developed something of a 500-800 words per day habit, apparently. That's the half hour window I've been holding out for writing fairly consistently. It doesn't sound like much, but believe me, a half hour once or twice a day gets me a lot farther on a piece than an 8 hour stretch once a week.

At least, that is the rhythm that is working for me now. And through the month of November I've been working to get that number closer to 2,000 words per day, which has often looked something like about a thousand in the morning and another thousand in the evening.

Now I'm looking at an extended family meal for Thanksgiving tomorrow (more finger food and games, low pressure) and travel this weekend for time with more extended family. I'm staring at the last 10,000 word stretch and wondering if I can do it. Can I really get it written now with so much activity on the schedule for these final days of November?

My story has reached that point where I can see the final chapters, I just have not written them yet. I can see, as well, so many changes that need to be made. I got over a hump these past several days where I spent too much time dwelling on all that hadn't made it into the story, then somehow managed to narrow my focus again. For a full 24 hours, the novel morphed into an even bigger project, involving a blog (written by both my fictional character and me in real time) and an online community and more. I have this tendency to want to throw all of life's questions into my fiction. Maybe my subconscious thinks that if I can tether these thoughts to paper, I can get them out of my system, once and for all.

It was an eye-opening moment, however, trying to summarize the direction I was going/had gone with this particular story and seeing that I was pulling in themes from past unfinished novels and trying to cram them into this story, as well. It may be that my December (and beyond) project is already calling to me and I am not yet ready to listen (10,000 words till I'm ready, almost there).

I am determined to bring something to completion before spring. I simply have to decide which piece I am ready to tackle. That box under the bed is full enough. If it were an oven, the fire alarm would be telling me there were several pieces ready to come out now, to get the finishing touches, to have their chance to be served, at least, on the buffet line of books. (This is a more literal reference than it should be -- I do have several printed works-in-progress in binder clips, stored on the bottom shelf beside my bed.)

While I started NaNoWriMo with the dream that perhaps I would be able to write a novel from start to finish, take another month or two to tidy it up, have it edited, get it published.., I am ending November with a better understanding that this is simply not the way my brain works. I have no more hope for this novel, at this point, than I had for Tiger Hunting in 2009 when I closed the file for the final time, having reached my 50,000 words.

Yet, the hope/the belief is there. I do see potential in my current work-in-progress, and I see that getting it this far, so quickly, has been as exhausting as it has been exhilarating.

I will get 10,000 words more by the end of the month. I've come too far to drop the effort now. And maybe one day, a few years down the road, I will be able to share what I came up with for NaNoWriMo 2014.