Wednesday Update -Nano edition, week 4

Holy C*#@!

http://writeordie.drwicked.com/about.html. What happens if you don't write using write or die? Well, quoted from the site....

"Consequences:
* Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
* Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
* Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself"

I'm getting ill just thinking about it. Destroying my precious words! Can you imagine?

Not that I have nearly enough precious words. Week four and I'm barely crossing the halfway point. 26,604 right now. Though I have done something helpful.

I think.

I hope.

I changed my nanowrimo spreadsheet to give me three months. Jan 30th ending point. And 100,000 words goal.

I write a genre where 50,000 is really only half a novel, so adding some extra time and some extra words made sense to me. I've given up being a nano winner this year, but I have not given up my story. I want the novel finished and I need a sustainable pace -- especially since my health issues aren't just going away. It looks like gastropareisis is a treatable condition, not curable -- at least not with anything other than luck. Some people do suddenly get better, but no one knows why. And there are some times it's better to accept the circumstances than fight them. For me, this is one of those times.

I still plan to compete in nano next year, and hopefully win that time around, but this year, finishing my story is my real goal. It's time to acknowledge that and work towards it. Though if I hit a spot over the weekend where I spit out 10,000 words in a day, I won't be complaining. I'm not basing my self-esteem on having it happen, (and I'm not giving up Thanksgiving or all my weekend for it) but I won't complain.

Right now I'm at the part where Penny will use magic in a fight for the first time and it's coming more slowly than I'd hope. A scene with this much action should just pour out of me. I guess I don't know what's going on well enough. I'm not seeing it. I need to fix that, but most of all, as we all know, I need to keep writing. More words mean closer to an end and endings mean I can fix it in the next pass. Without endings there is nothing to fix.

Good luck to all the writers who have only five days left to finish fifty thousand words. And to the rest of you too.