Day 29 & 30: Finished at 50,379

Well, Day 29 just slipped through my fingers somehow. But I did finish with 23 and a half hours to spare on Day 30. ;o) My final count? According to the NaNoWriMo Word Count Verifier: 50,379

And once again, I managed to finish the story as well as the make the word count by the deadline. Double hoorays!

If you're interested, here are my final stats from the fancy, shamancy Excel spreadsheet that I have been using to track my progress all month:

Word Count Reached 50379
Total Hours Spent Writing 27.75
Avg Words Per Hour 1815
Avg Words Per Day 1679
Avg Hours Writing Per Day 0.93
Words Remaining To Goal 0
Days Remaining In November 0
Avg Time Per Writing Session 0.35 hours

Yay me! Here's to my second NaNo win, the completion of my third novel ever, all my fellow Wrimos, and all the friends who showed up to support me. *tips a glass of sparkling cider and salutes all her supporters* Thank you!

Day 28: The last chapters + encouragement

I could probably finish tonight, but I'm not going to. It's 1:15 a.m. and my husband just announced he's going to bed. That's sure a good idea!

All that's left tomorrow is the last chapter and 1,200-odd words. I'm confident that I can get that written tomorrow easily. One more chapter, and I'm done!

Words to date: 48,722
Words to go: 1,278

In other news, I prepared and edited an excerpt of my novel to take to the Thank Goodness It's Over Party this weekend. It took me about an hour and a half to edit a mere eleven pages. I'm astonished. Well, actually I'm not. When you're trying to write so fast and so much, junk is bound to get spilled on the page. Let's just say that the eleven pages got whittled down to nine by time I got done with it. My inner editor was so happy. LOL :oD

Anyway, I took the slashed version to my critique group tonight to get some impressions and final edits. The response was surprisingly good. They had very few edits and gave compliments all around. My good friend who has published many books already encouraged me that Tag would make a great novella. Hm... So maybe all this will actually be worth something in the end.

It was good to hear that though because I'd been thinking lately how much I didn't want anyone to ever lay eyes on this monstrosity. But I guess that's what NaNoWriMo tends to create. It gives us a big old, ugly chunk of clay on the wheel and allows us to shape and form it into something beautiful. Without that first draft, there would be no clay at all.

You can read my edited excerpt on my profile page. Just click "turn" to get to page two, then click on the right-hand page to load the text. Enjoy!

Day 27: Still going!

It's a good thing that I got those writing sessions in during the wee hours on Day 26 because by time I got home, unpacked, organized life, and ate dinner, all I wanted to do was go to sleep...and I did.

Today, I managed to get in four 10-minute writing sessions which amounted to 1,885 words. Doing okay. Slow and steady. I should be done in the next day or two--definitely before Nov. 30!

Words to date: 46,420
Words to go: 3,580

Day 25 & 26: Slogging on

I'm so close now, but my momentum is slowing. Not sure why. I guess I'm tired from the five day vacation. Anyway, I managed to write during naptime Saturday afternoon, but that was all the writing I could do before midnight.

I did get four 10-minute writing sessions in here after midnight, which will be reflected in my counts below.

Words to date: 44,535
Words to go: 5,465

If I want to finish before Nov. 27, that would be Nov. 26 which is technically today. That leaves me a goal of 5,465 words before midnight today. Hm...

I'm going to sleep.

Day 24: Slow & Steady

I've been able to write a couple thousand words for the last two days using two writing sessions of two 10-minute timed writings. If only I could find a way to put in a couple more of those per day, I would be golden to finish before the 27th. As it is, at this rate, I'll finish a day later than my personal goal--but at least still before Nov. 30.

I do have time for another one or two writing sessions this evening as it's only 11:40 p.m., but my daughter has been begging me to get to bed, and we DO have to wake up early tomorrow. So I'm off. Here's hoping for more writing opps tomorrow.

Words to date: 41,113
Words to go: 8887 (huzzah!)

It's so awesome to see the "to go" number below 10,000. There's no stopping me now. And there is absolutely NO quitting either.

Day 23: Closing Figures

Hope your Thanksgiving was all that it could be! Ours was great--great food, good times with family, laughs. All nice stuff indeed.

I'm really glad that I wrote this morning and accrued about 1580 words because I only got one more chance to write today, and it was just not long ago around 11:30 p.m. I did a 10-minute writing session and got 539 words written, which helps get me over the minimum hump.

My daughter will be taking a nap here in the hotel room tomorrow, so I'm hoping that I can get more noveling done then.

Words to date: 39,032 (so close to 40K, but I'm too wiped out to keep going tonight.)
Words to go: 10,968

Day 23: Happy Turkey Day!

I plan for today to be a monster noveling day. Sure, it's only 12:48 a.m., but I have a big plans! I've already written almost 1600 words in the last 30 minutes, and I'm confident that I'll be able to write more later on, after the festivities of Thanksgiving, so that will add to my count.

It's the beginning of week 4 and I really only have seven more days to make it to my mark. Gotta get hustling! Especially if I want to beat my Nov. 27 finish date of 2005.

Here's to breaking 50K and before the long weekend is through! Woo hoo!

Days 20, 21, & 22: Close to nil

I had two zero days in a row and nearly dared myself to have a third. But I with 10 minutes left in the day, I wrote 508 words, so technically, only Days 20 and 21 were without words. :oP

Words to date: 36,913
Words to go: 13,087

Day 19: Getting closer

I had a pretty good writing day today, though it wasn't all that I was hoping. My dream would have been to hit 6,000 yesterday and today, but it turned out to be a cumulative for the entire weekend. I'm not down hearted however, because I still managed to write 3,021 words today using an hour's worth of timed writings at Einstein's and then some.

Words to date: 36,405
Words to go: 13,595

I can't wait to see the "Words to go" read 10,000 or less. :oD

In other news: Two of my teen writers on CleanPlace finished their NaNo novels today! Congrats to Eowyn of Rohan and Telpenen! Funny, neither of them kept up with blogs over this month. Could this be the reason they had more time to write in their novels? LOL

Day 18: Lazy Saturday

I guess I could call it that. But I did get an early start. Somehow I was tricked into getting up at 7:15 this morning.

My husband was borrowing my alarm clock, so I asked him to reset the alarm for 8:00 for me. In his tiredness this morning, he set the TIME ahead instead of the alarm. So when I checked my clock, it said 9:15, and I thought, "How weird. I didn't even hear the alarm."

I then mustered up enough energy to get up and start the day. Well, as I washed my face in the bathroom, I noticed that the clock in there said 7:15. So I checked another couple clocks, and sure enough, I was early! What were my first thoughts then? Time to get noveling!

So I got in a couple 10-minute sessions this morning before my fingers went numb. (Typing and writing in the morning don't go well together for me.) Wrote some more tonight at Panera Bread, and my daily count has come in at 2,250.

Words to date: 33,384
Words to go: 16,616 (How sweet that is!)