Hello, bitchez. Have you missed me? I have missed you–and blogging. I kind of took blogging for granted before I embarked on my third NaNoWriMo, and I didn’t realize how much I got out of it. So I am back with a vengeance, though I cannot say better than ever.
First, housecleaning details: 200,220 words for NaNoWriMo! I had to revise my original goal due to brutal sickness, and I was unhappy about it for a bit. Then, yesterday, as I was struggling to bang out the final 2,000 words, I realized that 200,000 words was pretty damn good for a month’s worth. I gotta tell you, those last 2,000 nearly killed me. I kept checking my count, and it would only be up a hundred or two hundred words. I was averaging 2,500 words per hour for most of the month. The last two thousand took me three hours to write.
Then, I went to verify my word count, and I couldn’t get my whole manuscript through. WTF? I tried half the manuscript and that went through. Three-fourths of the manuscript went through as well, but nothing more. I freaked out because I had put so much goddamn work into it, and I wanted every word counted. I emailed NaNoWriMo asking what the hell should I do? I finally checked the forums and discovered that their verifier was only programmed to handle 50,000 words. Now, I didn’t have a problem verifying in the past two years, but I didn’t go over 150,000 either year.
So, once I was verified, I had to manually change my word count. I can’t tell you how good it felt to see 200,220 in my word count. It felt so good, I didn’t even care (much) that I hadn’t met my original goal. I gave myself a well-deserved pat on the back for a job well done. Now, I just have to make sure I don’t do what I’ve done the past two years–lose all interest in my NaNoWriMo writing. *
This year, I finished one long-ass murder mystery that is filled with trauma, drama, sex, lust, intrigue, and lots more. I need to cut a good portion of it, but I am pretty pleased at how it turned out. For the second novel, I took one of the characters from the first novel (but not the protagonist) and made her the main character. I have about a third of it done, and I pretty much know where I’m going with it. The third novel is a little strange in that it’s a blend of fiction/nonfiction. I just started on that one, but I’m liking the energy in the early goings.
So, NaNoWriMo ’09 is in the books, and it was a smashing success. Yay, me!
All right, mateys! Up next is item number two on my list, losing weight. You might want to put on your hip waders because it’s gonna get dirty and ugly up in here. Why? Because when I talk about weight issues, it ain’t pretty. This time, I’m looking at the issue of weight mostly from the viewpoint of auditioning, but as is always the case with this issue, I am sure I will veer into other territory.