My good cyber-friend, Darcie Hossack, who for the past month has been aka mennogirl just passed over the 50,000 word count! So she enters the National Novel Writing Month winner’s circle along with me!

Congratulations, Darcie! Now… that wasn’t so hard, was it - sedating your tough inner-critic for 26 days?

I completed my NaNoWriMo novel this afternoon with a healthy word count of 51,929! Now I am totally exhausted. By next November though I should have forgotten all about these past three weeks and be ready to tackle another one.

Here it is, the end of Week Three in NaNoWriMo and I have managed to write 44,665 words - only 5335 left to write in order to achieve a total of 50,000! And if I can continue to churn out the daily totals of over 3000 as I’ve done so far this week, I should be finished in two days. I might not completely finish the novel, which continues to grow as I write it, but I will pass the 50,000 word mark well before the end of the month. Hurrah!

And, by next Novemeber, I’ll have forgotten what a slog this has been and will probably get talked into entering it again…

… while not allowing them to get fed up during NaNoWriMo…

My friend Darcie Hossack, also known as mennogirl, has written a food column for Kamloops This Week that focuses on the need for all NaNoWriMo participants to make sure they feed their inner writer in a fast, yet nutritious, way that not only doesn’t cut into precious writing time by calling for a great deal of fussy preparation, but also keeps up their strength in a satisfying way, and those important creative juices flowing. You can read the whole column here.

And, an update from me… as of today, my total word count stands at 33,026!

Today marks the halfway point of my attempt to write a novel-in-a-month while participating in NaNoWriMo. I’m very pleased to say that it is going well for me so far, and that yesterday I passed over 25,000 words to slide into today with a good cushion for beginning the second half of the month. My word count total now stands at 27,059! I’m happy with the way the story is evolving, and the characters seem to be taking me in new, and interesting, directions that I hadn’t expected. But, most importantly, I haven’t yet run out of story line. So 50,000 words now appears to be do-able rather than daunting, and I think I’ll have a darn good novel to edit at the end of the month - I hope!

Today marks the 8th day into National Novel Writing Month, and I’m feeling GOOD! I’ve already written the Prologue and first three chapters of my proposed novel, Forever Friends for a total word count so far of 17170 out of the 50,000 necessary to complete this by the end of the month. And my writing buddies, mennogirl and quilldriver, aren’t too far behind me. I have the complete plot of my novel figured out (ie. I know whodunnit and why - most important…) and have been fine-tuning the characters and all the little details of what happens to them. I’ve even written the final paragraph already so I know exactly where this baby is going. When I’m not writing, I’m constantly thinking about my characters and more plot developments, and other business. It’s exhilerating! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all writing flowed out as this one seems to be doing for me? It’s like a gift. I just wish I had someone who could look after the house, cooking, shopping, and all the other things that I have to take time out from writing to do, so I could spend every minute working on this. Oh, for a personal assistant! Dennis has been understanding and supportive, but even he has his limits.

You can check my progress here.

How to relax while writing for NaNoWriMo, Bequia style? Take an early morning swim…

… in the new pool!

The perfect beginning to the day, giving me a much-needed kick-start before I sit down to start another bout of frantic scribbling, or actually keyboard tapping. That and several cups of coffee. And where did I put the chocolate???

After two days, my word count is already at an impressive 3744 - impressive because I’m still ahead of my two writing buddies and haven’t lost steam, or the storyline, yet.

Those of you who are observant will have seen a new button on the right side of my blog. How could you miss it? It’s bright yellow!! That is to indicate my participation in this year’s National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it’s affectionately called. The idea is to write a novel in a month, as the title suggests, beginning on Nov. 1st and endng on the 30th. We must submit pages every so often (not sure yet how often) and the words are counted. A running tally of what we write will be kept on our own personal site for all the world to see - to marvel over, or to laugh at, as the case may be… It’s not meant that we finish a “polished” novel, ready for publication, in only 30 days, but it does give us that push we all so desperately need to get words down in computer and finally write out that first draft of a story idea that’s been nagging to be written. As I have several novel plots (all in my head), I will have to make a decision as to which one I want to pursue at this time. By the end of a month, if we have completed a novel-length manuscript (according to their word-count stipulation) then we have “won.” There are no actual prizes, just the satisfaction of finishing a novel.

I have two buddies in this - quilldriver and Mennogirl. I came up with the highly original nickname of S. M. Toy, so that’s the name I’m writing under. (How was I to know we could be funny or interesting with a name choice?) You can click here after Nov. 1st to watch my progress throughout the month. And cheer me on to victory? I hope so… If anyone else out there is crazy enough to join me and my buddies you’re most welcome to go to the site and sign up. Misery, after all, does love company…