m. c. de marco

As part of being back on the wagon, I wrote a new story this week and submitted it to Writers of the Future—-at 11:50pm Thursday night, thanks to their new online submissions policy. Today I finally got around to logging it and my NaNoWriMo novel in my giant writing spreadsheet, and I noticed that I’d gone over the million word mark back on November 30th. Since I started writing in the summer of 2001, I also managed to do the whole thing in just under 10 years.

I hesitate to call it a novel, but I have limped over the finish line with about 50,100 words. In NaNoWriMo terms I think I blew a knee this time. I did not hit my all-time high daily word count (8,000 or so, I think) but I did do a couple of days of 6,666 words at the last minute. Maybe next year I’ll pace myself better.

In preparation for the upcoming month of procrastination and cat-vacuuming, I skimmed through my favorite NaNoWriMo forum last night, NaNo Technology, and found the usual topics—including how to make a map for your fantasy novel on your Mac.

It’s that time of year again: National Novel Writing Month, better known to us hoary veterans as NaNoWriMo or just NaNo. This will be my ninth year, and, Muse willing, my ninth victory—450,000 words written in Novembers alone.

I took December 1st off, but according to Alexandra Sokoloff, I don’t deserve a break from my novel until it’s actually finished. I repented yesterday and went back to my novel, and also redeemed my 50% off coupon for Scrivener.

I’m not sure I’ll be doing any of the other things suggested on my I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page.

I finished my 50,000 words early this morning, having reached the midpoint of the novel by a route that was not quite the one indicated in my phase outline.

The NaNoWriMo Widgets are up!

11:20pm Perhaps the widgets have pushed the NaNo server over the edge. It’s been up and down all day.