Nano 2K13 is in the books... and that really isn't a pun that I just made because I think puns are awful, but since falling back on clichés like that seems to be one of my first draft writing crutches and I am really out of practice from doing anything but just letting my stream of consciousness pour out of my fingers without any regards to editing, I'm just going to let that weak phrase and this already out of control sentence stand as a representation of how ugly the first draft of the manuscript I took on this year will be when I eventually finish it. That sentence right there? Word count = 107. That's how you get it done. ANYWAY. Maybe, MAYBE with a little heightened November awareness of my futile attempts at someday becoming a published author, a blog post on the subject will draw a bit more attention than Summer Vacation posts typically see.
Just a quick check in tonight really. I thought I had hit that 50,000 mark early in the afternoon, but then when I went back to revisit the work, I remembered that earlier I had cut and pasted away all of the text from a document called "bayside park football" and replaced it with general story notes. Since I couldn't justify counting story notes as part of the word count, I pushed forward with another sprint and knocked off another four hundred words to hit the mark for real. And do you see what I just did there? Where I wrote "four hundred?" I actually typed that as 400 originally, but then reflexively thought "Hold on -- if I spell that out, it will be worth two words instead one. I'm going back" even if it doesn't matter for this. That's just the mindset now.
I still have six days left in November, and I would really like to think that I can finish the manuscript in that time because I know that if I don't there's a good chance it will wind up being shelved in an unfinished state. And whether or not this one will ever go anywhere (I'm predicting NO), I'd still like to bring it to completion. But right now it is nothing but first draft ugly. And it will keep being first draft ugly for some time. If I don't finish by Nov. 30, I'll keep pressing on at a reduced 1,000 word daily minimum until I'm done, but after that I'm taking a break. I might go back and do another proofread of Infinity, but it's a lot more likely that I'll be catching up on the DVR and firing up the XBox for a time. I'll probably be ready to start editing and revising by the time I get to a nice long winter break this year, and after I throw enough polish on it to hide the ugly, I'll be ready for interested people to take a look. I'd optimistically predict that will be in January, but I realistically know it could wind up being closer to the summer.
But hey, if anyone who's been following the word count this year is THAT curious, I do have other things you could read. Just because they aren't published...yet... doesn't mean they suck. Following Infinity is an emotional buzz saw of a book, and I get the sense that other people feel The Ghost of Lake Emily is creepier and maybe scarier than I had realized it would be. They're both upper middle grade books so the feature characters in that middle-school age range, and they're fast reads. Plus, like I said -- they don't suck. And if you know those two you'll have an appreciation for how far I went out of my comfort zone to get through this current one, which I can say is now is locked down with the title 5th Grade Zen.
Keep an eye on that word count for a few more days. I've crossed the finish line, but I still haven't won the race just yet....
