A Quiet Moment To Contemplate Victory.

The caption says it all, really. Yesterday at about 3pm I finally hit the 50,000 word mark on Pirates Of The Moon, a moment that I marked by doing a little happy dance (certain members of the Readership will know exactly what form that dance takes. The rest of you will just have to imagine it) and then going out to buy cat food.

2009 is my fourth Nanowrimo and the one I have completed in the quickest time. I put this down to a couple of factors. Firstly, I had the idea early enough that I could properly plot it out. Although things were left loose enough so that the story still had room to take surprising twists and turns (one of the real joys of Nano is when the story or a character does something that you genuinely didn’t expect) the main story beats were set up so that I would never be stuck.

Secondly, the Nano community itself, more specifically the Oxfordshire forum to which I contribute, has been on fire this year, and encouraging each other to greater and higher excesses of word count. Several of the Oxfordshire nanos are at well over 150,000 words and still going strong. In that atmosphere you cannot help but thrive.

So. From here I have work to do. There’s Pirates to finish (I may have reached 50 grand, but Nano continues, no slacking) and then December, where I will carry the momentum into finishing one of my earlier, unfinished stories. Not sure which one yet. I know, how about a poll?

With two first drafts under my belt, I can then start polishing Pirates, and from there set up a rolling sequence whereby I can be working on either first draft or editing of SOMETHING. All of which requires writing to be done every day. Which was, after all, kind of the point to starting Nano in the first place.

And what will I be doing with all this writing?

Well, that’s an announcement for 2010. Let’s just say I’m looking at how TLC is using her e-reader with a great deal of interest…