50,000 words later

One of Girlfriend's friends and coworkers dubbed the period after November "NaNoNoMo," and although I immediately asked Girlfriend never to say that again, the term keeps coming up in my head. NaNoWriMo is done, after all, emphatically. Everyone I know who started, finished, including myself. My Arthurian saga has grown by another 50,000 words. While this installment is unusually talky and will probably shrink, rather than grow, in the revision, I'm glad I forced the ideas through the pressure-fired chaos engine of an arbitrary and unreasonable deadline. Even though I thought I had a plot in my mind, more or less, I surprised myself three times (by my quick count) with spontaneous decisions, made either at the keyboard or in the bathroom, that turned out to be my story.

I had intended, setting out, to make this installment about the reign and death of Uther Pendragon. When I finally got the crown on Uther's head around the 40k mark, I realized that he wasn't going to die this month. I had written a book in between the beginning of my story and the beginning of my plot.

So that was fun. A weekend later, I've got work to do (which is a nice change from the week before) and a lot of freedom (which is unnerving after a tight-packed month). I can get back to my 12 Dancing Princesses retelling, which I should have finished in October, or really in July. I can relax.

Oh, right. Christmas.

NaNo update Mo

NaNoWriMo is on, and every year is a new adventure. This year I'm freelancing, which means managing my own time. It also means that instead of just having to write one thing, I have to write several, some of which I'm getting paid for. So, I confess, I'm quite a bit behind this year. Of course every year I have my birthday to throw me off. In fact, every year I'm behind pretty much until the end.

I decided to go back to my Arthuriana. It's taking some time to get back on track with it, which I actually hadn't anticipated. I had forgotten just how long it's been since I wrote the installment that came last in the continuity--what I wrote last year (and finished belatedly) was more of a prequel.

Sigh. Things got complicated, and I forgot them. I really should have spent October reading my own book.  The good news is that it's mostly come back together now, and I've got some plot going again. I've had to stop dropping hints to Girlfriend about what I have in store for my alpha couple, because of the anguished sounds she makes. "You know how this is going to end!" I told her.

Meanwhile, on Friday we went to see Skyfall, which was a worthy investment of our time. It's not quite good all the way through, but it's surprisingly good for the first and last third, which made the whole experience very satisfying. In fact, quality-wise, the structure of the last three Bond movies is somewhat recursive.

I tried to go deeper into that thought, but I really shouldn't. It's silly.