Well, here it is. November 30th. In previous NaNoWriMo years, I've been done by now. A couple of days ago, really. Finished. Waving my "winner" banner in everyone's faces. Savouring the triumph and all that jazz.
Yep. Here it is. November 30th. And I'm at 38,224 words. That's 11,700+ (not doing math right now--sorry!) words shy of "winning" by writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th...yeah, in a mere 21 hours.
So, the question is: Is it possible to write 11,700 words in 21 hours, get a few hours of sleep, homeschool three boybarians, and complete the remainder of my extensive "To Do" list, all by midnight tomorrow night?
Sigh.
Why am I lagging, you ask?
Let me count the ways...
1. I was sick with a nasty cold and sinus infection for a complete week...
2. We did a lot of entertaining at the beginning of the month, which included a lot of cleaning of a very dirty house...
3. My Brave Writer class (Literary Analysis: Anne of Green Gables) has sucked a great deal more time from my writing than I had planned. It's a hoot to teach, but it gives me little time left over for writing...
4. Almost everything that I have written has also been edited at least once and posted online, so in a way, I've done double the work...
5. I've had a huge upswing in my own essay grading business, so that's taken a good deal of time, too...not that I'm complaining...
6. My chiropractor was out of town for two weeks, thus my neck and upper back are in constant pain, making typing difficult....
So, yeah. I'm not done. Nowhere near. Either I can take all day tomorrow (well, today really since I'm writing this at 3 AM. Don't ask) and type my little heart out (and drive both my chiropractor and my family up the wall), or I can resign myself to abject failure.
Plus, I wouldn't get one of those cool winner's button thingies. I've gotta add 2011 to the collection, right???
So, type my little heart out or abject failure? (And no cool button, either.)
Which one would YOU choose?
Okay, okay already--I'm getting offline to go write more of my novel. Sheesh. Who knew you were so pushy?
Blogging when I should be NaNoWriMo-ing,
--Cassandra
Tonight I am going through the last chapter of Evening Star. With the rough draft at almost fifteen pages, I've elected to split the final chapter into two parts. It's entitled "The End," the same title Meyer gave the equivalent chapter in New Moon.
And it's a bitch to write.
It's long. Shall I cut it down? Should I add more (as I usually do)? Shall I split it into two separate chapters? Or merely into parts?
Edward's head is spinning. So he's making my head spin. I'm trying to follow what happens in New Moon, but without all the detail in some places, but more detail in others. Have I quoted too much dialogue from New Moon?
The questions are endless.
The pressure is intense.
I want to do this story justice. I mean, I started writing this story nearly a year ago--November 27, 2010. It's been a long journey for me...and an exciting one. Evening Star is only my second work of fiction since my college Creative Writing class back in 1987. My first work of fiction is an unfinished NaNoWriMo attempt that I wrote over 2008 and 2009, and I haven't looked at it since reaching 50,000 words on November 29th, 2009.
So I am really excited about completing Evening Star, yet I feel more than a little trepidation as well. I want it to be perfect--but will I be?
Yep. Pressure. Ack!!!
But I'll keep revising and refining, rethinking and rewriting until it's as perfect as perfect can be.
Thanks for being patient with me!!!
Wow. The final chapter.
It's still hard for me to believe.
Wow....
--Cassandra
The two looooongest chapters of Evening Star are now up on both Wattpad and FanFiction.net. Each chapter is over 4,000 words!
FanFiction.net is still having severe issues with italics. Somehow all spaces between italicized words just disappear so that the words are all smushed together. It's really annoying. I even edited all of Chapter 53 before uploading it, placing **two** spaces between each italicized word, but it didn't help. And I use italics a lot when Edward is reading people's minds.
I'm beginning to get really peeved.
Now only two chapters remain--one covering the time between Bella's birthday and the last day they're together, and the last one in which he leaves.
They're not going to be easy to write, but I want to finish preferably before the release of Breaking Dawn Part 1 next Friday, and definitely before November 30, the last day I can post if I want Evening Star to be included in the Watty Awards, the annual award for the best stories in each category on Wattpad. I know I really have no chance, but I do hope to at least place. It's a long shot, thought.
With house guests from Boston this week and way too many essays to grade, I'm only at 12,000 words for NaNoWriMo. If I can write another 2000 words tonight, then I can make it writing 2000 words every day (no days off!) for the rest of the month. We'll see.
Part of the problem is that I'm not just writing but am also editing each chapter before I post it on Wattpad and FanFiction.net, and NaNoWriMo is all about NOT editing--just writing with abandon.
So we'll see if I have Evening Star completed by this time next week, shall we?
And let's not talk about how many Wattpad readers are upset about my not posting to Pinned but Fluttering this week. It simply wasn't possible.
And I've pushed myself so far now that I'm getting sick. Ugh. Hate that.
But I have been entertaining myself with drabble fics by CaraNo and Amethyst Jackson. I am so addicted to Cara's River that I can't see straight. ;)
So have a wonderful week, my fan fiction friends, and we'll see how much I can get accomplished in a week.
And enjoy Breaking Dawn Part 1. My daughter and I have our midnight tickets. Do YOU?
--Cassandra
