Phew. Time for a break and then a little while more of words, but I’m going to have a little dance party too:

Tell me this wouldn’t be a great name for a cat…

I tried to push it last night. Pretty darn good, but still a very daunting daily number of words left to complete by the 30th. Today I booked to where I could sit down and start typing at lunch. I mean really scurried and only checked the clock to get back to work on time. I had started thinking about seeing if anyone was going to the guilderland library – I’d heard that one or two wrimos had been meeting there during the month and late today I decided I’d try it. What could be bad? If it was too noisy I’d make my escape etc.

Got there earlier than the scheduled time and the nice librarian told me to flip on the switch in the room. Got all set up and was already tapping away when a nice local in-the-flesh wrimo person showed up. WITH A FREAKING SCOTTISH ACCENT! We did some intros and got down to it. Different writing styles, but still getting the job done.

When the 30 minutes til closing announcement came I was stunned. They shut off the wifi at 15 minutes with another heart-stopping announcement. Shouldn’t that be a quiet librarian voice, or maybe something slightly hal-like? Anyway we both clutched our chests and gasped and then after some chat I was boogieing my way home!

My helpful hint for finishing up with a bang at the looming close of NaNoWriMo: a huge big crowd scene at the end of the tale that involves gathering up a whole lot of characters and spreading joy and love all around. After fearing I was one big source of talking heads (aka too much dialogue), tonight I wrote more descriptive stuff than I thought possible.

Got a pep talk from the cheery and peppy Chris Angotti:

It’s respectable (his own word count), I think. I’ve dedicated a good number of hours this month to writing my novel, and I’ve had a lot of fun discovering the particularities of a brand-new genre. But according to those very objective numbers, I likely won’t be able to finish by November 30.

Cue fire, brimstone, and the Four Guilt Monkeys* of the Apocalypse, right? Or maybe not.

Here at NaNoWriMo, we always want you to hit your 50,000-word goal. But we’re also fellow humans who empathize with the many, many reasons that might not have been realistic for you this month. We know that not every November works for every writer.

I thought, wow, a year ago October I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what a guilt monkey was, let alone show you. But here you go. And PS, they are in all realms of creation, not just writing.

For myself: I got 5136 done today so with yesterday’s 5050 = 10186 for my “weekend” which brings me to just under 40K and within the realm of having a chance to finish if I really push it this week.

I want to do at least another one thousand words, but Tatia, my main female character sort of had a little meltdown and it threw me. Threw her too. I don’t think either of us knew where it came from. Maybe she needs a nice big bowl of pasta or something. Jane made her some berry tea. Maybe something else will happen while she’s sleeping it off.

Meanwhile her advisor sees the big picture. He’s turned out to have more than a twinkle in his eye, which amuses me.

And I don’t like to brag, but I’m gonna just lay it out there: I have my smaller stockpot full of kickass turkey stock. The house smells great and all I have to do is add more veggies and the meat to it. Kickass.