(no subject)

48,021 / 50,000 (96.0%)

New words: 3021 (My first day across the 3K mark during this whole ordeal.)
Current deficit: 322 (I'm kind of amazed that I've been running a deficit the whole time.)

Working conditions: Longhand writing shift at Starbucks in New Brunswick. Breva the Axe bailed, for the best of all possible reasons: her dissertation is finally finished and submitted to her committee! But the Philosophy Couple came by to write. Their dissertations are just about done, and Ms. Philosophy's defense is right after Christmas. Astonishing how well they're holding up, considering that they're a 2-person, 2-dissertation, 2-impending-defense-date household. The picture of domestic tranquility, those two. The mind boggles. They were perfectly delightful writing company. I figure, maybe if nobody tells them their equanimity is freakish, they might be lucky enough to keep it.

Evening typing shift, downstairs hanging out with Dan until I ran out of longhand to transcribe. Then hammered away at laptop in study until made word count.

Looking forward to being less telegraphic, once 50K validated.

Tomorrow, must crank out remaining 2K without evening writing shift, which usually starts around midnight.

I want to say, no problem, but Breva the Axe experienced massive computer failure of a completely unforeseeable, irreparable kind, 48 hours before she was supposed to submit her dissertation to her committee. That kind of thing happens around deadlines. I've been backing up my files assiduously, but still. No counting of chickens before they hatch, etc.

Done!

50,123 / 50,000 (100.2%)

Well, that was strenuous.

By my own calculations using MS Word's word count tool, I only overshot by 123 words. The validation thingy at the Nano website tells me I overshot by more than 2K. I'm pretty sure that just means that, in cutting and pasting from my chapter files to make one big file for validation purposes, I grabbed some of my notes from before November First, along with the vast swaths of legitimate November output. Here, I'm only claiming the stuff I know is legit. In any case, I've done it.

I spent the afternoon over at Turtle Hill hanging out with G, who's recovering from lung cancer surgery. He spent most of the day zonked out on painkillers; I spent most of the day typing furiously away on those last 2000 words.

G says, "Lung cancer was easy. It's the pneumonia that almost killed me." And it's no exaggeration.

During the last of the many weeks when G was in the ICU at Sloan-Kettering fighting for his life, I was safe at home with my complete original set of internal organs, whining about my word count.

It puts things in perspective, is all I'm saying.

Anyhow, tonight there will be champagne with the covenfolk, and we'll plan our solstice celebration, and when I go home, I'll sleep when my husband sleeps. Tomorrow, I'll be free to read whatever I want. Newspapers, Clausewitz, Making Light, anything. I'll be free to go through the ms and cut all the stuff I marked for deletion but left in brackets for word count's sake--give the good words some breathing room. I'll be free to play with the big book, or the short story I was working on in October, or the four other short stories I toyed with but didn't quite start in October. I'll be free to stare into space until the right sentence comes to me, no matter how long I feel like waiting.

It's good to be alive.