Done!

[dr_pretentious]

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.

Comments

[sleepymaggie.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

Saw your counter go purple in my profile window this afternoon and gave a little cheer! Congrats on getting through what I know has been a tough month for you. Now we can look forward to various celebrations, yes?

DW just finished creating our solstice invitations, but was too busy hitting her own 50k to send them out yet. And DD hit her goal of 10k and is very happy.

Hope your Yule plans go well, have a glass of bubbly for me!

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

BTW, Total Days Without Shaving: 0

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and congratulations to all of you, on all counts.

Yule's looking Yummy. Before today, I just couldn't think that far ahead. I could barely think as far as this Sunday. It's nice to see the horizon a little further off.

[vomit-maggots.livejournal.com]

Congrats again. Just wanted to also note that I did a bid at Sloan-Kettering about a year ago getting an organ removed, then another one 4 months later for a follow up surgery. Tell G I said, "Fight the Power, brutha!"

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

YAY for you!!

if you decide to hold random writing nights at B&N, let me know... I had a lot of fun coming out to write with friendly strangers and nummy desserts!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Random, I could do. Once a month pretty regularly, I could probably do. Weekly, I could not possibly do. But if I do decide to throw one, I'll post it here.

I've really enjoyed the camaraderie of Nanowrimo. If I do it again, it'll be for that.

Will I see you at the Friday TGIO party in Princeton?

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

CONGRATULATIONS on your NaNo victory!

[tigira.livejournal.com]

Woooooo!
Congratulations.

[citabria]

Congratulations!

[catpaw67.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! So glad you made it! I knew you would do it. Thanks again for coming out. I owe you for that milk. And gas money if you'll take it. I'm going to leave you an envelope tomorrow. Hugs!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I didn't know I would make it until the last of the rellies went home, but it was nice to know other people knew.

I'm glad I was able to come out today. I wish I'd been better company to G, but the deadline kept reclaiming my attention.

I'll only accept the contents of that envelope on the condition that I spend them in your shop. After all, you know I'm going to buy half this year's Christmas and Yule gifts there, anyway. If he's well enough to go out shopping tomorrow, I can hug you in person then. In any case, I hope you'll be here for Yule.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! Now you can go back to writing sanely. No more artificial word count quotas!

Now that NaNoWriMo is completed, how far is this book coming to be completed?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

A long, long way. I might have a chapter fit to show to beta readers in a month, but not sooner. I might have a complete working draft fit for beta readers in six months, but not sooner. The short book has several jobs. One of those jobs is to make the big book, and the series the big book opens, look salable, by virtue of the short book's eminent salability. There's a lot of work to get it from its current condition to eminent salability.

It will be nice to go back to some sort of sustainable set of habits. I've neglected a lot of friends, relatives, and responsibilities, and the writing will have to make do with a smaller slice of my day until I've done a bit of reconnecting.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Oops. Slight miscommunication on my part. I didn't mean, "How long before you push it out to Shiny New (or any) Agent?" I meant, how much of the zero-draft did you get done? As in, how much of the story is down on "paper," even if in need of heavy editing?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I would guess that about a third of that word count is in the form of notes, questions, descriptions of scenes I didn't have enough brain left actually to write, lists of books I need to read and subjects I need to research. So even though some part of every chapter actually exists now, very little of the story is actually legible as story. I've got a few great scenes, a bunch of scenes that can be made good with not too much effort, a bunch of scenes that are holding the space open for stuff I haven't really figured out yet, and a bunch of scenes that are just plain wrong but that I thought might work while I was writing them. I've also got three or four versions of a couple of scenes, where I hadn't figured out how best to present things.

[tokeiwakamidesu.livejournal.com]

you go girl!

By the way, your manuscript is officially heroin. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look at Sallust when there are spicy crabmeat sausages and rebellion RIGHT THERE?

I'm dropping out, and my mother will kill you.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

In any such round of Family Thanksgiving Celebrity Death Match, the smart money would be on your mother, so please stay in school.

You think spicy crabmeat sausages and rebellion are good? Later on, in chapters you don't have yet, there's stinky cheese and the great love of the century. Also, paella and patricide.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The Beltresins don't mind if their shellfish are still in shells. Also, they're very fond of squid and octopus bits.

But take heart! There are also apple tarts and earthquakes.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

By the way, your manuscript is officially heroin.

Indeed, I whole heartedly agree.

Congrats. And please send out the results of this fine (and psychotic) little marathon as soon as you feel that the public can consume it.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It does make a pretty good opiate. Like so many junkies, I fear the only way I can hope to support my habit is to turn to dealing.

I'm afraid it will be many, many months before it's fit for public consumption, but it always heartens me to know that there are people who actually want to read more.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Who do you have to kill? I'm really tempted to make some smartass comment about Donald Rumsfeld, but I gather you're in the military, so that wouldn't be such a great career move for you. The televangelist of your choice--how about that?

You don't have to know anything. A playwright friend likes to say there are two things the audience is never wrong about: they know when they're confused, and they know when they're bored. Even if all you can tell me is when the ms is inducing one of those states, that's useful. And I'm pretty sure you can do more than that.

[dragonlaire.livejournal.com]

It sure feels good, doesn't it. I mentioned Nano to my wife about seven or eight days before it started. I thought the whole idea silly, but she said I ought to give it a try. Tonight, I feel like the silliest guy in the world and one of the happiest. Congrats, Doc, and congrats to everyone else who participated. Everyone's a winner in my book and in all the other books I hope to write.

[shakti-lemaris.livejournal.com]

Fabulous!
I knew you could do it!
And thank you so much for introducing me.