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

[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.