15 November 2009

NaNoWriMo: Day 15

8,040.

That’s how many words I managed to produce in a single weekend. And what a weekend it was. One of my characters changed her name - twice. The manor house spontaneously sprouted a tower. The steward did something I totally did not expect from him. The mysterious owner is being so mysterious that even I can’t see past the imperious facade. A lazy black setter named Balthazar materialised out of nowhere, even though I’m not really sure what a setter looks like. And there’s something stuffed up the chimney in a long-disused drawing room, and I have no idea what it is.

In other words, I’m having a ball.

Rather a long-winded one, though. My efforts to channel the nineteenth-century style have resulted in an excess of nineteenth-century verbosity. It’s taken nearly 20,000 words just to get the poor girl to the spooky manor house; if I keep going like this I’ll still be writing the first draft come Christmas.

But it’s good for the word count. A few more days, not only will I be caught up, I’ll be ahead. Especially as I can hit 1,900 words an hour when I really get on a roll. How many of those words will survive to the second draft remains to be seen; but they sure do boost morale.

Now, I have an invisible presence in the garden needing my attention....

1 comment:

Hazra said...

Great job! I love reading about your writing process, and 8000 words in a weekend is awesome! Good luck for the rest of NaNoWriMo!

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Header image shows detail of A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1776