Camp NaNoWriMo - three days in and I'm still alive.

Well, I've finally done it. For years I've been hearing about NaNoWriMo, and I always had the idea that no one ever really finished a book that way. A book in one month? Come on. My two novels each took over a year to write.

But then I met Georgie. Georgie Ramsey, of Sex, Lies and Corned Beef Pies! And I learned that Georgie wrote Sex, Lies and Corned Beef Pies in one month at NaNo last year. Yes, it's really true!

So when I saw the announcement that it was happening in April, I thought, what the hell, it can only kill me. I have been trying for more than ten years to finish this book:

Yes, I already have a cover, thanks to my keen and insanely talented cover design person (Patti Roberts of Paradox Book Cover Designs). That beautiful hound on the cover is the late and very much missed Beau. The beautiful man is my son, David. But I digress.

So I signed up, and I set my goal at 50,000 words. I had already written almost that much, so I figured another 50,000 would have the book nicely finished with some margin for slashing and trimming.

So far so good, as the man said falling past the 30th floor of a 40 floor building.

DAY ONE: I had such a hectic day, with client work, and a friend's academic emergency, and rescuing Ferret off the roof three times, that I didn't even start work on King's Ransom until 1600. But I managed to write my quota, just scraping in at I think 10 words over.

DAY TWO: I started work on it first thing in the morning and got my quota done before lunch. Again, just a tiny bit over.

DAY THREE: I started work on it first thing in the morning and worked on it until mid-afternoon, with one hour out at lunchtime to take Emily for a walk, and one hour out to do proofreading on Dance of Chaos. Despite putting in the hours, I only achieved just over 2,000 words. It's still quite a bit over quota, but not enough over to account for all the time I spent. This just goes to support my theory that work expands to fill the time available. I am now considering going back to doing it the Flylady way, with the timer, as I used to do as a law student. That got me through law school, and I hope it will help me to get through NaNo.

But yeah, so far so good! Thanks Georgie, I never would have attempted it without the inspiration of your success!