Day Fifteen

I'm just going to say that right now I am totally rocking the words. Work kept me just busy enough yesterday that I was never truly busy, but I never had the time to pick up my spiral and write either. Kind of an in-between day. Still, for a Monday it was quite pleasant and I've had Mondays that were much much worse!

Then there were a few errands to run and a project at home to complete. I didn't even sit down at my computer and open my word document until 8:30. At that point I was just hoping to hit 1 of my 3 goals which were:

1) My minimum daily wordcount for a total of 22691 words
2) Passing the ML's halfway point challenge (doubling my daily average words) for a total of 23828 words
3) Catching up to being on track for a total of 25000 words

The first box of doom we started (thank goodness for write-ins, even ones I attend virtually) brought me almost to my first goal. It also gave me a new personal record for box of doom, 1103/1069 words in 30 minutes. It ended just in time because I ran into a point that was very important. I was about to explain things that would effect the entire outcome of the story, and I had no idea how it all worked. The character who was supposed to be explaining it to my main character was being very tight-lipped about it even to me. This was a problem and I had less than 30 minutes to figure it out before the next box of doom began.

So I sat and thought. I tried explaining it out loud in her voice. I tried envisioning the amulet's spell. I tried to place myself in the position of the gods. (Just for reference's sake, that one is very difficult to do.) And finally, just in time, it all came to me. And I do mean just in time. We were drawing word counts for the next BoD.

The second BoD went by in yet another flurry of activity, still furiously working on the same pivotal scene. I saw my first goal and I passed it successfully, my brain running at full steam. I started to get the joyful feeling that nothing was going to stop me tonight as I wrote more than 1000 more words, exceeding my BoD requirement of 950. We all took another break and I ran off to take a shower and put on my pj's. I'd already sat at one computer all day in work clothes, I wasn't about to sit at another all night doing the same. Once again, I returned just as they were getting ready to draw for our third and final BoD. 750 words this time. My reaction to that was "That's all?" I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever felt that way about writing 750 words in 30 minutes.

Time was called and off I went again, wrapping up one and charging into another very pivotal scene. Last night was all about getting this story rolling, explaining to the characters the direness of the situation that was brewing, and preparing to embark on the adventure that is looming ever closer in their future. It's exciting, let me tell you. Have you ever read a book, a real page turner where you felt like you couldn't read fast enough? That was last night, only I was limited by how fast I could write. It was a whirlwind and after the rash of insanity I experienced during it I have come to one conclusion: Having a week of bum days and stress of not meeting word counts and worry about not knowing where your story is going is entirely worth one single night of that pure joy of excitement and love of characters and plot. Completely worth it.

The third BoD took me up to and past my second goal of the night and I finished just over 24k words. Oh this wouldn't do at all. My eyes were starting to feel heavy and I knew I needed to sleep soon, but I had powered through 1k extra words the night before when I was unhappy stopping at 20k, right? Then again, I had only barely written my 1667 wordcount at that point. Still, I refused to settle for 24k. If I'd gotten stuck at 23k I probably would have called it a night, but the precious 25k halfway point that I was supposed to be at wasn't even 1000 words away! I could finally stop being behind! And with that I powered through, even with no BoD, even as all of my writing guild signed off of chat one by one. My support system was gone and it was just me and my charcters. I could do this. (And since I set not one, but two people on fire, it was quite enjoyable.) I could do this, right?

Words Today: 4000
Total Words: 25024

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C