Progressing to Points Unknown

Whew!

NaNoWriMo has begun, and so far I'm managing to keep with my quota. (I hit 8413 words last night, 78 words more than my daily average requires.) So far I'm feeling quite comfortable with the pace and direction of my story. It could probably be better, but the month of December is reserved for revisions. Right now, it's just about getting the words down on paper and having them make a bit of sense and move the plot along. I really do need to pick up the pace, though. One of our graphic artists just stuck his head in the door and asked when the next happy hour was going to be, and I know from experience that I don't write well after a night out with the Zoo Crew.

If you're interested in reading my progress, I'm posting as I go. Please don't laugh at me too much when I hit the brick wall of writer's block. I might not hit the wall this time; the other night I sat down to write, and the resulting passage was not at all what I had intended to write. I typed out one simile, and it knocked me out of the way and took over. (For those of you keeping score at home, it was Chapter Four, the "gambling" chapter. I have no idea where that came from.)

Rosencrantz (writing under the pseudonym of Ratatosk) is also making progress on her novel, On the Clock. And out of nowhere, Tyim (writing under the name of Forkface) has joined our foray into high speed novelling, with his entry, Out of the Box. Why yes, we're all publishing online because we're insane. WHEEEEE!!!

Posting the chapters online has provided an extra sense of motivation to finish, as has the fact that I've already committed to the Thank God It's Over party in December. Nothing motivates like the fear of humiliation in front of strangers.

In hopes of being able to work on my novel in other places besides my home, I recently purchased a laptop computer. And it was a good thing too, since my desktop is acting funky and not connecting properly to the internet. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get it fixed eventually. My main concern now is getting the novel written on the laptop, and figuring out how to work the CD burner.

Of course, after committing myself to making payments on my new toy for the next year and a half, my finances suffered a major setback when my car was broken into Sunday night. I had to replace the window, will have to get the dashboard frame repaired, and am now minus a CD player/radio (with one of my favorite CDs still inside). Just when everything seemed to be getting better....

There's been a recent new arrival at the Zoo: a cheetah cub was born on October 17th, and was transported to the nursery soon after he was discovered. (Apparently no one knew that the mother cheetah was pregnant and, as is common in first time mothers, she wasn't taking care of the cub.) He seems to be doing fine, and I've heard that they just brought in a beagle puppy to be raised as a companion with him. Guess I'll have to take a walk over to the Children's Zoo after I run the mail across the parking lot.

I realize this is rather short and disjointed, but my brain is completely fried from writing this novel. Just thought I'd check in and keep everyone posted on what's new....