I have finally completed my fifth NaNoWriMo novel.

November 2008 was, it transpired, not a good month to be writing a novel for me. I began using the same writing routine that I did in 2007, working on the book at lunchtime at work, and I established a good lead - I had a two day buffer against the minimum word count on the 17th - but then I lost my job and everything went bad.

I was very sad when Ambric went down. I still am.

So, I lost three days of writing time. I just could not write on the last day of work, nor could I focus over the weekend following. The week after that I managed to get some writing done, but the weird thing was that I was actually fighting to get time from the rigours of the recruitment process for my new employer. I snatched an opportunity to write while I was away for a day interviewing, but I was a long way from hitting goal.

We were away for Thanksgiving and I managed to get back on track for goal at least, but at that point I knew that I was not going to finish the story. Which is exactly what happened: I crossed the line at 50k, but there were still six chapters to write.

Yesterday I finally wrote those chapters, or at least skeletons of them, and just now I printed it all out: 240 pages, 57,621 words.

Now I can get back to editing book one.

But that is a slightly extended five minutes.

Posted by Dunx at February 17, 2009 06:59 AM