HOORAY! This happened!
At some point this week, maybe tomorrow, I’ll write (!!!) a bit about the “finished” (lol) product and some reflections about the experience. I know you are all waiting with breath that is bated, etc.
But right now, before I head off to enjoy the spoils of success (ice cream and Torchwood), I would just like to say a quick thanks to my offline and online friends who were REALLY supportive during the process. This may seem slightly self-congratulatory and dickish. Sorry about that! But! This was a big deal to me!
Clearly the biggest thanks goes to Tom, who washed all of my dishes this month and who, when I had to call him and explain — with no small amount of shame, I promise — that I got derailed on an entire day’s work because of a Tumblr fight (!!!!!), said “Keep writing. I’m on my way home and I’ll pick up wine and take care of dinner,” because he is basically the best human ever.
Huge thanks to Campatron for gently persuading me to do NaNo, for being a stellar ML and an even better friend (15 years of various fandoms and mutual appreciation of David Duchovny), and for introducing me to word sprints. Maybe we can finally have dinner and drinks in December.
To all of you who have been cheering me on this month, sending me notes of encouragement and liking my (ridiculous) (sometimes desperate) posts, I can’t even express how much it meant to me (cheese alert). Seriously. Writing is such a lonely, solitary process and the structure of NaNo was incredibly helpful, but what was even more helpful were the emails and Gchats and text messages and Tumblr askbox notes and the Vyou questions and all of the things that you all did that made me feel like I wasn’t writing into the void. I would like to high-five you all…with my heart. (Tears, right? You are crying now?) (I put an ellipsis there to build anticipation…writerly thing! Okay, I promise the book isn’t that terrible, really!)
Anyway. Thank you for the support and the reading and the not unfollowing-so-that-you-can-refollow-and-then-unfollow-me-again for being insufferable. You are the best.
YOU GUYS.
So less than 2000 words away from actually putting this thing to bed but I already finished writing my climactic scene. I mean, admittedly, it is pretty lulzworthy in that, like, six people are pointing guns at my bad guy, which feels a bit like overkill and a little unsporting. Also, there was an Amazon. So. That…is going to be revised in Draft 2. And I guess there are a hundred tiny things that need to be taken care of/wrapped up/elaborated on.
But I’m so close, you guys. SO CLOSE.
Memory-revealing device that seems too much like a less-cool version of a Pensieve.
You is dumb, brain.
I’m afraid not in this draft. Maybe in December. For now, you will keep talking to one another. And talking. And talking. You will ask each other questions and then someone will say “why are you asking me this question?” because even in the future people are still sarcastic and pretty bitchy.
And listening to your “writing” playlist. Like a boss, etc.
Remember how I was all “oh, I want to write a heist scene with these characters! Too bad that doesn’t work for this science fiction-y story”? Well, FYI, a heist scene is happening right now. My resident bitch/tightly-wound bad girl (I realize that is…not a common archetype) character is redeeming herself! Momentary detente between said bad girl and our heroine.
Writing long descriptions of scenes is so boring to me. I get so stuck on wanting these characters to interact in a way that is either filled with conflict or tension (or humor) that I find myself not really caring WHERE they are.
Me: Oh yeah? Why don’t you put your…face…to…something?
Tom: Try to word-sprint a better insult!
