2/5 of the way there

4 days into November. I should have 6668 words written by now to be on track for the goal of 50,000. I have 20,911 words!!! I have 8 more days to be at that point. This novel is ALIVE. It was so hard to tear myself away from it to go to kung fu tonight. I wrote from the minute I signed off work this afternoon until the minute I had to leave for kung fu, came home and wrote 2200 more words. I am hoping to reach 50,000 words by Nov. 15. At this rate, that will be easy. There is one member of the St. Louis Nano group who wrote something like 140,000 words last November. I don't think I'll get that much (stupid day job interferes), but I'm aiming for at least 75,000, if not 100,000. It's a little early to tell though. I'm not sure how much my novel will need. But at 20K words, there is still plenty of story to go.

I read Laurell K. Hamilton's blog every day. She often talks about having an idea of which way the story is going to go, but then one of the characters, or even a new character, walks on stage and says, "No, that's not what's going to happen. Here's the real story," and takes her in a totally different direction. I've often thought of how cool it would be to experience that. Now I have. There was a scene in which my main character, Elena, was supposed to meet someone. As she was waiting to meet this man for the first time, Vittorio (who I hadn't even dreamed of until that moment) came on stage and said, "HERE I AM. LET'S GO." and the story took a completely different turn that I was planning. I will admit he took the story into a much more romantic direction than I planned. I originally planned to have a hint of romance in this novel, but not much. Well, Vittorio blew that out of the water. But that's ok, it all works wonderfully. I think I'll be stepping away from the romance for a while. Unless Vittorio argues with me. He is quite enamored of Elena. (I'm not giving anything away.) And now I have reached the paranormal aspect, which is very exciting to me, and will soon get back to the mystery.

I've also found I need slightly different music for this novel. I listen to music while I write, but it can't be anything with lyrics, or if there are lyrics, they have to be in another language. Otherwise I get too distracted. Until now I've written best to very mellow things such as Mono, Enya, explosions in the sky. Now I'm finding slightly more energetic music works better. Sigur Ros (similar to Mono, but with a bit more energy), Nine Inch Nails Ghosts album, Native American drums, and Middle Eastern or Indian music are working quite nicely with this novel. I don't have much Middle Eastern/Indian music though, so if you know of any leave a comment and let me know.

Now I must try to wind down and go to sleep. 6:00 will come all too early. I'm still wide awake. Here's a little tidbit for you all. Once I'm ready for bed, I turn out the lights, but play a few games of Mahjongg on my iPhone. That helps my brain shut off so I can go to sleep. As it is right at this moment, if I simply lay down and tried to sleep, even as tired as I am (an hour and a half of kung fu tired me physically, writing 8000ish words tired me mentally), I would not be able to fall asleep for quite a while. My brain is still thinking about the novel far too actively.

So goodnight all. More soon.

Oh yeah, tomorrow is the first Crestwood write-in. I'll head over there after work, around 4:00. They said they expect to have people there until 9:00. I already told my writing group I might not make it tomorrow night if the novel keeps this intense flow. If it does, I just might be at Barnes and Noble until they kick me out at closing time.