23,874 / 50,000 (47.7%)

First word: He

Last word: gasped

Random sentence: He’d been wearing it like a medal of honor, one awarded for being wounded, for years now.

22,197 / 50,000 (44.4%)

First word: He

Last word: rang

Random sentence: But unlike shirt choice, which seemed so arbitrary, and therefore, so confusing, this decision had felt right and clear.

20,461 / 50,000 (40.9%)

First word: He

Last word: questions

Random sentence: But most of the time he felt that love, the kind people wrote books and songs about, was lost to him, that when the surgeons put his head back together, his ability to love, the whole emotion, had been lying on the pavement in a pool of his blood.

18,754 / 50,000 (37.5%)

First word: Jonah

Last word: movie

Random sentence: He picked up the glass of milk his mom had left for him off the table and poured it into the sink.

17,078 / 50,000 (34.2%)

First word: Mrs.

Last word: Friday

Random sentence: For his parents, knowing something subconsciously, and having to acknowledge it consciously, were two quite separate things.

15,531 / 50,000 (31.1%)

First word: She

Last word: parents

Random sentence: “I’m not going to be a fucking politician,” he growled.

So I was a little concerned that I’d made to Day 9 without having a theme song for this story. My stories, the long ones anyway, always seem to have theme songs, a song that plays over and over while I write, either for real or in my head (because I’m psycho like that).But you can’t force a theme song, it just has to happen.

We’ve been having this absolutely gorgeous fall, long and colorful. Tonight I’m driving to school, down skinny streets strewn with orange leaves. Fog is swirling in off the ocean. I’m listening to the radio. This song comes on with the absolutely haunting refrain, “I walk alone, I walk alone.” I’m like, “that’s it! that’s it!” Mind you, I’ve been writing for a good two hours just prior to this, so I’m still pretty wrapped up in my story. But it was definitely it.

Theme song: Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Check.

Onward.

13,831 / 50,000 (27.7%)

First word: Before

Last word: off

Random sentence: He was telling them his plan to solo-circumnavigate the earth in as many ways as possible: balloon, boat, plane, dog sled, space shuttle… “Can’t let Branson get all the press,” he winked and guffawed.

I’m not sure that I knew where this story was going when I started it, and by that I mean, what kind of story it would turn out to be. But what it’s turned out to be is a story of a family, with the relationship between a brother and a sister at the core of it (and just to clarify, for all of you with your minds in the gutter, I mean “relationship” in its generic sense). Hmm. I rather like that.*

So something weird happened this afternoon. I’m standing at the bus stop on my way to Conflicts. Naturally, I’ve just missed a bus (well, two, if I want to get really accurate). I have to cross Broadway to get to the stop, so I just-miss buses a lot. This generally isn’t a problem though, because the B-Line is scheduled to come about every 4 minutes. Er, where was I?

Oh, yeah, so my point is that I get to the stop and there’s no one there. Because the bus has just left. A few seconds later, I turn to my left and two teenage girls have walked up. They’re standing about 10 feet away from me, and I do a double-take because it’s like they walked out of my NaNovel. I can’t hear anything they’re saying and they’re not touching or anything, but I just know they’re a couple. One’s about half-a-head taller than the other, and tomboyish-looking, with short dark hair and little silver hoop earrings. The shorter one, also dark-haired, had her hair in pigtails. She had teeny drop earrings and a girly backpack. The smaller one is more stylish, clothing-wise, more pulled together. I’m not doing well here with my description because I was trying to watch them without looking like I was watching them, which always works out so well, don’t ya know. So then the bus arrives and the shorter one stands on her tiptoes and kisses the taller one goodbye. She gets on the bus behind me and as the bus pulls away, I see the taller one walking back down the street.

So what am I on about here? Well, aside from the dark hair on the taller girl, they were almost exactly as I pictured Laurelyn and her girlfriend, Kim (formerly Kelly, not that anyone but me knew that, but changed because you can’t have a Calle and a Kelly in the same story). Laurelyn’s blond. But like I said, aside from that…

I swear, there’s something weird going on with this story. Just too many weird karmic coincidences. Almost makes me wonder if I’m hallucinating. Is it really week 2 already?

12,241 / 50,000 (24.5%)

First word: Laurelyn

Last word: stairs

Random sentence: Both men had their suit jackets draped over one arm, their ties loosened in deliberate casualness.

From TC…Yesterday I wrote:

I broke 10K today. I’m starting to think that my problem won’t be reaching 50K, it’ll be reaching the end of the story by 50K.

This may not sound like a problem, but for me it is. Word count has never been a problem for me. Reaching THE END has. I *really* want to have some semblance of an ending at the end of the month.

Bellman replied:

(BTW, Beaver, no one said you had to finish in 50,000 words. You just have to reach 50,000. I propose a TC “NaNoFinishMo” in December-Jan for those who need it. That’ll get everyone done in time for NaNoEdMo in March…)

My response:

Oh, I know that. I’m just afraid that if I don’t get finished (and by finished I mean just get to where I think the story ends) by the end of the month, I’m afraid that what I’ll end up with is yet another 1/2 to 3/4s finished novel. December, at least the first 2/3s, will not be conducive to me continuing on with 2-3 hours a day of novel writing (that’s how long it’s been taking me to make the word count–and that’s all I’m doing, I stop once I get the daily allotment done). I mean, seriously, I have *enough* of those. What is wrong with me that I can get that far, and then I let them languish? It’s not because I’ve lost interest. I’m still very invested in all my unfinished novels. I guess if I’m honest with myself, I clearly have a mental block about finishing–on some level I’m scared to. I think if I could just finish one novel, then I could finish all the others too. Does that make any sense? So that’s why I want to actually *finish* and not just reach 50K.

…on the way to 50K.

A minor character (Jonah’s sister, Laurelyn) suddenly walked into the room and asserted her importance. Turns out she’s not minor after all. On the contrary, she’s pivotal. Quite possibly the key to, well, everything.

Heh. Who knew?

That’s the thing about writing, you never do know, do you, until you actually set the words down. Regardless of how long you’ve talked about it and planned it, it never turns out quite how you imagined it.

10,434 / 50,000 (20.9%)

First word: He

Last word: perky

Random sentence: She had triggered something, something, locked deep in his jumbled brain, stored away in the wrong drawer, oh, god, he almost had it.