I had a goal for my business trip to stay on top of my wordcount for NaNoWriMo. I have always been traveling in November, when the yearly madness takes place, and I have never once managed to stay caught up. Weekends were always the time for frenzied typings where I would come close, but not quite.

This is the first year things have been different. I’m actually two days ahead as of right now (thanks to a marathon writing session in the airport while my flight was delayed, and the flight itself). And I accomplished my goal, which means I get to treat myself to a brand new ukulele.

[Aside: My ukulele did not survive Patrick’s thrashing, which is fine as I needed to upgrade anyway for THE BAND. And now I have a uke that’s been played to death by Patrick, and signed by Amanda Palmer, so that’s as good a way as any for a uke to be retired.]

I have won NaNo twice before, once in 2008 and once in 2010. 2009 I was down for two weeks with the flu, so I didn’t get the wordage in.

So if you’re doing the math (and remember that this year is the year I’m rewriting the one from 2008), I have three novel ideas so far, and only one of them is completely fleshed out. And since this is the year I clear my plate of pending stories, I’m looking forward to getting this rewrite done so I can embark upon my goal for next year: to find an agent.

I like the other two ideas (both have child protagonists, but one is clearly YA, while the other is not), and I want to work on them, so clearing this book out of my system as soon as possible is a wonderful impetus to put butt in chair. Every day. That, combined with my lingering motivation leftover from VP, is making the words flow.

I’m hoping there will be no mid-book slump, since I’m way too excited to get back to the short stories I’ve started since VP that I want to finish (because they’re all wrapped up in my head and they’ve got beauty right at their core that I want to immerse myself in). And based on how things are going now, the groundwork that’s already been laid, the motivation and the abundance of time I have now that I’ve got no trips planned for the rest of the year, I think I can do it. And most of all, I hope this motivation carries through into December so I can bang out the second half (this story is looking to be 100-120k long).

I’m happy with what I have so far. The scenes are better, more focused. The characterization is stronger. I know the shape of the story so I know the things that need to be laid down early and the things I’m building towards. I’m looking forward to hitting the crisis point in the plot this weekend, and a lot of my favorite scenes are yet to come.

I’m optimistic. For a lot of things. And there’s a long road of hard work between me and my goals. But I’ll get there. One word at a time.