I did it!

I haven’t been doing much running, but I wrote and wrote and wrote and I’m finished with my “novel-length work!” The NaNoWriMo zaniness really worked for me. I reread enough to pick an excerpt for my author profile, and I was surprised to find a section that wouldn’t make me blush too much to reveal in public, so maybe it’s not quite as bad as I fear. But I’m setting it aside until January, when I can come back to it with more detachment.

I need to pick a December project–and I definitely want to get back to running–but I’m still basking in my achievement, artificial as it may be!

A five-dog day!

I said no blogging until I’d met my quota, but maybe I’ll do at least one entry a week. I’m at almost 8,000 words, so well behind where I “ought” to be (14,000 by the end of today)–I’m not whining, just saying!–and a lot of that has to do with the election. I have been in a deep depression since Black Wednesday and I’m just starting to come out of it. I haven’t burst into tears today, so that’s a first. I tried to run five miles yesterday but ended up composing an open letter to my community in my head (not sure if I’ll actually do anything with it) about how alienated I feel right now. For the first time since we moved here almost 15 years ago I wonder if we made a mistake. I’ve put so much of myself into my work and into my volunteer efforts…. Anyway, I started actually crying while I was running and then I couldn’t breathe, so I had to walk. I ran maybe 2 1/2 miles off and on.

Today I feel much better, I think because I have a course of action (write the letter) and I’ve gotten a lot of the emotion out (thanks to everyone who let me cry on their shoulder). So, not much writing done, but I did run a proper five miles around 4pm. I didn’t bother to bring the Forerunner, just got dressed & went.

It was a lovely warm day for November. I saw the young kinda-crazy black lab who lives on 267, then the bigger one who’s on Canada Road–I *thought* they were two different dogs but I haven’t seen them on the same day before. The bigger one, who used to be a little shy of me, came right over and leaned against my legs as I petted him or her (haven’t checked sex). On my way up the hill I caught a flash of orange. There were 5 or 6 pumpkins in the woods next to the road–for a second I thought they had grown there, then it almost looked like they had fallen out of a tree. Obviously they were tossed there to get rid of them and they’ll get eaten.

At the top of the hill there were my friends the tubby lab/shepherd mix and the boxer, so I got to pet them too. A good dog day! Lots of people were out in their yards because it was so beautiful. As I rounded the lake, the clouds started coloring from the sunset. It was an especially nice one–lots of shifting shades of pink, blue, and crimson. It’s a great time of day to run. I saw my fifth dog, a Scottish terrier, on a lead with 3 guys walking along the road. I said hello and the guy holding the leash said hi in kind of a clipped, not-that-friendly way. Oh well.

OK, back to various types of writing. I’ll be trying to catch up this week, but again, no whining & no beating myself up!

NaNoWriMo: so far so good

My average speed is almost 2,000 words an hour! Of course, this is on the first day when inspiration is at its height. I’m not sanguine enough to feel confident, but it’s sure heartening. I’m well over quota for today at 2,270 (no blog entry if I don’t meet my quota!) and still had time to write a book blog entry I needed to write (because it was a review copy).

Thank goodness my Inner Editor was whisked away to a kennel by Chris Baty:

[T]his month you’ll leave your Inner Editor here with me at the fully licensed, board-certified No Plot? No Problem! Inner Editor Kennel–where it can spend its days carping with other Inner Editors, happily pointing out typos in the newspaper and complaining about the numerous plot holes on daytime television.

It will be very, very happy here.

(there’s an actual button to touch in the book, which I did first thing when I woke up this morning) Thank goodness, because what I’ve written so far is really terrible. But that’s OK. Quantity, not quality!