'Twas the Night Before NaNo...

Last night, at 11:55pm, I was torn. On one hand, it had been a long day. On the other, NaNoWriMo started officially in five minutes! So: go to bed or stay up and write? Choice number two: flip a coin or ask Hubby? I asked Hubby. (He was right there and I didn’t have any change.)

I explained my dilemma and he nodded, apparently giving the options the appropriate concern in his deliberation. Then he looked at the time.

“Well, it’s now 12:10, so you’re officially behind. I know how you hate that. We have enough chocolate that you could probably stay up half the night. Your grape Laffy-Taffy came too. I’ve been holding onto it for you. I forgot to get grape soda at the store, but I’m sure you could get by with Dr. Pepper, it’s how you survived in years past.”

“So you think I should stay up and write?”

“No. I’ll cut the power if you do. You’re already tired and you’ll be a ***** tomorrow if you stay up. Go to bed.”

So I went to bed and he stayed up for several more hours but still didn’t manage to get Darth Jingles to come back inside. Grrr. (Black cat outside rampaging on Halloween? Yeah, nothing to see there. Literally, she’s like a ninja.)

Then I got up this morning and knocked out 3,000 words before two things happened: First, I fell into a plot hole caused by not having finished the last book in the series before this one yet. Fine, I can fix that. Second, I discovered some research I had to do. Fine. Skip ahead. Grrr. So is this how it’s going to go? Really? Thirty days of banging my head against a wall?

I shouldn’t complain. Possible concussion aside, 3,000 words for the morning wasn’t bad. Granted I’d written all that in my head a few times this week waiting for today, but still. It should have been longer, except for that plot hole and research thing. Grrr. Thought I had that covered.

Anyway, I have the framework of a first chapter. It looks nothing like it will when I actually get around to publishing this, but every novel has to start somewhere. And because I have to skip ahead anyway, I may as well skip to something fun. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to write from Olive’s point of view before. An epilogue, that was it. Now I get to do a lot more with her. I get to be in a genie’s head instead of their master’s.

Giggle.

I wish I had a grape soda.