November 13: The last few days have been pretty hectic, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m going to be able to hit the 50k goal.  The previous weekend was the most productive two days I’ve had so far.  I started a short story Saturday and finished it Sunday.  It’s a dark fantasy.  The idea has been kicking around in my head for years, but I’ve only had a rough concept of what it was about.  The structure is a little unusual.  The story is mainly told through statements taken during a police investigation.  Other than the two principles, who don’t give statements, I had no other characters in mind.  Yet once I started, everything fell into place with all the other characters becoming obvious.  I wish they were all this easy.

November 4:  Saturday wasn’t a very productive day.  I was supposed to travel to a meeting yesterday and come back today, but when I got to the airport, I discovered my flight arrangements had been screwed up.  I’d had the university book the ticket so I didn’t have to carry the balance on my credit card until they got around to reimbursing me.  I’d planned to write by hand while gone, but instead I stayed home and typed.

Between Saturday, Sunday, and what I managed to get done tonight, I’ve written 5,608 words.  One is a short, very dark science fiction story that’s pretty much complete.  (No, it isn’t dark because it’s set in outer space, thank you very much.)  The other is the time travel story, which is going to be a novellette.  I’m over 2k words behind where I would like to be, but I knew the month would start out slow.  I should be able to get caught up by the end of the week.

November 1:  Today was the first of November, which means NaNoWriMo started.  There was an after-hours kickoff in one of the local branch libraries.  Since I didn’t make any of the social gatherings when I participated 2 years ago, I wanted to attend some of them this year.

While some came and went, overall I would say there were between two and three dozen people who showed up.  Not all of them were focused on writing most of them were young enough to be my children, and one was a former student of mine.from a few semesters back.  Many of them visited or played with a kitten someone had with them.

I started a science fiction story, a rewrite of a time travel tale I’d first attempted about 20 years ago when I first started graduate school.  It was a total rewrite.  I got 2508 words done, or 5% of the 50k word goal of the program.  Not a bad start.  I’ve figured that with a few days off for travel throughout the month, I’m going to need to hit at least 2k a day to make the goal.  So far I’m off to a good start, but the month is still young.