Yes, for the second year in a row, I managed to beat my computer keyboard to death until I got a total of 50077 words onto the screen. Astonishingly enough, most of it makes sense.
Unsurprisingly, the novel is not finished. But, that's okay, because I have most of the major scenes already written or outlined (except for the jailbreak scene, but I don't count that because it came into being quite suddenly last week when one of my characters decided to get herself arrested, and that was NOT part of my original plan). Most of what's left is filling in the gaps and finishing/polishing off important scenes.
I'm very happy with the story so far. I'd intended it to be all about how Dark Man forced the girls to compete to be his bride, but that turned out to be only the first half of the story. The second half (and the major plot, as it turns out, because by the end of the third chapter, Del and Sha'as are talking about this) is about how the girls escape from Dark Man and their attempts to get as far away from him as possible. Characters got shuffled a little bit (the salamanders have a small but still pivotal role), and a few popped up when I hadn't even known they were there (hello, Wollton Symphony Orchestra!). It's been hard work, but it's been a lot of fun to write and discover where the story is trying to go. And pretty much everybody ends up happy.
Even though the story's not finished, I'm proud of myself. It's not easy for me to stick with a story idea long enough to get 50000 on it, much less to have a plan for how I'm going to finish it. Even last years Nano novel fell to the wayside after November - but that was actually due to real-life issues than anything else.
My next goal is to get the rest of the novel outlined by the end of December, if not entirely finished. I've got a busy month coming up, what with at least two parties to attend and a trip to Kamakura planned, but if I keep up with my writing in the evenings, it's entirely possible that I can get at least another 25,000 words written by the end of the year.
And then comes New Year's and a whole week of vacation for which I have nothing planned. I see much editing in my future.
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