Despite not being able to stand up much in the past few days thanks to a god-awful flu/cold/sick virus thing, I still managed to just about keep my head above water with the NaNoWriMo word count. Although some of what I tried to write Friday and Saturday might not make too much sense when I come to edit it…

One of the things I’ve enjoyed over the course of the month so far is the pep-talks that the NaNoWriMo crew send out from established authors. It lifted my heart immensely yesterday to know that when you’re deep in the think of it, thinking all you’ve done is a stinking pile of crap and you’d wish you never started, you not alone, and even people like Neil Gaiman have been there with the same doubts and fears over books you’ve read and admire.

One thing Neil spoke about in his pep talk was the downward slide at the end, which, he reasoned, if we’re sticking to out 1667ish words a day, we wouldn’t have reached yet. He talks about the surge of energy you get when you suddenly catch a sniff of the finish line. I think tonight, I just caught the faintest whiff it, and it felt really good.

I’m now ten chapters down, six to go (according to my Dramatica/STC! inspired structure) and I can feel the sails starting to billow and a bit of tail wind picking up.

It’s also great to see other writers, such as fellow bloggers Les, Maura and Xander, ratcheting up their word counts too… (or not in Les’s case – C’mon Les!)