The End Is Near!

No, not of the world. I speak, of course, of the end of my book.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. "Jacqueline, if the end of your book is near, you should be writing it, not blogging!" And you're right. Which is why I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

My progress meter¹, as you may have noticed, has been moving steadily from left to right. Not necessarily quickly, but steadily. I had a couple of NaNo quality days this past week and a couple of more typical ones, for a total of 6,000 words in the past four days.

I have what should be an excellent three-day weekend for writing ahead of me. The holiday today means I don't have to accomplish any "real" work (although I have three kids home from school, which isn't exactly conducive!), so I can write all day, kid-related interruptions aside. In addition, my husband is tied up in a Cub Scout training program tonight and most of the day tomorrow, and then on Sunday, he's taking both of the boys to the NHRA drag racing finals in Pomona. I normally don't dedicate any time to writing on the weekends because it's usually "family" time, but when my husband can't be with us, I feel perfectly sanguine about letting the kids play with each other and friends all day while I pound feverishly on the keyboard.

I originally committed myself to writing The End by this Sunday night, but I'm not sure now I can pull it off. It seems I have more story to write than I thought when I promised myself that. (Which is scary when you're already well over 100,000 words, but that's another story altogether.) I'm still going to give it my best shot, but it might be more realistic to project next Tuesday as "D-Day"². Lucky me, I have jury duty and expect to spend most of the day in the jury lounge, banging away at my laptop³.

Before I sign off, I want to extend a special thanks to two of my critique partners, Lacey and Darcy. Since we've all been trying to write first drafts without getting trapped in the neverending cycle of revision based on line edits (which no doubt extended the time it has taken me to get to this point in my book by weeks, if not months), we're not doing any serious critting for the time being. What we have been doing is sharing small excerpts from what we write on a daily basis and giving each other encouraging pats on the back. And I have to say, that's been enormously helpful and motivating. I know I wouldn't be anywhere near as close to the end as I am now if it weren't for that positive feedback. And I think it's working for them, too, since Darcy finished Notorious last week and Lacey's well over halfway through her first draft of If You Asked a Rake to Reform. We must be doing something right (for a change, LOL).

¹I replaced the pretty progress meters from Zokotou with the much plainer picometer last week because Zokotou's site was down and my meters were therefore broken. And while I like the look of the Zokotou meters much better, the picometer is much easier to update (all I have to do is change the word count in the html code and, voila, it's updated), so I think I'm sticking with it.

²Done-Day

³Of course, if I get into a jury pool, all bets are off. Judges and bailiffs, I have learned, frown on people in the jury pool doing anything other than listening in awe to the stupefyingly, mind-numbingly boring voir dire process. And since I am never selected for juries (prosecutors somehow peg me instantly as an overeducated bleeding-heart liberal and use their peremptory challenges to dismiss me), it is a total waste of my time. But as a good citizen, I do my duty anyway.