58,413 words in 25 days, with more to follow

Okay, so we all know bragging is not the most appealing of things to do. It’s only a one time thing, so bear with me okay? I’ve had my words so far validated by the text robot on the NaNoWriMo website and it returned this lovely image and a link for me to download my winner’s certificate.

I also get access to some other goodies, including a 50% discount on Mac-only writer’s software Scrivener, which I am now a complete evangelist for because it’s wonderful and I will shortly be parting with a ridiculously small sum of money to register the software.

At the time I put my text through the auto-validator earlier today there was a total of 58,413 words completed and I had to produce 50,000 before the end of this month in order to win. The novel is not finished, indeed the month is not yet over, and I will be continuing to write a minimum of 1,666 words every weekday, sometimes on weekends, until the first draft is complete. I don’t expect it to need more than 100,000 words so I’m hoping to reach the book’s end by mid-December. Then comes second draft stage, which is editing, and hopefully a final third draft, which is polishing.

By the time the third draft is complete, some time in 2010, the novel may be over or under whatever the original first draft word count ends up being.

After that I try to find an agent and that’s a whole different challenge. But to have a novel to tout, that’s really something!

It’s a personal best for me to prove to myself that I can, with discipline and a competitive incentive, produce this many words in just 25 days so far, with many more yet to come. I’ve impressed myself. Damn right I’m going to brag!

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• Scrivener – Tool of choice for NaNoWriMo 2009 (toddrjordan.com)
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