…the writer will play! Or will she??

Not if it’s November, and she’s participating in NaNoWriMo!

Well, okay, maybe a little.

Oh, you want an explanation? Okay. It’s that time of the year that really helps a writer out. No, really.

It’s hunting season (the other helpful time being “football season”). How so? Well, to be specific, this week is gun season for deer in Ohio, which means my more-sociable half is away at deer hunting camp with lots of guys, lots of guns, and lots of beer (for after the guns are put away!). This means there’s lots of quiet in my house. I don’t think the TV has even been on in the past two days. The one in the room where my computer is hasn’t been on since he left the other day.

It’s been weird. And good for the word count – I finished my NaNoWriMo novel on Sunday night.

And as noted in Sunday’s post, fell short of the 50,000 words required to win NaNoWriMo – my book clocked in at only 46,000.

I was going to write an author’s note (wow, that would have to be a long one!) or do some work for a nonfiction technical piece. Then I came to another realization: There were holes in my book. Lots of ’em – maybe as many of them as there was beer at that deer camp earlier this week. But mostly, I had a fraying book – tons of dropped threads, subplots that were introduced but never tied up. This is something I often do (doesn’t every writer? No?) and then go back and catch these suckers in revision.

But usually, I need to cut words. This time, I need to add, so why not add something I’d add anyway, now?

So that’s what I’ve been doing. My NaNo novel is right on schedule for a win tonight or tomorrow, currently sitting at 48,442 words.

I’ll leave the rest of the ROW80 recap for Sunday.

Oh, and my DH is due home today, but he called yesterday with good news: he got one! Looks like there will be some good eating in our house this winter (he’s also a very good cook)!

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, are you on track to win, have you already won, or have you already conceded that you’ll not hit that 50k (which I don’t necessarily consider “losing”)?

I haven’t spotted any new releases from my writer friends the past couple of weeks, so no WANA Wednesday book news this week. I think many of my writing buddies are doing the same thing I am – writing! If you know of any, give me a heads up in the comments, please?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.