.
.
.
.
.
.

50451 / 50000 words. 101% done!

I am finally across the 50,000 word finish line! Yay! Now I think I am going to go collapse. Tired, so very, very tired.

Oh, I can't make it to the write-in tomorrow. I forgot that I have early Thanksgiving dinner plans so if I don't see you before Thursday, brightshadowsky, french_creek & kaiaokekai, have a good holiday and I'll catch up with you soon!

.
.
.
.
.
.

47443 / 50000 words. 95% done!

Finally I feel well enough to write again. Over 2,500 words today. Yay! If I push it tomorrow I may hit 50,000. What a difference a day and a massage makes. I also added an amusing character cameo. Sorry I forgot to warn you, french_creek. I hope I did justice to Randy's radio persona!

.
.
.
.
.
.

44075 / 50000 words. 88% done!

Oh yeah, my pain levels are definitely affecting my writing. The last few days the only time I seem to be able to make progress on the book is after I take a Gabapentin. Bleah! I haven't gone back and read what I've written lately so I don't know how much sense I make when writing under the influence of nerve blockers. Ugh!

I asked my parents tonight for a new Dell Mini 9 for X-mas. It's a really cute teeny, tiny netbook that would be perfect for carrying around with me. I love Sylvie, don't get me wrong, but carrying her 19 inches around gets really annoying after awhile because she's so big and heavy. For once bigger isn't necessarily better. LOL!

.
.
.
.
.
.

41135 / 50000 words. 82% done!

Whew, I passed 41k. This year writing has been a struggle, I think mostly because of my health issues, though I would like to blame it on my story, it is actually coming along fairly well. Hard to believe that last year at this time I was only a few hundred words away from 50K!

.
.
.
.
.
.

37063 / 50000 words. 74% done!

Day 15 isn't over but I wanted to post an update anyway because I finished chapter 8. I'm not happy with chapter 8 so it will probably be rewritten when I go back and edit. So far it was the hardest chapter to write. I've given a lot of thought to how Evie will react in the future and what will happen to her but had no idea what was going to happen to Keelby - where she was going to live, who was going to help, etc. Luckily I thought of some things in the process of finishing the chapter this morning and Kaiaokekai gave me some ideas last night. It helps when someone has actually read what I've written so they know exactly where the characters are. Evie's parents are going to take Keelby/Kelly in since she's new to town and a "friend" of their missing daughter, Evie. She is going to volunteer at the College library so she can stay close to the mirror and she will probably continue to tutor a young Belle. Belle suspects something is amiss with "Kelly" but she will never be able to prove anything. Also "Kelly" will make enemies of Lavonda as the younger, wealthier girl tries to discredit "Kelly."

Okay, back to writing. Oh and I think Kaiaokekai's guava and passion fruit sorbet is nearly done.

.
.
.
.
.
.

35046 / 50000 words. 70% done!

Yesterday was a terrible writing day - I think I wrote just over 500 words. I just felt ill and headachey (is that a word?), most likely from the weather. Today was better. I'm past the 35,000 word mark and finished chapter 7 and while it's shorter than any of the previous ones I think it will be the trend of the second half of the book as I switch back and forth between Evie's point of view and Keelby's. I learned a lot about a young Evie during this chapter and how her experiences in the future changes her and makes her the complex woman she's to become. I'm also having a lot of fun quoting or referencing popular literature of the 1940's. LOL!

.
.
.
.
.
.

32547 / 50000 words. 65% done!

I have finally completed chapter six and Keelby is in the past. I made her swoon when she realized it just for french_creek. LOL! Chapter seven will begin Evie's story. I will probably alternate viewpoints from now until they return to their own time lines just to keep their stories straight. As of right now I am working completely without an outline. Bleah! Maybe I can write one during my lunch hour tomorrow.

.
.
.
.
.
.

25039 / 50000 words. 50% done!

I have passed the half-way mark. Yay! My characters have completely gone off script and are no longer following the outline, which would be a problem other than my chapter five outline was very bare and needed some beefing up. Keelby is getting closer and closer to discovering the truth about her grandmother which means she'll be switching places with Evie very soon. It's scheduled for the end of chapter six and I'm about half way through chapter five right now. I think there are more than enough hints about what's going to happen but hope that the reader is still going to be a bit surprised when it actually happens.

.
.
.
.
.
.

22226 / 50000 words. 44% done!

I'm actually getting some writing done today even though my mind is on other things, mostly aromatherapy (I'm trying some new things - scented vinegar as a hair rinse and as a fabric softener alternative - as well as trying to get my guest room/closet cleaned up enough to be a cat free zone for creating aromatherapy products). Yay for the writing, though! Yesterday I had no motivation and my characters were just slogging along through the plot I set for them. Today they had some surprises in for me so that has helped. I just finished Chapter Four and will be posting it in a moment.

.
.
.
.
.
.

17657 / 50000 words. 35% done!

I did a lot of procrastination today - rearranging furniture, reshelving books and alphabetizing them, even read a short story. I'm still feeling generally bleah and I have to work in the morning. Sigh. I did learn something new about Lorita, though. She is a closet alcoholic so that adds yet another layer of dysfunction to my characters and their relationship.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

14084 / 50000 words. 28% done!

I'm still behind where I want to be and where I was at this time last year. I'm just not feeling that great. I keep hoping it's just allergies but it might be more than that since my stomach now hurts. I did get a new mask for my CPAP machine so hopefully tonight I can breathe with it on without feeling like I'm drowning. Even after just trying it on I can tell that I feel better about it.

The story is coming along though I'm not sure how successfully since it is so different from what I normally write. Ugh! I just hope I can finish the entire story and then get someone's unbiased opinion of it.

Right now I'm going to bed and pray I feel better in the morning.

I'm a little behind where I'd like to be but since I have the entire week off I hope to stay on my schedule. As of right now I have 7342 words and a couple of pages of handwritten notes I need to transcribe yet. "Shattered Images" is a very different story from what I usually write. As of write (ha! Now that's an appropriate typo), right now it's more of a walk through the memories of the main character, Keelby Ogden, after the death of her grandmother. It's all about interpersonal relationships and how a woman relates to her mother or her daughter or her grandmother. It will be interesting to see how much the story changes once Keelby slips into her grandmother's past. I still haven't decided how the switch will work and how the tone of the story will change once I'm writing it from two different perspectives instead of just one - and then there's the research I should probably do about the 1940's. Eek!

7342 / 50000 words. 15% done!

This year I was going to work on a previous unfinished work but then on Thursday morning I had a dream. In the dream the main character was investigating the disappearance of a woman 20 years prior. She was in the library of the college, doing research, when she was drawn to an old mirror. As she was looking in the mirror she realized that what was reflecting back at her was the library from twenty years prior. She sees the missing woman just as the woman looks into the mirror. She blinks and suddenly she's in the past and the woman is in the future. Then my alarm when off and woke me up.

I've made some changes to that basic idea but I think it'll shape up to be a pretty good novel. I'm using my challenge idea from last year and all my character names will be names of spammers from my e-mail. I already have three names picked out for my female characters. The woman from the present is Keelby Ogden. Her mother is Lorita Winter and her grandmother, and the woman she trades places with, is Evie Arleen.

The main premise of the novel is that after her grandmother's funeral, Keelby learns that her grandmother was listed as a missing person for several months in the 1940's when she was a college student. Keelby decides to investigate her grandmother's past, to the dismay of her mother, Lorita, who spent years resenting Evie for never being there for her. In the course of the investigation, Keelby ends up switching places with her grandmother through an antique mirror. Evie spends several months in the present, trying to fit in and learning about what the world will become, while Keelby goes into the past where she works fervently on trying to return to the present.

I'm going to try to outline the entire story before November 1st so I'll know what I'm writing toward. brightshadowsky and I came up with a lot of ideas and some serious character development today. Yay! Now I need a working title. Any ideas?