Word count today: 2,525

Total word count: 50,072

Words to go: -72

Today was an intense day at work, and I had some stuff going on at home (nothing intense, just busy). On top of all that, my daughter had a hard time getting to sleep, and pretty much nothing else is going to go on in the house while that's happening. By the time she finally settled down, I was pretty tired, but determined to pound out some wordage. About 9:30 PM I found myself literally dozing off at the keyboard. The National Novel Writing Month website has a tool that tallies your word count (and that serves as your official word count, no matter what your word processor might say you've done). When I pasted in my novel, I realized I only had 750 words left to go. I shook myself out of my stupor and kept going. I couldn't quite stand the thought of getting that close and leaving the last little bit for tomorrow (especially since I was in the middle of something I thought was working pretty well). A while later (another half hour, I think), I pasted the novel in again, because I'd jumped around a bit and lost count of where I was supposed to be. It turned out I needed exactly 25 words to finish the novel. I don't think it's cheating, but I used those last 25 words to write a dedication to my wife:

This book is dedicated to my loving and long-suffering wife, Stacey, who
granted me leave from family duties to write this book in a month of stolen
moments. You've always believed in me, even when I haven't. Thank you.

Editor's note: driven by guilt and unreasoning perfectionism, I went back and added a few sentences here and there to take me over the 50K mark without the dediction. The New total of 50,072 does include the dedication and the title, but it's got well over 50,000 words of actual prose.

It's truly been an amazing experience. The book isn't great; I liberally (and unintentionally) borrowed ideas from at least half a dozen novels to drive the plot of this one. At the same time, I came up with some ideas I don't think I've seen anywhere, and have a few scenes I'm really happy with. The incredible thing is that I actually do have a 50,000 word novel with a beginning, a middle, and and end that's not completely horrible. If I wanted to flesh it out to a 150,000 or 200,000 word novel (rather than the novella it is now), I would definitely have enough material to do that. I think I'd also be able to refine quite a few of the plot elements so they don't seem quite so derivative of what's come before. I guess what I'm saying is that I actually have a first draft of something I could turn into a second draft.

Will I ever do that? Probably not. Will I ever write something else? You bet. I think I'll start the outline tomorrow.