Alastair Mayer’s T-Space Blog

I passed the 50,000 word point in my NaNoWriMo novel sometime today, qualifying me for the win. Yay! But the novel itself is a long way from finished, I have plot threads still dangling. Another ten thousand or so words should do it. With eight more days until the end of NaNoWriMo, that should be easy.

That’s just for the first (or even zeroth) draft. It may qualify for a NaNoWriMo win, but it’s a long way from “finished”. I have a lot of placeholders, what we’d call “stubs” in computer programming. That’s where I’ve just outlined a scene or a necessary sequence of actions that I didn’t feel up to writing at that point, and I’ll go back and expand later. That also includes a couple of characters that I introduced late and don’t have real names or backstories yet, factual details that I need to research, and so on. There are also a few chapters I want to change the sequence of. Plus line edits. But that’s all part of the process.

Congratulations to all the other NaNoWriMoers out there who have already passed (in same cases, totally blown by) 50K. For the rest, keep going! There’s still more than a week left.

Today is Veterans Day in the US, Remembrance Day in Canada and the UK. (It is also marked in other countries under different names.) To all those who served: thank you.

After a slower start than I’d hoped, I’m up to speed and the “novel” is going well. Those quotes are there because at the moment it’s more of a very detailed outline; I know I’ll make significant changes in the next draft. But I’m coming up with some cool ideas and scenes. The working title is Alpha Centauri; it’s about humanity’s first trip there, with a few surprises.

Real time NaNoWriMo progress bar, the target is 50,000 words.