I started another entry like two weeks ago. Then I went back to it like a week later. I still have it. I could finish it. I probably should. This is a placeholder. A placeholder for entries where we talk about having cool aunt vibes and fixed up violins and dead grandmothers (or, one dead grandmother and one who still won't die).

But it's Nanowrimo now and I have been above the par line every day for the first time ever, and on Tuesday I hit par for the upcoming Monday (oh pardon me, I meant THURSDAY..) So, I'm still ahead, but I've barely written 300 words in the few days since, and I'm afraid I used up all my words. Dan said he doesn't think that's how it works; I said, that's how week 2 works baybeeeee

Seriously, though... leading up to it, I wasn't sure I'd be participating this year, not any more than the required "okay it's midnight I've written 100 words see you next year" required by November law. I didn't have a plan. I don't usually do well with pantsing (going in with no plot or idea), usually I need at least a little something to get me going - 2007 was an internet voice, a wacky name, and a first line: "I will tell no lies and no truths." Last year was "I can always fall back on a Twilight fanfic." This year? I don't remember who I started with. I decided to randomize some stories - using a probability chart and dice to answer questions and plot moments I don't have answers to. My file tree is a list of names. A document for each lady (mostly). One is an old friend, a super spy, who's been in a cryogenic tube for 15 years - I rolled that, thank you. Not my fault her Nano attempt was, in fact, 15 years ago. I've started one story using generators entirely - plot, names, personality traits. "An unambitious blacksmith falls in love with a priest who is an outcast." Okay, cool. Throw them up for a few hundred words. Let's also start a story from the perspective of a young woman who had/has an abusive relationship with her father, beyond what I have experienced. It's based on a very beautiful music video. That's not my fault.

And then there's sixteen thousand words on something I don't want to talk about, something I expected to get me a few hundred words one night, but instead it POURED out of me. A number of words it has no right to or need for. Okay, sure. Whatever.

It feels like cheating. Because I'm going to delete them when it's over. Putting personal journal type words in feels like cheating too, unless they're really worth it. I only have 800 personal words in the 30k I have, which is VASTLY different than last year. Last year had all kinds of extra, non-fiction writing in it, and I eventually got over the idea that that was cheating...

...but now I have something that is 16k, entirely fictitious, has zero fluff, is just plot beat after plot beat -- these are things I DON'T DO -- and yet, because of what it is, it feels like cheating. Because it's just straight from my brain onto the page with zero latency, that's worse. I HAVE CHEATED TERRIBLY AND HAVE NOT EARNED MY WORD COUNT.

She says, fully awake two days later, after a 28-hour writing tour of her desk. That's wasn't a 10k day, y'all. It was a 12k day.

An entirely coherent 12k. Except for when I lost my grip on spelling. Face doesn't start with a ph, friends.

I don't understand what's happening. Sure don't. Just gonna keep riding it. Hopefully gonna write it. Haha ride it.

...anyway. My brain is okay right now, some days it isn't, October was really weird and rough, this is what November is like, please to any passing sky-entities will you release this poor woman

Fuck, if I feel like I'm cheating already, maybe I'll count these words just to feel like there's movement again. How do you like that, brain, huh? HOW DO YOU LIKE IT

(how do you feel)