Camp NaNoWriMo word count: 6,833 as of 5am, mostly journaling, but also progress on “The Elk Pact” that might be next week’s flash fiction. I have four others that need a look. I have updated my word count and then I will stop writing for a while. For me, this means for a few hours perhaps. I would stop working for the day, but I am meeting a friend to discuss our writing. I will bring “And Another Thing” about the man in the bar. I will whine about the novel. 

Revised novel EMD word count: 74,883 The entire novel is roughed back in. I worked from several old drafts, though I have not returned to the story that started it all. 

I started work a little after 4am yesterday. I finally put my computer away close to 8pm. My eyes are sore, but the entire novel is pasted into the new document. That’s not what I intended to do but the result of unwise impatience, I fear. I just wanted it all there. I wanted to arrive at what is to me the most powerful moment in Thena’s story, which is now the last line of the next-to-last chapter. 

I worked from several drafts written over the past three years and cut more than 15k words out of the final third—I hope this is the part that dragged—not to mention moving passages revealed earlier to later and putting a couple of flashbacks into more-or-less chronological order and, perhaps sadly, cutting back on the romance that has always felt a bit forced. A couple of times I tried to set the novel down, tried not to move ahead beyond what was carefully edited (another reason the last third dragged?), and tried to work on something else. Every time I went back to this story. 

Part 2 has a new and necessary chapter focused on the relationship between Thena and her daughter. Part 1 is mostly done and concerns regret and digging back out of it. Part 2 is triumph and obliteration and might be half complete. I returned to my initial choice of withholding specifics until later while revealing the general loss. I will save the details for Part 3, which is more or less forgiveness. I am building a new story arc.

I wanted 75-80k when I am done. There is still work to do in the middle, but further butchery toward the end, including entire unnecessary chapters already cut near the back. I need to go faster right at the end, not in the revision, which will continue for the rest of the month and go slowly indeed. My fear is repeating myself. I have already caught myself having done that. I have copied and pasted the same passage. 

We did not take our walk yesterday morning. Gary insisted he was not up for it, but then worked on the front yard where the deck is gone. The ocean rolled in mostly one breaker at a time, what I always think of as her “tame animal” behavior. This is our payment for stiff wind and rain the morning before when we did get a walk. But we went out late in the afternoon and visited with a couple on vacation from Tokyo.

After receiving six (6!) emails in the last week from Consumer Union about stopping robocalls, I unsubscribed. 

I will stop writing for the day. My eyes are tired and I need a break, and probably I will not be able to resist opening my novel and looking and writing more, but I am reading from book 9 of the Patrick O’Brian novels and feel the need to focus on the adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Maybe I will wash the glass in the front door—a manageable and measurable task sounds just the ticket. When I told Gary I thought I would take the rest of the day off, he said, “You mean I get my wife back?” Maybe, for a few hours. He has nearly finished reading Part One of Don Quixote. I am still reading Mother Is a Verb (I would love it for the cover alone).We are well caught up with our books. 

Below are photos of our missing deck. Gary does not want it returned. If you find a wild deck wandering about your neighborhood, you are free to lead it home and keep it. 

It won’t look too bad from a distance, but this photo shows why we tore off our deck.

Here the deck is cut up. Jeremy has a place that will take the lumber and find a use for it.

Here’s the deck from the south just before the work began. The boards in the foreground are staying.

AFTER—the old concrete walkway is exposed after Gary did the tidying up yesterday morning. Jeremy is preparing to reside the sandblasted west face of our house, so he’s taken off the lower courses. The pink rhododendron is blooming.