Day 30 (Final Word Count: 50,347)

I've got to log off and go kiss my family.

Twice in one year. Booyah!

That is all for now.

Day 28 (Word Count: 43,082)

Two days. 6,918 words. These are all that stand between me and glorious victory.

Some of you may have noticed that the little NaNoWriMo icon over at the left now includes a word counter. If you've been checking in, wondering where I was in the process, that's been keeping track. It'd probably have been more useful for me to point that out earlier.

So the task still before me is utterly managable. Yes, I'm grading papers, but I'm not nearly as behind as usual. Yes, we had the Disney Thanksgiving, during which I wrote maybe a thousand words (but I think writing part of the novel at the Ontario Airport, part in Newberg, Oregon, and part at the Disneyland Hotel qualifies me for some kind of strange prize), and I was standing at 36,000 or so words yesterday morning, but it's all been manageable. Things have opened up for me in a way that I can hardly explain myself. As I've said before, part of me still cowers in fear of the "other shoe" coming down, but that part is growing smaller daily. Yes, there will be setbacks and difficulties aplenty in the days ahead, and I have a strong sense that this is a season of replenishment and reprieve before much greater challenges come to the fore, but I know that God is with me and that He will see me through them.

I was reading through some of my old posts, and my attitude at the moment is so different than those I espoused there that I feel like an entirely different person. And maybe I am. I don't want this to sound boastful, or naive, but it's honestly where I stand today, Christ be praised for it.

I'll try to get some more specifics up in the next day or two. Until then, I've got some more prose-ifying to do.

Day 17 (Word Count: 25,307)

I can't seem to find a rhythm to the writing this time out. Too many things going on in life, too much laziness keeping me from getting onto it during the late-night hours I used to write in. But when I am getting into it, it's going well. I'm more than halfway there (at a few days past when I should have arrived there), and much busy time lies ahead, what with Kathie's visit and our Thanksgiving extravaganza coming up, as well as the end of the semester.

As last time, I am finding this journey to be one of discovery (how cliche of me!)—in this case, I'm finding out that I can write for longer periods and more prolifically than last time. Both of them confirm for me that I can, in fact, write, which I kind of knew and which, nonetheless, I have to be reminded of pretty constantly.

I'm a little scared, though, because I do feel called to this. It's endlessly exciting, of course, but I don't know what form it's supposed to take. That I can wait on, and I'm trying to look at it as an adventure (and succeeding most of the time), but it still feels dangerous, like I've leapt out of a plane and am plummeting toward the ground, not quite positive when I'm supposed to pull the ripcord or even that it's a parachute back there. I do know that I'd like to learn how to write a novel from start to finish—all this jumping about means that, like last time, I have to go back and try to piece the bits together, which is essentially like writing the thing twice. Maybe that comes with practice, or at least more forethought than I've given the thing.

Your continued prayers and thoughts are appreciated. I'm off to go see Wycherly's The Country Wife at CSUSB with my 101 Honors class. There's nothing like a seventeenth-century Restoration comedy to cap off your Friday. I'm sure my students will agree.

Day 14 (Word Count: 15,158)

So this word count isn't as high as it's supposed to be, but considering I was sitting at 1,776 until this past Thursday and I didn't manage to write all weekend, it's not too shabby. I think I've found the groove and (Lord willing) can keep up the accelerated pace. I need to be at at least 30,000 words by the 19th when Kathie arrives, or she has vowed not to speak to me...

In other news: the bootcamp with Skaggs went remarkably well. Really, God is taking me into all sorts of new territory these days, and I must admit I'm feeling closer to Him than I have at any point in my life previously. It's kind of delirious and odd, and a part of me is still cowering, waiting for the reversal and the fall that always seem to come to me when I'm feeling good about something. In truth, I think there have been some attacks and some setbacks, but I'm thinking about them differently than I have in the past, which is almost entirely a good thing.

I'm on to reading Eldredge's Waking the Dead, which is proving to be another spiritual ballpeen hammer to the brain. Impressive stuff. I'm in talks now with the men's ministry at church about running a study on Wild at Heart in January, and so far they're supportive. I said before I wasn't an Eldredge groupie—I think maybe I'm becoming one... I'm also reading The Lord of the Rings yet again, as a kind of pump primer for the writing, and the echoes from that are fascinating.

I don't know where this crazy road I'm on is headed, or where it'll take me and my blessedly patient and flexible family, but it's quite the trip.

Day 1 (Word Count: 1776)

It's late and I'm sitting in the Skaggs House in Oregon. My brain is spinning slowly and wanting to escape to the sweet land of Sleepy Sleep. I had much to post here, about life and my journey here and the weekend retreat Sir Skaggs and I are attending starting tomorrow, but I don't think I'm capable of doing so at this point.

I did want to put down my word count. I wrote today sitting in the Ontario Airport in a disused corner. I have no idea what the heck I'm writing, but I got some words down, and that's the important thing.

I shall be gone until at least Sunday, so there may not be much in the way of new wordage in the next few days. A very strange way to start the month off, but such is the way of things.

Good night, ladies.