Me, that's who.
9 days left til D-day. November 30th. A Tuesday. I've nothing spectacular planned except the completion of my 50,000 word first draft of a contemporary novel.
At the moment, I've written 28,268 words. Quality words may I add, with a plot that is gelling surprisingly well (yes, I too am amazed). This leaves me with a rather scary 21,732 words to write in the next 9 days. Throw into the foray extra-curricular activities, like a Thanksgiving to celebrate, a NaNo meetup to attend, and a sister's second draft to edit, and the maths starts to scare the bejaysus out of me. In reality, I have just 6.2 days to finish!
Like all McKennas, I plan most of my goals with scout-like diligence. So this morning, I hovered over the whiteboard planning what's what, breaking the task down into hours. If I average 600 (quality) words per hour, I'll need 37 point something hours to make it to 50K.
Next began the painful task of working out a timetable to achieve said 37 hours without losing my sanity or husband. It's short term pain for long term gain after all, so pathetic as it sounds, I've allotted specific hours per day to achieving my desired word count. And if I get to Monday 29th and have surpassed 50k? Then we plan the next phase - the beloved second draft.
How I love the second draft stage: playing with words, experimenting with surprise plot twists and generally indulging in my own little world of fiction. That's when the craic really starts.
But for now, I will kill off one more day's work, striking off each day and wordcount as we go. In the words of Susan McCann, "One day at a time, sweet Jesus."
Bring it on back home there Missus.
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