Done

Just typed "THE END."
Whoohoo!

Extraordinary Progress and a Major "Oh, no!" Moment

November has seen significant forward motion, mostly due to generous use of the delete key. My guesstimate that at least 20,000 words would vanish during editing is turning out to be accurate. Names have been decided upon, most plot holes filled or at least basted shut, only a few scenes not yet fully on the page, and everything else nicely tightened up. The end is (almost) in sight.

Which is good, because I dug out my entry form and read the fine print again and aaack! The mailing deadline is the end of November, not December! How did I get that wrong??? Possibly because I originally downloaded the rules/submission info for last year's competition (it was early in the year and the web page for the 2009 competition was not yet up). Or maybe I'm thinking of a deadline for a different competition. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

Fortunately, I'm an idiot who listens to her intuition, which told me it was time to double-check contest details as I head into the home stretch. Imagine how I'd feel if I'd discovered this in mid-December! Although that might have been for the best. Would have given me another entire year to fine-tune the plot, edit out the rambling, and work on adding more visual descriptions of places and people.

As it is, though, I'm so close I may as well go for it. Too bad 11/30 is a Sunday, and the Post Office is only open until noon on Saturday. That effectively cuts 2 days from what's left in the month. I'll be taking my package to the Post Office a week from today.

Fortunately I'm self-employed, have no big Thanksgiving plans this year, and am blessed with a wonderful (supportive, patient) husband. A week is plenty of time to slog through my lengthy list of holes still to fill, details to add, corrections to make to essential plot points the story has morphed away from, and all the various other items in the "punchlist" file. And to write and at least minimally edit the "final showdown" and "epilogue" scenes that I haven't gotten onto the page yet. Right?

I'd better stop blogging and get to work.

Fun with Random Name Generator

Update: Sisters have come and gone, and final chapters are still incomplete. Churned out a lot of words last month, but finish line looks like a carrot on a stick from here. I've inched ahead, but needed breakthrough is elusive. Still missing a few key pieces of the backstory/why stuff, especially in terms of finetuning documentation/clues that surface near the end. Arghhhh. Eager for that "aha" moment where it all comes together!

Initial feedback from sisters is good. R chuckled a lot while reading, which eases my #1 fear: that I will be the only person who thinks what I've written is funny. A says plot needs more direction in opening chapters (no surprise there), but characters and dialogue are engaging enough to carry her along through the "is this going anywhere?" parts.

Today's challenge: I've been wrestling since day one on this novel with my main character's name, going around and around between several choices, and I've got to pick one and stick with it soon!

So this morning I decided I needed some new name ideas, and hopped on over to my most favorite pseudo-productive webpage (fun, and can be a time-sink, but I get to pretend that I'm doing important novel-related work).

Geeze, just a couple clicks on the random name generator and I've got enough secondary-character names to populate a dozen novels. Faves so far: Bridget Foy, Verna Blume, Leona Basile, Bertha Elliott, and Megan Atkins. And that's just girls.

But none are right for my MC. Name parameters for her are:

1) That she hate her given name ('cause I'm the author, and for some reason I like sticking her with a nasty one)

2) That she go by a reasonable nickname that's short, feminine, and not too ordinary (pet peeve: female characters with boy names/nicknames: "Sam" for Samantha, "Andy" for Andrea... gaah, hate 'em!)

3) That it be Italianate in some way (for backstory/sequel reasons that may or may not ever see print)

4) That it meet the series book cover test: "a [insert MC name here] mystery" (this implies that not only will I someday actually finish and sell this one, but that it will be a success and followed by others, a prospect that on some days seems iffy at best but is always irresistable)

Am pleased to report I've come up with an entirely new MC name option that may actually stick. But I'm not sharing yet, 'cause I've only been flipping over it for 10 minutes and changes of mind may follow.

Last week's focus was scene outlining: a horrible chore, I'm not enjoying it at all, so am also starting in on text editing, too (with heavy emphasis on the delete key). Hoping that plowing through one more time will help with final plot decisions.

Still two months left in the year. That feels longer than "8 weeks" which is about what I've got leaving a couple of days for printing/proofing/panicking/packaging/posting if I'm gonna make the mystery competition 12/31/08 dealine.