The Words: 4309 written today. I went to work today, came home, had supper, husband came home, then husband left to go get kids. I had then an hour to myself, had already eaten, and was just ready to write in a quiet house. I ended up getting distracted by one of two Skype chat groups I’m in for NaNo, by some people who needed advice about tricks to use to get better word counts. I couldn’t let them down; they’re new to NaNo! So I wrote 300-some words during that time. Fortunately, after the 4-year-old was in bed, the other Skype group was doing word wars, so I got in on some of those. They melt my brain, but they are great for pushing my word count up, especially when the day is wearing down and I’m behind.

The Story: Okay, so writing that part of “Pursuit of Power” that matches up with “Adventures in Pithea” was not as fun as I thought it was going to be. Silly me, I forgot that, instead of just writing whatever comes, I’d need to stick more to what already happened in the other story. While this time, the scene was from someone else’s perspective, the same stuff still had to happen. It was slow going. When I got past that, things flew again. I ended up, during a 25-minute word war, writing out a thought process as Alexander was composing a letter to Leahna, who he’s desperately trying to convince to work with him. It was kind of fun, writing a few lines of the letter, then writing his thoughts as he told himself why not to say that part. “You idiot, don’t insult her. She’ll never help you then.” Stuff like that, except that might be a bit more extreme. I didn’t use the word “idiot” during my writing. Anyway, story moving forward! We may even get to the actual central plot soon!

Total word count: 22062