40,000 words

I hit 40,000 words this afternoon on my NaNoWriMo novel, THE TONTINE, and have more writing to do today. I am well behind lasat year's pace with no hope of catching up. But I am well on my way to finishing long before the Nov. 30 deadline. Much will depend on how much I can squeeze in today -- my wife has a boatload of chores to complete -- and tomorrow morning.

I will be busy all tomorrow afternoon and probably won't get anymore writing done until Tuesday morning. Then I guess I will spend Tuesday knocking out the rest.

It has been fun -- or as much fun as NaNoWriMo can be. But I fear my characters are too two-dimensional and the plot too neat. During the week, I should have time to read it in its entirety and get a better handle on it all. Right now, I am in the middle of it and can't get that much perspective.

It is short, of course, and will clock in at around 50,000. I imagine I will spend all of 2011 fleshing out the characters and plot, and smoothing out the rough places, of which I imagine there are many. In the end, it is probably a novel that will end up with 75,000 to 80,000 words.

But I am getting there. 40K. That's 80 percent. Just 10,000 more words to go.

Thanks for reading.