What was I thinking? Sure, I can write a 50,000 word novel in a month while teaching 5 classes. Yeah, right.

Clearly, I was not thinking when I signed on for this.

I'm under 4000 words. Today, if I were on schedule, I should have about 20,000 words under my belt (that's writing about 1667 words a day). I need to catch up this weekend if I don't want to pass the point of no return. This is my 4th year doing this, and I've always finished. I don't want to break that record.

Of course, I just got the new Harry Potter out of the library - I was going to write all last night, but the laptop wasn't charged (I novel on the laptop, not the big computer). It was chilly in the apartment, so we built a fire, and as I waited for the laptop to charge, I started Harry Potter. Needless to say, I sat on the sheepskin in front of the fire and Harry Pottered all night long (or Potted, as R likes to say), forgetting the novelling altogether.

It's 11am now, and I've announced to R that I'm writing for 12 hours today. No Potting (or Pottering), no baking, no leaving the house, no grading any of the papers that need attention, no emailing, no bathing, no cooking. She left the house 10 minutes ago to give me some quiet so I could get started, and, as you can see, I'm blogging. I never said no blogging. Or no emailing.

I wish I had said those things. I could say them now, I guess.

Seriously. I think I have a decent story. I'd like to get it done. It's eventually going to be a screenplay that I submit to a competition. I need to get the story out. This is just a rough draft, as I always tell my students. It doesn't need to be perfect. No one will read it but me. I'm never going to get to the point of turning this idea I've had for years into a screenplay if I don't write a draft first, right? Ok. I best get started.

So no more blogging until after the weekend.



Bye y'all. I've got to get novelling! Next time I write, my word count will be over 20,000!