Halfway through the month of November, and my wordcount is just right where it is supposed to be. I’ve got a total of 25,653 words for the one project and 25,105 with the other. I’ve already decided to just do one project next year because this is a little bit ridiculous. I thought briefly about jamming the two together and calling it done, but that would be messing with the stats on the NaNoWriMo site, and only one of my accounts on the site would get credit for finishing the task. I can’t have that.

I’ve been writing regularly at home for quite a while now, and the 4,000 words every day hasn’t been impossible, but if I don’t get it done during the work day, I do the writing after dinner. This cuts into the alone time that I spend with my husband after the youngest is in bed, so I can see it’s not purely sustainable for the long run. Once December comes around, getting back into a routine where I’m regularly knocking of 2-3,000 words and a minimum of 1K a day will seem like a piece of cake. And, I’ve got plenty of fresh material to work from if I choose to continue with either of these project.s

The things that get me off my schedule are usually unplanned events. Like the accident we were in on Sunday. It took two hours to clear the truck and all the paperwork. We were extremely lucky that we were hit right on the wheel base of the truck and not on the driver’s side door. Our bruises are, I hope, superficial.

Given that my one project is about a man who is injured and put into a coma, I decided to use the accident as impetus for an alternative beginning to the novel. I got the angst and shakiness out by writing a much more horrific sort of accident with care-flight helicopters whisking someone away to Harborview. Writing an alternative accident made me feel even more lucky to get away with a few bruises and a broken knitting needle.

I knit when I can if Bill is driving, and I happened to be using one of my lovely Knitpick’s harmony needles. Sigh. It was my only size six circular needle, and I ended up replacing it yesterday by visiting a new yarn shop in Kirkland called Serial Knitters. It’s wonderful to have a new shop of this quality on the Eastside. I was bummed to lose Hilltop Yarn East, and am very happy to have found a very decent sort of replacement. As soon as NaNoWriMo is over, I’ve got a boatload of knitting to do for the holidays, and I found some really pretty yarns to work with. (Yeah, I know I’ve got stash, but nothing in my stash would work for the projects I want to do for Christmas.)