Triumph! ...of a sort (Part 1)

Good news! But first, some reasons that I haven't blogged in the last week. One as you might guess, is the continuing saga of my attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. The other was the week from hell at work.

Last Monday I put in 9.5 hours at work doing production for a meeting involving 25 people. I had to do invites, rsvps, find the overhead projector, find the overhead projector that wasn't broken, get the door to the meeting room unlocked without benefit of our office manager, who was home dealing with a small, persistent flooding problem. The Monday meeting went really well even after all that.

Then I had to jump back in on Tuesday and Wednesday and prep for an even bigger event on Thursday afternoon. This one involved 120 people (it was supposed to be about 90) and variations on all of the aforementioned problems with the addition of running out of food. There was nothing I could do. I didn't know until the last minute that someone was bringing 16 sixth-graders. Who knew that they could eat that much? Despite that, everyone seemed to have a good time. Chalk up another success.

I knew that this week was coming, obviously, and decided to go ahead with the novel madness anyway. It turned to to be my most productive week yet. On Tuesday, I nearly hit my quota on the train (that's 90 mins per day) and I would have hit it if not for the damn Sonic Expander that got on at Anaheim Station. A Sonic Expander is a category of Blue Line denizen that feels obligated to take up as much space sonically as they can by means of talking loudly on their cell phones, cavorting with their friends, or in this case, READING OVER MY SHOULDER while doing all of the above. That was truly annoying. I got to 1648. I had time to get 1700, I would have gotten to 1700, but no.

The rest of the week went great. I set a new record on Saturday: 3050 words in just under 4 hours.

And now, the good news. Today I did 2523 words and I now stand at (drumroll please):

50073.

That's right, baby! I DID IT! It feels good. And it would feel even better if I was done with the story. I still have Major Climax Part II (a big action sequence with more than its fair share of explosions or perhaps a touching love scene of emotional grandeur) and Denouement (Six months later, Earl was not, as his wife predicted, the Ambassador to Tahiti, but had instead realized his childhood dream of becoming a Chippendale dancer) still to go.

So I haven't been able to write 'The End'. But I've got a week. I like my chances. And then I can post Part II of my Triumph.