I managed to finagle a way to write THE END at the conclusion of NaNoWriMo 2010. It's sort of kludgy and there are lots of things that don't make a lot of sense and plenty of wrong turns and dangling plot points, but I did end the story. It's only a smidge over 50,000 words, but I don't mind. It's a story, by golly!

I could probably cut it down quite a bit and make it a decent short story, but I'm (not quite as equally) sure I could pad it out and figure out where some of those dangling plotlines actually end up. I wrote myself into a corner and wrote myself back out, and also managed to use some of the conveniently placed plot points that I somehow put in early in the story, but I also strayed VERY VERY far from my synopsis, which makes me sad. I think it would have been a better story if I'd figured out how to stick to what I originally planned. I don't know if that's a (not really) rousing endorsement to continue my pantsing ways, or to get tough with my muse and start planning the damn things out before 11:30 pm on October 31.

What's it about? Well, it was supposed to be about a Writer (in my world, Writers write plays where the actors truly become their characters for the length of the play) whose mentor is killed, and all signs point to the Writer as doing it, only she didn't! So she has to clear her name and figure out who put the bad mojo on her. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to the murder until the end of the story (yes, I did the bad and all the action is in the last 10,000 words), so the mystery part of my murder mystery never materialized. However, I did end up with an angry, ambitious ghost-in-the-play who possesses one of the actors and wreaks all sorts of havoc. He's one-sided, sure, but he was pretty good at being bad. There was also more blood and gore than I've ever tried to write, and I was reminded again at how squeamish I can be. I wanted to be a doctor? (sigh)

Anyway, the book has an ending. This is only the second book in seven years to which that has happened, so I really have to work on that. Maybe next year I'll try to up the goal. But I have plenty of trouble just writing 1667 words a day that I don't know if I could try to double it...but maybe 2k a day would be doable. We'll see next year, won't we?

TGIO party tomorrow, yay!

For those of you who think NaNo is a waste of time, read this:

• NaNoWriMo and Kvetching (whatever.scalzi.com)

Other good links:

• NaNoWriMo: You're doing it wrong! (ishanamaya.wordpress.com)
• How to Use NaNoWriMo to Improve as a Writer (ishanamaya.wordpress.com)