Bob's band had a gig last night so we got home after midnight. Since I wanted to work the gig into the story I didn't write "yesterday's chapter" until today. SO I just finished that now. I wrote for an hour and wrote 2,183 words. My current total is 24,800 words.

I'm about half that at 12,246 this morning. Getting to work now for some catch up time.

You are making great progress, Alice, we all go at different rates! And that is quite fine

I had thought about double-writing on a day to make up for the day I "missed" - but then I thought this would be an even better way to maintain the experiment. People will miss days. So I will go forward with my desire to see if this can work with only one hour a day and sometimes missing a day. So far it's looking good!

Today I wrote 3,091 words in an hour and have now officially crossed the halfway mark. I am at 27,891 words. The words flowed smoothly, I was done at the hour mark with what I wanted to write, and I'm content!

Yesterday ran late so I wrote up yesterday's events today. We had a most gorgeous sunset so I added that into the story, as well as the restaurant I ate dinner at.

So today's writings about that were 55 minutes, for 2252 words. I am now up to 30,143 words total.

I'm filling in background in the story, because I can't interview the final suspect until Thu or Fri.

How are you guys doing?

I'm at 15,615 and hanging in there by my fingernails. Worked on a bit of an outline today so there's lots of new ideas for tomorrow. Crossing my fingers on that.

Dear Alice -

That's great news! Congratulations!

I had dinner with a friend, and we were talking about writing. She's read many biographies of writers. What she found (and many talked about) is that in the end tenacity is key. There are many awesome writers out there that we've never heard about, because they didn't stick with it. They gave up. They stalled. The ones we *do* read and hear about are the ones that made it through. In many cases they weren't even "the best writer". They were simply the one that hung in there and got their story done.

So it's a key for all of us - to build up that stick-with-it skill!

Today was a good day. 2,075 words for a total of 17,690. It's finally clicked in which direction I need to go for an actual plot. Now if I can keep up the steam.

You are inspirational Lisa. Plus I just heard from a friend in my writing club that she's involved in nano. We're a bit competitive and about at the same level in our writing.

Great job, ladies! I've been checking in here and there. Been writing daily but not always on my story. But I am at 12, 057 words and I spent one evening outlining each chapter so I feel like that is giving me more direction and guidance. Who knows how closely I'll stick to it because you know some new idea always comes along but at least it gives me a skeleton to build off. Keep up the hard work!

Dear Alice -

That's wonderful news, I'm glad the plot is settling in for you! Remember, you can always edit later. That's fine! For now, plow ahead and see what inspiration connects with you .

That's great that you have a fellow writer to compare notes with!