I wrote yesterday's chapter today because it was quite a late night. In it I have a second interview with one of the suspects, and learn more about the history of the tragic accident. I also further the relationship between the hero and heroine. I wrote 2,183 words for a current total of 24,800. So I'm nearly at the half way mark!

Today I have schoolwork to do and then I'll work on the next chapter. I'm not quite sure what I want to do next in the story. I want to include a walk in the woods but it's too late to do that today. Maybe I can do that tomorrow.

OK I decided to hold myself to the hour a day even if life had hiccups. Life always has hiccups! So I'm staying with the terms of my experiment.

Today we did go for a lovely walk, but I forgot it was a holiday for "out-of-the-house-job" people so the park was *packed*. I was able to work that into the story. I revealed an important clue, and moved along the relationship between the hero and heroine.

Now comes a conflict between my real life and the story progression. I have meetings with friends Tue and Wed. But in my story I really need to meet with my third suspect soon so the story can move along from that point. And I want to go to the restaurant when I write it up so I can write it up fresh from being there. That's how I like to write things. Hmmmm.

If I can't go to that restaurant until Thursday, I need to figure out what my story "does" in the meantime. I suppose I can work in some side stories to help "muddy the waters" a bit and give the reader more red herrings to sort through .

Do you guys inject lots of false leads?

Whatever comes to me. Most have been stand-alone each day. That's okay because the good ones I can expand upon.

Dear Edie -

That's a great way to write! That way you write about what is most meaningful to you, and create beautiful scenes. You can always add the connective tissue later on .

Today I wrote about last night's events - a gorgeous sunset, a beautiful rainbow, and a dinner with friends. I had one of my friends know the third suspect and provide some key details about him. So that way the story did move along a bit. I also could add in some of my musings on nature and beauty and mindfulness with the rainbow and sunset.

So I wrote for 55 minutes today, and 2,252 words. My current total is 30,143 words.

Lisa, I wanted to respond to your comment about writing a scene in the actual restaurant the scene was taking place. I did that in a couple of stories I've written in the past. While I often changed the names of the towns and streets, I could see and feel what I had experienced in the past and let that help lead the emotional part of the story. Really helped a lot to "see" the scene I was writing.

This is Day 16 of NaNo and I am pretty close to being on target. One of the reasons I feel like I'm behind sometimes is that I write in longhand, then type the passages into Word. Quite often I'm also lightly editing at the same time. Takes a little longer, but I write fiction better in long hand than I do typing.

My word count as of today is 27296. The NaNo site says that at this rate I will be done by November 29th. Sounds good to me!

How are the rest of you doing?

Dear Edie -

We all have different styles of writing and that's fine! If longhand connects with you, it's worth the effort. However you allow your muse to flow and connect .

Congratulations on your progress! That's great!

I had gotten stalled because I really wanted my "third suspect interview" to take place at a particular restaurant. And for a solid week they were closed. So for that entire week I had to write "back fill" story segments, where the characters learned more about the history of the situation.

Finally - *finally!!* - the restaurant was open this past Sunday. So Bob and I went there and could sit down and look it over. That meant I could finally write up that suspect interview scene, and move the plot forward in a more active way.

It was so wonderful when I finally got that done. The next day was today (Monday) and I knew exactly what I wanted to happen next. So writing that up was easy. Today I wrote for 60 minutes. I wrote 3,168 words for an overall total of 43,823 words. I could have easily written more but I am holding myself to my 60 minutes a day limit. I want to help show those watching that this can be done even with limited time in each day.

My mind is already quite ready to pour out the story for Tue, Wed, and Thu. Each day has specific things happening in it, places I will be in real life, and that will become the story. So I'll get to record what I see and the people I meet and then simply "let them flow" out into the story proper. It'll be like writing a diary entry in some ways. The colors I see, the sounds I hear, and so on. I love writing like this.

So I'm expecting at least these next three days to be quite easy. Then we'll see on Friday where I want to go from there. I know where the final "end point" of my mystery will be, but I let my characters guide me as to actual twists and turns in the middle. I.e. I don't have a map of exact dialogue or action. I just let the story flow out of my brain as I imagine what these characters might do next, given the situation they'll be in. So it's a fun surprise for me too .

How are you guys doing?

Greetings everyone! Today I crossed the 50,000 mark, and have met the NaNoWriMo official goal!

I'm still writing through Nov 30th to finish up the story.

Today was Thanksgiving of course, but my writing for today was "of yesterday" and my boyfriend's gig and such. So it was the characters learning more information about the murder.

Tomorrow's writing will be about Thanksgiving so that should be fairly easy. And then after that I begin "building to the final revelation" over the last week. So these final seven days should be exciting writing as I have accusations flying and characters under stress.

How are you guys doing? Are your stories approaching their finale?