Riding the Rollercoaster

14,240 and counting. That's ahead of pace, still, and makes me feel all good.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to realize a few things:

• While I may hit 50,000 words this month, there is no way I'm going to be "done" with my novel. That's well and good, of course--you still "win" as long as you get 50,000 words down, and I think that's increasingly attainable--especially given that the last half of the month favors me more than the first. And I never expected to have a draft worthy of submission by December 1. But I'm 14,240 in, Lorelei hasn't met her God-Teacher yet, and they've still got a heretofore unplanned excursion to a meeting of the Urusks' High Council. Not to mention that even when they meet Zvonimir, we're at maybe 25% of the way through the story. And that's not including a few things that I intend to add in the editing process--details on battles, a bit more shading, and so forth. I'm figuring 100,000 words will get 'er done--or about 300-400 pages. Whee!
  
• Characters are starting to morph on me. That should happen--characters should start insisting that pace my early intentions, they have their own lives and views on things, thank you very much. Lorelei is more reserved than I thought, and more plagued by self-doubt. Miia is more fiery, and more reckless. Malcolm is more noble than I thought, by a large, large margin. That necessitated the stopover with the Urusks. And I haven't even met Zvonimir yet, other than as a few asides--and he's arguably the most complex character I've conceived of.
  
• I'm starting to hit the rollercoaster. I'm blowing very hot and cold--one minute I think I might just have something, and most other minutes I think I'm churning out garbage. The nice thing about NaNoWriMo is that the goal of 50,000 words keeps you marching forward in the face of doubt; once I've written half this story, I'm going to finish it up through sheer intertia. That's why I started this in the first place.