This is the time to panic. According to the National Novel Writing Month website, 2,489 authors have successfully reached 50,000 words - they’re listed in the Winners page. Meanwhile, the rest of us are desperately scrambling not to be on the Losers page (there is no such page, of course - but we’re scrambling anyway).

I am at 36,921 words. I’m not that much in a panic. Sure, I’ve still got a long way ahead, but when I just sit down and think about it: I wrote 36,921 words!!! In a month that was extremely busy and at times crazy! And these words came out of thin air, with no story or preparation beforehand at all. At this moment, my character Rue has chosen a side in the City Below to take her back to the surface, and is discovering the wonder of living in a place she has never been - and the corruption of the forces that keep this world separate from where she lives. I have no idea what she’s up to, each time I sit down and write something. But she always goes and surprises me.

So I have four days left to write roughly 13,000 words. Here’s my plan: I will work in my day job as usual. (What?!?) But once in a while, I will write here and there. I found a website called Write or Die that forces you to reach a word goal - if you stop writing, it plays a horrible sound, or even deletes what you just wrote. Harsh? Very. And I didn’t want to resort to it. But lo and behold, I tried it yesterday - and wrote 500 words in 10 minutes, just out of sheer fear that it was going to play that awful sound! So I will keep using that site, and this weekend I am firmly going to hole up and not do ANYTHING ELSE except write. I can do it. I really can.

And even if I can’t, hey - 36,921 words!!! That is no small feat.