I Broke One Of My Rules Early This Morning

I know that today is an incredibly inappropriate day to do this but I'm taking a much needed break from NaNoWriMo.

I wrote 894 words just as yesterday turned into today to put me at 51,115.

I only wrote them because I was helping a second Chicago person across the 100,000 mark. That's the only thing left keeping Chicago alive, I think. We've got two power writers this year who are just incredible.

Chicago took a brief lead in the Word War again today and it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

It's still showing us with a lead of 2,073,408 to 2,068,834 but I think this lead will be shortlived as Toronto is at an all-night write-in right now. I'm still savoring it though and we may survive as our top writer is doing a NaNoWriDay which means she's writing 50,000 words today.

Which is crazy but I appreciate it.

Not that I don't appreciate every Chicago writer. I actually spent the entire day sending out e-mails to the entire team describing the awards at the end. And since it's me, I put a personal salutation in each.

Hopefully that personal touch will get people writing again. Or if not, than the awards for the people in the middle or at the bottom of the standings will.

It really doesn't feel like there's a week left in November. It feels like the month is nearly over. My brain has "blue screened" already so it feels like there's no more November for me. I'm still writing but there's nothing behind it anymore.

I don't feel anything so I can no longer feel for my characters and that's just not good.

So maybe not writing today will help me reconnect with them.

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During the word war today, I did something that I haven't done all month - I quoted another source that wasn't mine.

I made two promises to myself. I was not going to do a dream sequence this month and I wasn't going to quote a song verbatim and analyze it.

I still haven't done the first (and it's doubtful I will) and I technically still haven't done the second. Problem was there's a line from "Man On Fire":

"A man can be an artist in anything. Food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasy’s art is death. He’s about to paint his masterpiece."

And it just fit Tabitha trying to destroy Kate...and Andy's life so perfectly that I had to use it. And, yes, I did explain it a bit:

I’ve never quite understood you humans and your desire to blow things up. Some of you seem to like to destroy as much as others of you like to create. It’s like an art form to you. While I never saw Tabitha actually create anything, I knew from the time that I spent with her that she liked to fancy herself an artist. Now I think I realize that her art wasn’t creation at all, her art was destruction.

To be fair, I wrote that before quoting "Man On Fire" and not after. Though I think I was pretty obviously inspired by it.

I am writing a meta-novel about movies so I think it's fair. And it still means that 99.99% of the words in the novel are mine. That's just an estimate, I didn't do the math. :)

And I'm trying to be fair in all things. Some would say to a fault.