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This Open Thread Has Not Reached Its Word Count

Another hump day here at Persephone. How’s the middle of the week treating you?

If you’re one of my NaNoWriMo(ers?), you’re probably sweating out the Friday night 50,000 word deadline. We didn’t have a check in last week because of the holiday, so feel free to howl out your frustration (or calls of early triumph) in the thread.

Here’s a lovely little ditty about the writing process to play while you question your decision to knock out a 50,000 word novel in a month.

John Willmot penned his poetry
riddled with the pox
Nabakov wrote on index cards,
at a lectem, in his socks
St. John of the Cross did his best stuff
imprisoned in a box
And JohnnyThunders was half alive
when he wrote Chinese Rocks

By [E] Slay Belle

Slay Belle is an editor and the new writer mentor here at Persephone Magazine, where she writes about pop culture, Buffy, and her extreme love of Lifetime movies. She is also the editor of powderroom.jezebel.com. You can follow her on Twitter, @SlayBelle or email her at slay@persephonemagazine.com.

She is awfully fond of unicorns and zombies, and will usually respond to any conversational volley that includes those topics.

12 replies on “This Open Thread Has Not Reached Its Word Count”

I never paid much attention to the word count ‘deadlines’ when I did NaNoWriMo, because I’m the kind of person who would rather wait until the last moment that I think I can do something. I did complete it one year!

I gave notice at my job yesterday, so I’ll start the transition to the new job in a couple of weeks (with a kickoff in Vegas). It’s gonna rock. It went well for the most part, but the owner of the company that I go through (I’m on-site as a contractor at a big tech company) wrote ‘now we’ll have to replace you’ as if I didn’t know that or should feel guilty about it. His wife (who works with him) said she understood and wished me well. I’m starting to subtly announce the new gig on social media, but so far no one has noticed (I updated my G+ and Facebook profiles). I know when I update LinkedIn everyone will catch it. I’m trying to keep focusing on it because it’s such good news, and it balances out having to think about all of the bad stuff for a while…

Met my wordcount ~11:50pm which is a new record for me. In the past, I’ve always raced the clock on the last day to get those words in, but here I am, finished a whole two days ahead of schedule. I’m amazed. And I’m still in mourning for the character I snuffed in the last scene, so I’m going to go to bed now.

Haven’t reached it, and absolutely will not make it on time. I can’t feel too stressed about it though, I haven’t been able to write anything at all. I always knew the chances were slim I’d make it.

I came across this : A Round of Words in 80 Days (http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/)

It seems a bit more to my needs – not only do you set you goal (and it can be word count, pages, minutes per day, anything measurable) , you get 80 days to reach it.

I’m moving to a new city…and I’m procrastinating on my packing. Just read the newest recap of 50 Shades of Grey here – http://jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.com/?zx=bd13e49384794e62 . And I want to rage for a second… Uh, spoilers if you haven’t read the book? All I read of these books are the recaps on P-Mag and Jen’s blog. So in this particular recap/chapter, Ana finds out that the naked photos Christian has locked in his safe are there…not because he wants to remember old lovers, but because he needs them to BLACKMAIL THOSE WOMEN. AND THIS REALIZATION IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE THE SITUATION BETTER! I…REALLY!? This is the man all the women are fantasizing about? I don’t exactly know why this is my tipping point on this character…but it is. Women are fantasizing about a man who would demand naked photos of you, and then keep them to control you. I think I am more upset because a woman wrote this…and the sort of women who enjoy this book are exactly the kind that would slut shame and victim-blame other women. I…yep. That brings it all home for me. /rant

Someone at my job is leaving and some people decided to plan a surprise lunch for her. But one of the people invited (not in our department) has been physically harassing me (hands on my neck, pushing, hand too close). Two people in my department know, I guess the person inviting didn’t. And I blew up at someone whom I am planning a dinner with because she didn’t consider other people’s allergies, even after claiming to know about them. Ah. Lovely day. My other job is going well at least.

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