NaNoWriMo '12: 7,037

I don't want to write long, belabored blogs about NaNo this year, in which I update my word count and indicate progress and goals and blah blah blah every post. To fix that, my word count will be conveniently included in each title, and that is the only numerical update you will get.

That will save room for the good updates, like how the heck my novel is coming along.

Answer: AIOSEUJIROHIRJE SO WELL.

No, really. I love my novel this year. For those of you who followed my 2010 NaNoWriMo updates, I have gutted that novel and am rewriting it this year, with new, more developed characters, a more believable setting, and a less-hole-filled plot. Yeah.

So far everything is flowing and my main character, Helen (instead of Bonnie), is dictating the plot. I love it when that happens.

It's now Day Five and I am behind. I should be at 8,333 words right now. But I'm not disappointed and there are three reasons for that. 1 is that it's only 8:51 pm. 2 is that I've already written more words than I did during last year's failed NaNo. 3 is that something beautiful happened today. And I quote (from my novel, The Unquiet):

Helen felt Meyer’s heart pounding beneath his button-down shirt, bumbum bumbum, and suddenly it was all she could hear, all she could do, just listen to that heartbeat. If she listened long enough, maybe it would become her heartbeat, and maybe she could ride it back home, maybe she could follow it to Ben, who would bring her a bottle of Cherry Vodka and tell her to drink until she forgot—a forgetting she controlled, a forgetting she craved. Not this kind of forgetting, this kind of falling and confusion, this kind of half-truth and up-is-down.

“You know Susan?” she finally asked.

“How could I not? She’s your best friend,” Meyer replied happily, releasing her from the hug only to bring a hand to her cheek.

Helen felt suddenly dizzy. “I need to sit down.”

Without another word, Meyer led her to the kitchen and sat her down on a wooden chair at the table, where breakfast sat growing cold on blue and gold plates. Once he was assured she was firmly seated, Meyer padded to the sink and began pouring her a glass of water. Then he was beside her again and she was sipping the water greedily.

“If you’re not feeling up to the Tellers, I can just call Susan and see if she can stop by after work,” Meyer offered. “You can go back upstairs and lie down. I’ll bring you a book. You can relax.”

Meyer’s hands moved to her back, where he kneaded circles against the fabric of her dress. The motion comforted her, though she still felt off-kilter.

That Meyer knew Susan, that she was here—wherever here was—made Helen even more confused. This life, this world, felt patch worked, stitched together—old and new, revised and molded until Helen couldn’t make sense of anything.

But she did know one thing: as she allowed Meyer to massage her back, as she felt his gentle touch, sensed in the way his body angled towards hers the adoration and hope he wouldn’t say aloud, she knew she was in the clear, at least for today. She had appeased Meyer—albeit without meaning to—had convinced him that she was, in fact, Olivia. And now, his demeanor brightened, she knew she had avoided the Tellers. She knew, now that she had behaved, Meyer was at ease.

This, she acknowledged, was a powerful thing to know.

I can't really give you the context of this scene without writing another novel in this blog, so I will just hope that you can admire the language and emotion of the scene and not care that you have no idea what's going on.

I'm going to win this year. And it's going to be a glorious win.