National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is the redheaded
daughter of literary world. She gains a freckle for every soul she eats. Mine
has gone down fifteen times as of this year. Which is my excuse for not having
posted last Sunday to let you know that I arrived safely in Quartzsite, AZ and
am writing from my trailer in the Scenic Road RV Park.
I have a site that faces east, so I can comfortably leave my
windows and doors open and sit outside to work in the afternoon. At the moment,
it’s a sparse settlement here. Apparently, they expect the full-season folks to
be here by this weekend as there is a meet and greet on Tuesday. Looking
forward to that. The rest of the spaces will fill on a short-term basis with
people here anywhere from a couple days to a couple months.
The concluding chapter of my journey down here, I’m happy to
say, was a peaceful one. Coming down out of the Great Basin, I stopped to hike
around Cathedral Gorge a bit. Well, I hiked around the parking lot, which gave
a lot of views of this spectacular park.
Then it was on to Las Vegas for a night. I indulged in a
buffet dinner and a buffet breakfast at the Main Street Casino where I also
parked my fifth wheel. If you are RVing through Vegas and need to stay one or
two nights, I recommend the downtown RV parks. Or parking spaces, I should say.
They are too small to want to spend more than a couple of nights. I was barely
able to get my slide-out deployed without interfering in someone else’s space.
But for $25 a night with full hookups, the price is a real bargain compared to
the dedicated RV parks on the strip or southside of town. And you are walking
distance from the sights and sounds of the Fremont Street Experience.
For me, Vegas was my last stop to stock up supplies for the
next few months. Like coffee. I bought several pounds at the only Costco I’ll
see until I go back to Vegas in January for the AVN show. A few steaks and
granola and I was set for the winter. After a night at Lake Havasu, I trundled
into Quartzsite on Halloween and was ready to start NaNoWriMo on November
first.
Almost. This is my fifteenth NaNoWriMo and I believe it is
the first one that I was unable to stay awake till midnight on HalloNaNoWeen to
get started. Not to be too concerned, however, since I was awake and hopping to
start at 4:00 a.m. And from that point on, I was focused!
I did get out a couple of times. I had to get a post office
box. I had to mail my ballot. And I had to go play pickleball with my friends
from Sun Meadow. Just like every Tuesday this summer, except we all wore
clothes.
By the way, I didn’t realize it, but if you go to the post
office to mail a letter, you are the sender. If you’ve already mailed the
letter…
So much for my imaginary adventures. Let’s get to the real
world. What are Gee Evars and Karen Weisman up to in Wild Woods? Yes, that has been my number one focus since arriving
in Quartzsite. I’m writing. So far, I’ve completed four chapters of Wild Woods, and another five chapters of
Devon Layne’s Double-Take (shorter
chapters). As a result, yesterday I crossed the proverbial NaNoWriMo Finish
Line with over 50,000 words in ten days.
I don’t believe this is the earliest I’ve ever completed the
50k race. I’m pretty sure one year I made it by the eighth. But I’m still
pretty proud of it. It looks like I might have finished first in both the
Seattle region and the Yuma region. Yuma, with only 31 registered writers, is
averaging a very high 15.6k per writer so far. Not bad!
Of course, the concept of finishing is relative. My current
total of 57,281 includes 36,191 on Wild
Woods and 21,090 on Double-Take.
My real goal is to finish Wild Woods,
somewhere around 100,000 words and get at least 50,000 done on Double-Take. I have subscribers to the
rough draft of both books who are reading new material every day.
Yes, you can still subscribe, but only via Paypal at the
moment https://www.paypal.me/aroslav.
A $10 or greater contribution will get you the links to both stories. You can
just ignore the link to Double-Take
if you aren’t into adult erotica. Don’t forget to leave me your email address
so I can send you the links.
Now, as the sun sinks slowly into the west over the tops of
the neighboring trailers, it’s time for me to get back to the work you pay me
to do. New books, coming up!
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