If I hurry, I can finish my current novel and win NaNoWriMo by midnight Japan time. All I have to do is write about 171 words per minute for the next two hours.

Although I maintained a reasonably consistent writing habit, which is the entire point of NaNoWriMo, I wasn’t able to sit down and grind out the pages needed to “win”. Starting the evening classes twice a week also stole away a lot of time and although i had a lot train time my routine amounted to 1) if you get a seat, nap on the way to Tokyo; 2) get a seat at a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and write your blog entry; 3) after the classes, if you get a seat, read all the way home because the seats are too cramped to write comfortably and you don’t want to risk looking up into the eyes of the little old lady standing in front of your seat.

(Note: Yes, for the record, my mother raised me better than that.  However, the rules are if you don’t see the little old lady, you don’t have to give up your seat too her. Something like that. Either way, gentlemanliness and gentlemanly virtue vanish on the last train and that little old lady would have killed someone for that seat and probably tried.)

The other hassle was exam preparation time which filled up slots that could have been used–totally unofficially of course because “salary” and “good worker” and “contract”–as writing time. Today for example, I had an extra hour of down time (long story) and ended up doing actual school related work at the school where I work. (I am as surprised as you are.)

If I do this again next year, and I almost certainly will, I will aim to trade off some of my free days in October with my busy days in November. I’d intended to do that this year, but it didn’t work out.

The results of all this were 29,524 (ish) words; a lot of world building and rebuilding; several pages of character description and character design; the basics of a plot and a couple usable scenes; the chance to use three pens in “real world” conditions (more on that in another post); a novel worth pursuing.

As always, it’s been an interesting month of writing. It was easy at first, then not, and then life and work took over to make it even more difficult. I’ll keep working on the book but will also make time to finish the editing and typing projects that have been put on hold this month.

(Also, next year, if I’m still doing this blog, I might count those words as part of my daily word count…)