NaNo and Pencils

I've had a pretty roller-coaster NaNoWriMo so far this year. I'm about 4,000 words from winning, so that's no problem, but for most of the first half of the month I was wayyy behind. Like, 7,000 words at a time behind (my goal, not the 50k goal). I was caught up yesterday, after a 28-page day in my jammies started early with no Internet until lunchtime. Today I did only 1k. Bad me.

The book is different than anything I've done before, in that the romantic leads are married with a huge obstacle to overcome, and there is a dual timeline with flashbacks to how they got to the point where they are. The flashbacks ended up being in non-chronological order, which I like, but their presence has made the adventure plot develop slowly, probably too slowly. But it's a NaNo draft, so that's okay. In theory. We'll see come next spring when I'm revising.

I feel a bit guilty for writing during a writer's strike. Of course, I'm a novelist, and we already get residuals (i.e. royalties for each copy sold, that's our complete pay system). I couldn't write for visual entertainment if I wanted to. So the strike has nothing to do with me. But there's not too much I can do to show my solidarity, living as I do in central Pennsylvania, fairly far from strike zones. I can sign petitions. Blog about it. (How's that for meta? Self-referential linking!) And...

Buy pencils!

I love this idea. A concrete way to demonstrate to the AMPTP that the audience--the only people more important than writers in the popular entertainment equation--are on the writers' side. All it costs you is a buck! Go for it! Heck, go for it even if you side with the AMPTP because you, too, are a greedy bastard who doesn't want to give a penny to anyone else who is responsible for your millions. It may help cut the overall strike time, and then you'll get your 30 Rock back. :)