I have officially won NaNoWriMo for 2009!  My novel hit 50K words the other day, but since the NaNo site’s word validator is vastly different than the one on my word processor, I had to keep writing.  The NaNo site said I had 1,500 less words than I actually did.  This is kind of irritating since most people just have a difference of a hundred words or so.  Some people even get words added onto their word count when they put it in the validator.  Lucky, lucky.

Today I wrote the extra 1,500 words and put my novel into the validator, and officially won!  However, my novel isn’t finished.  It’s almost finished, but I really don’t know when I’ll finish it.  After writing so intensely for nearly a month, I’m kind of tired of it.  It’s time to get back to fan fiction for a while.

NaNoWriMo has begun yet again and I am just crazy enough to yet again write an entire novel in a month.  I got off to a bit of a rocky start yesterday between having to switch points of view a chapter in and then having to drive back to school after being home for the weekend.  But as of right now I’m on track.  My current word count is 4,272 and my goal for today is 5,000.  So, two days in, I am on track!

My sister is doing amazingly this year on her NaNo.  She’s written just over 7,000 words.  I’m so proud!

Where did September go?  Seriously, that month went so fast.  Seems like the first day of school was just last week.  But nope, it definitely wasn’t.  Mid semester break is in a few weeks, which means that, hence its name, it will soon be the middle of the semester.  Guess who hasn’t started her senior thesis?  Hehe, that would be me.  I really should get started on it.  I am such a bad procrastinator.

October also means that Nanowrimo starts in a month.  I have a plot and I’m excited about it.  It’s a futuristic story about what happens after scientists figure out how to cure death, and it becomes mandatory that people cannot die.  That’s the story in a nutshell, but it’ll be more complicated than that.  I just hope I’ll have the time to work on it.  After finishing last year’s Nano in a mere two weeks, I decided to up my word count goal to 75,000 this year instead of Nano’s standard 50,000.  I’ve changed my mind now that I’ve realized how busy I’ll be that month.  If only I could use my thesis for my Nano, that would motivate me to get it done!

The Thursday Thirteen website seems to not be available today, but I am posting a Thursday Thirteen anyway.   So, here are thirteen of my favorite  websites.  They are in no particular order and I have excluded my favorite blogs from the list.

1.  J.K. Rowling’s Website.  Not only is this the website of my favorite author, it is one of the best designed websites I have ever encountered.  It’s unique and interactive and I have spent hours at a time exploring it.  Plus, the little extra bits of Harry Potter information that are scattered throughout the site make any Harry Potter fan’s day.

2.  Broomsticks and Owls is the first Harry Potter related message board I ever joined.  I have been a member there for over two years now.  It has a very close-knit feeling to it, as it is very small.  But, we’re very welcoming to new members and always appreciate them!  I like all the Harry Potter forums I’m a member of, but this one will always be special to me.

3.  Petfinder.  Without Petfinder, we never would have found Benny, so that one is self-explanatory.  It is great to be able to look at listings for pets that are far away from your house.

4.  Harry Potter Fan Fiction.com is where I ‘publish’ my fan fiction and read numerous other wonderful stories.  I spend a lot of time there and it has definitely helped with my post Deathly Hallows Potter withdrawal.

5.  The Leaky Cauldron.  What can I say about Leaky?  Well, it is my favorite place to go for Harry Potter related news.  Plus, it has a forum and TLC is organizing a Harry Potter convention, which I plan on attending.

6.  Dogster.  Because any site where people can create profiles for their pets and then talk to other pet owners while pretending to be their pet is brilliant.

7.  Harry Potter Fan Fiction Forums.  As affiliated with #4.  It’s where all of us fan fic writers go to talk about our stories with people who actually get it.  Plus, if it weren’t for that forum, I am sure I never would have completed my NaNo.

8.  The Harry Potter Lexicon.  Despite the lawsuit between it’s owner, Steve Vander Ark and J.K. Rowling, I would be lying if I said this site wasn’t one of my favorites.  It’s an invaluable resource for fan fiction writers, who don’t want to spend hours leafing through the books to find out a tiny bit of information needed for a story.  However, I must note that I did not support Vander Ark’s side of the lawsuit.  A book form of this website is blatant copyright infringement and completely unfair to J.K. Rowling.

9.  Bored.com.  Anytime I have a few minutes to do absolutely nothing, I can always count on this site to provide me with useless entertainment.

10.  PotterCast.  Because what Harry Potter fan wouldn’t want to listen to an hour of Potter-related stuff once a week?  I won’t say much about PotterCast in this post, as I plan on devoting an entire post to it in the near future.

11.  MuggleNet Fan Fiction.  This was the first fan fiction website I came upon and it introduced me to what spawned into quite the addiction.  Although I like the way HarryPotterFanFiction is designed better, I still read stories on MNFF and enjoy every one of them.

12.  Capitol Steps.  The songs they have on this site are absolutely brilliant.  It’s a must visit for anyone interested in making fun of the hysterical people who run our country.  No politician is save from their parody skills.

13.  Things My Dog Ate.  This site is a must see for anyone who has a dog who destroys things.  It’ll make you laugh and probably feel better about the kind of destruction your dog inflicts upon your house.  Plus, Benny is on that site.

Anyone sensing a pattern with these?

Someone on the Harry Potter Fan Fiction Forums posted the link to this site where you can create a design of words based on a document you’ve written.  It’s called Wordle.   Whatever word is used the most is the biggest in the design.  The point of it was for those participating in NaNoWriMo to create Wordles of their stories.  It provided a great deal of distraction from the actual writing.   Here is mine for my NaNo.

And the best part is, you can create them for websites, too.  So here is my blog in Wordle.   I think my excerpt from my NaNo kind of messed it up, though.  I didn’t think I used the word ‘Mom’ that much in my blog.

After spending a few days thinking about which part of my NaNo story to post, I just decided to post the first half of the first chapter. Since I’m thinking about getting it published, I don’t want to post the whole story. If the publishing doesn’t work out, I’ll post the whole thing.

So, without further ado, here is the first half of the first chapter of Omega. I have not read it over, so it is completely unedited and probably contains a lot of grammatical errors.

Omega

I stood in the doorway, staring at the utter chaos that was my house. Tissues, toilet paper, bits of indistinguishable garbage, and who knows what else lay strewn about the living room. I sighed and shook my head. Benny, I thought, Benny did it again. I stepped into my house, carefully stepping over the empty bag of flour and half eaten apple cores.

“Benedict!” I shouted. Nothing.

I threw my bag onto the floor and went into the family room. I was greeted by a chorus of barking and tail thumping. Five dogs all in their own crates welcomed me home with their loud excitement. Crate by crate, I opened all the doors and was nearly bowled over by five stampeding four legged fur butts.

They followed me to the back door, which I threw open unceremoniously and all five of them rushed past me. Now to find Benny. The little monster always hid from me. Always in the same place, though.

Sure enough, there he was, munching away on a milk carton in the middle of the living room. I wrenched it out of his mouth and he looked up at me guiltily. I shook my head and led him to the back door, where he ran outside with the rest of them. I stepped out after him and sat down on the deck, waiting for them to do their thing.

All six of them. Yes, I live with six dogs. I do not know anyone else who lives with six dogs. But, what else could you expect from my mother? She is a certified dog lover in every way, shape, and form. Her sole mission in life is to rescue dogs from awful situations and adopt them out into loving homes. That is how we wound up with our zoo.

Well, only half of them are actually ours. The others are fosters. Benny, of course, is ours. Mom absolutely fell in love with him when she was supposed to be fostering him and refused to let him leave. I’m really not sure why, since he’s the biggest trouble maker I’ve ever met: Human or canine. Benny is a furry beagle/husky/shiba inu/who knows what else mix. Mom just calls him a mutt whenever she’s asked what his breed is. He is five years old, but acts like he’s five months old.

Next would be Fetch, who is a lab mix. He’s a strange dark brown/black color, depending on the sunlight. Fetch is Mom’s problem child. There isn’t anything in the world Fetch isn’t scared of. He has come a long way since Mom rescued him, but he still has an intense fear of thunderstorms, fireworks, and gun shots. He is seven years old and does act his age.

Can you tell that Mom likes the dogs with issues? Despite this, our third dog is the world’s perfect dog. His name is Alfie and is a golden retriever/poodle mix. He also acts his age of three years.

Then we have the fosters. Iris is a shih tzu mix who has the most high pitched bark in the world. George is a big weimeraner mix who is probably the calmest dog I’ve met. Lastly, Bailey is a purebred beagle who is actually going to be adopted this coming weekend.

Mom has completely devoted her life to the dogs. Ever since Dad left when I was only three, she’s thrown all her energy into managing her dog rescue, 4 Paws for the Dogs. It started out with her fostering one dog at a time from the local Humane Society and grew into her own rescue. Now she has five foster homes and connections with people all around the country in dog rescue.

I whistled loudly and all the dogs came running back up the stairs. I opened the door and let them all back inside. Six dog biscuits and fifteen minutes of playing fetch later, I was finally able to relax. The dogs had all taken their usual places around the kitchen, knowing that I’d be making a snack.

I pulled open the refrigerator and gazed inside. A half gallon of milk, two bruised apples, various condiments, a few slices of cheese, and a loaf of bread. Not much. Half the time Mom remembers to buy food for the dogs, but not for her and I. This was one of those times.

I grabbed the loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, and a bottle of mustard and slammed the fridge shut behind me. Ham and cheese without the ham. Perfect, just perfect. My day was just getting better and better.

I groaned as I remembered the mess Benny made that I hadn’t cleaned up yet. Ah, well, it could wait until after I ate. What I needed was ham and cheese to make up for the crappy day. But we had no ham.

My day started out just fine, but it went down hill as soon as I got to school. First, I got my essay back in English class and got a 67 on it. It was a two work critical lens, which is about as awful as it sounds. I was supposed to compare two novels through a famous quote, but apparently my teacher didn’t think I did it right. She wrote me a lovely comment about how I’d have to start doing better if I had any hope of passing the Regents exam at the end of the year. Next, I spilled my soda on my lap during lunch and had to walk around with a wet spot on my jeans for the next three periods until it dried. Then, to end the lovely school day, my friend Ducky told me that she would not be able to sleep over at my house that night because she was being forced to babysit her little brothers.

The last thing I needed was to come home to another mess courtesy of the mischievous mutt. I wish Mom would just crate him like the other dogs. Then he wouldn’t be able to make trouble. But he’s the one dog who will not calmly stay in a crate all day. He has one and is perfectly content to stay in it while we are home, but the moment we leave the house, he freaks out. It kind of defeats the purpose of a crate, if you ask me. So, Benny remains uncrated during the day, and despite our extensive dog proofing, he finds things to get into.

Today, that happened to be the garbage. Once I finished my hamless ham and cheese, I walked around the house and picked up all the detritus that was laying around. Next I had to mop the kitchen floor because it was sticky with what I assumed to be maple syrup.

Once I finally finished cleaning up Benny’s mess, I grabbed my bag and went up to my room. I turned on my laptop and blasted my music as loud as it could go. Homework could wait until later. It was the weekend after all.

“Tasha!”

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. Must have drifted off. The clock said it was just after five o’clock. Mom must be home, I thought.

“Tasha!”

Yes, Mom is definitely home. I turned off my music and dragged myself out of bed and downstairs. Mom was rifling through the mail while pouring kibble into six different bowls. She looked up when I came into the room.

“Tasha, there you are,” she smiled, “How was your day?”

“Crappy. What about yours?”

“Busy, like usual.”

Along with her dog rescue, Mum works as a veterinary technician. Dog rescue doesn’t provide any income at all, so she has to work as well.

“Guess what Benny did,” I muttered.

Mom sighed, “Got into something?”

“Yep. The garbage again. You must not have shut the door to the mud room all the way.”

“Sorry, Tasha,” Mum replied, “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, I know. And we also have no more food.”

“I’ll go to the store tomorrow. We can order pizza tonight.”

“Remember to get ham,” I told her, “You always forget.”

“I’ve told you that I don’t like buying that stuff.”

Mom is a vegetarian. A decision that I do not want to join her in. She often ‘forgets’ to buy the meat that I want.

“Then let me have some money and I’ll buy it.”

“Fine, fine,” Mom said, “Listen, I’ve got to do a home visit in a half hour. I’ll leave you some money and you can order the pizza.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Which dog is this for?”

“Iris. An older couple with adult children. Their application and veterinary references look great. Hopefully, Iris will have a new home within a few days.”

And then we’ll get another, I thought. It was a never ending cycle. I couldn’t remember a time when we had less than four dogs in our house at once. Even when I was little, there were always dogs around. I remember one time, Mom accidentally put my dinner in a dog dish. I thought it was funny at the time and even set it down on the floor and ate without any silverware.

Mom left for the home visit before the pizza even arrived. Home alone again. I ate quickly, let the dogs out once more, and went back up to my room. I wished Ducky could have slept over. It would have made the night go faster. Ducky and I try to have sleepovers every Friday night. We’ve been best friends ever since we were seven.

I heard the door open around seven and went to go meet Mom in the kitchen. She looked absolutely exhausted as she heated up a couple slices of pizza. Her dyed dark brown hair was falling out of its ponytail and she had purple bags under her eyes. Sometimes, I think she did too much, but she never listened when I told her that.

Mom and I went into the family room and we settled down to watch the news together. It was one of our routines, watching the news together. I know most teenagers wouldn’t find the news that interesting, but I felt it was important for me to keep up with the issues. Especially since I’d be able to vote in two years.

“Hurricane Jason’s going to hit this weekend,” Mom commented as she ate her pizza.

I nodded, “South Carolina’s going to get slammed.”

“I might have to go down there, if it’s as bad as they’re predicting.”

I sighed loudly. Every time there was a horrible natural disaster, Mom traveled to wherever it was and helped rescue the dogs that were affected. Last time she did that, we wound up with two new fosters of our own and five others for the other foster homes.

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“Sometimes I just wish you’d show some interest in animal rescue, Tasha,” Mom said.

“Sometimes I just wish you’d show some interest in my life,” I said under my breath.

“Tasha, I am interested in your life.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me why my day was crappy? You just launched right into how you had to do a home visit today.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been stressed. I’ll ask you now. Why was your day crappy?”

I launched into a lengthy explanation of my day, but Mom just sat there watching the news and rubbing Fetch’s head.

“I’m sure you’ll do better on the next essay,” Mom assured me, “And they always grade the Regents easier than the essays for class.”

“I know, but it seems like no matter how hard I try, I can’t get a decent grade in that class.”

“You are a fine writer, Tasha, and you will get a good grade soon.”

I returned to my room after the news was over. I lay on my bed, staring at my ceiling. Sometimes it seemed like the only time Mom spent with me was when we watched the news. All her spare time was spent working with the dogs or calling other rescues or organizing fund raisers.

******

So what did you think? Benny and Fetch are based completely on my Benny and Fetch. It was quite fun to write about them and put them into my story. Tasha is definitely not based on me, though.

Today, at approximately 4pm, I finished my NaNoWriMo story!  Never in a million years did I think I would be able to write a 50k novel in a month, let alone in the first 17 days!  My story topped off at 50,130, which is just over the minimum.

I am still debating about whether or not to put an epilogue in.  I’m not sure if the story really needs it or not.  Without it, there are some unresolved plot issues, but they’re not the kind of issues I need to have resolved in order for the story to be good.  Putting in the epilogue would clear those up, but it would also change the ending.  I have time to decide, though, since I’ve basically finished.

Now that I have finished it, I will try and find a good excerpt to post.  I haven’t posted one yet because I have yet to decide which part would be good to post.

All right, ‘Daily’ really isn’t the best way to describe my word counts as I am only posting them every few days, but I can’t think of anything better to call them.

As of Day 12, today, I feel like I am running out of steam for this.  I am in no means out of plot points, but I am starting to get sick of working on this so often.  My word count is way ahead of schedule and I could take a few days off, but I don’t really want to.  If I keep going at this rate, I could be done in about a week.  That would be good since finals are coming up the 2nd week of December.  Not to mention the fact that this weekend is going to be dedicated to my computer science research paper.  So, I will try to keep going at my 2,000 words a day rate.

I met my goal for today, so the end of the day count is 37,506.  So close to 40k!

All right, so my Daily Word Count has not really been ‘daily’, but oh well.  I’m writing this just after midnight, so technically it should be Day 9, but seeing as I haven’t written anything for Day 9, I’m calling it Day 8.

The past few days have been very productive and have left me with a word count of 27,766.  Plus, I have a few more plot ideas, which is excellent since I was in need of a thicker plot.  I also had a few fleeting ideas of putting a werewolf in my story.  I immediately squashed them because that would put my novel into an entirely different genre and probably ruin the possibility that it could be considered a decent plot.  I’ll stick with fan fic for the werewolves.

I’m aiming for the big 30k tomorrow.

Despite the fact that I had my eyes glued to the TV and Yahoo’s election map last night, I still managed to get over 2,000 words written.  I wrote over 2,000 today, too.  My novel is going wonderfully so far, although I am not sure how long this will last.  Surely I am due for some writer’s block or something.

So, my word count is now 20,266.  I have broken 20,000 and am almost halfway there!