It's strange coming to the end of a story that's insistently told itself every day for a month.

I'd like to go on, but it's finished. Oh, perhaps another night of writing, at most.

It's not sad to come to the end, though having evenings to do nothing will seem strange, almost indolent, excessively free, you know what I mean.

I may even start going to bed at a reasonable hour again, instead of 2 or 3am, and do away with the weekend sleepfests.

What can I say about it? I've had a writer's block for about a year and a half in that nothing has flowed easily in that long. Yes, I do feel writing's been released in me again and that feels good and wonderful. Writing is flowing, the block's released, and I don't care what caused it or didn't.

The story is strange in that it is not autobiographical at all and doesn't have huge depth or any of the writerly slants I like to give things I compose.

The first day I sat down and wrote, without any prior notion of what to write.

Each day was like this. In fact, the less pre-determined, the more spontaneous, the better. I cleared my mind as in meditation and wrote from a fresh place. Often what occured surprised me, yet seemed logical in terms of the story that was telling itself.

The story, now that's another aspect of this process. The story reminds me of those long, boring dreams we have, ones that take lots of dreamtime, and if we remember them, relating them goes on and on and really we see very little point to them. They are not 'major' dreams. They are ordinary, every day dreams. Our little adventures, the ones submerged in our minds beneath the big transformational dreams, beneath the big thoughts and important occurences of our lives. What I discovered from writing this book is that an awful lot of things go on just below the conscious threshold. We are infinitely rich beings on whom the world makes a huge impact.

Yeah, there 's a fair bit of Eros in it. But not nearly enough. And towards the end it dies out altogether, but then the main character got married and has a family and etcetera.

But it was juicy in the telling up to the settling down.

I'm going to race through it cleaning up glaring inconsistencies, grammar, excesses, and if you convince me you'd be interested, and were willing to share your thoughts on the composition, by email, then I may add you to a version for readers and/or collaborators (for the purpose of editing typos only) who've expressed an interest in the manuscript.

After the effort of the last month to produce 50,000 coherent words, which I chose to do as 2,000 words a day, prefering to give myself a little leeway for the inevitable crises in daily living that occur or to finish early, both of which happened, and having crossed the finish line yesterday, I found I was truly exhausted today.

Yesterday I also managed to disable the wireless network and not having an hour or more to deal with technical assistance got a long internet cable out of the doldrums and plugged it into my computer to cross that NaNoWriMo finish line!

While I did attend Kaeja d'Dance's fundraiser last night, and showing of dance films by local students, and had tickets to Kaeja Mad Screen this evening, I had no energy. But my novella isn't finished! Instead of resting, I wrote my daily count. Another 2500 words! Crazy or what.

Now he's almost out of the mountain cave where condors nest having recovered his memory & I have to get him safely down & home... :)

It's official. I am a NaNoWriMo winner - just logged in at 50,042 words, and still writing... whoopee.

Now off to Kaeja d'Dance.

My nights are spent avoiding then struggling to write, hours, agonizing, then bursts of a clicking keyboard as a new scene emerges, now at 46,658 words.

That's, so far, 223 double-spaced pages.

For someone who started NaNoWriMo on November 1st to break through a writer's block, it's an explosion of writing. And I'm actually not displeased with what's happened in the pages that have spun out during the past few weeks. It's a fascinating process, writing under a deadline.

I recommend it, along with the writing we do when inspired of course. Both are valuable.

I'm very tired, so time to turn off the computer.

'Night everyone!

Passed the 40,000 word mark . Only 10,000 words to go. Groan, Groan, Groan, Groan, Groan... ::wan smile from a NaNoWriMo moll::

When this is over, I'm going to sleep for a thousand hours.

Or years, whatever comes first.

Don't I look like I'm writing maniacally, not having a life! Squirreled away, pounding the keyboard, reading glasses hugging the nose, hour after hour, night after night... sleep for a thousand hours, I say!

How's it going? Really and truly I can no longer call it 'erotic fiction.' Ah, well. I tried but ya know writing trash is difficult and beyond my capacities to keep up for any length of time.

Here's a snatch from tonight:

At HIL (House of Ill-Repute), Orsola and Mœdello sat at the great wooden table next to the kitchen surrounded by the five Madames and whoever else drifted in and out, various children of varying ages mostly. The Madames were dressed in old velvets and chiffons of deep and warm colours, dark purples and rose pinks, and some wore rhinestone beaded bandannas and they all wore dangly shiny costume jewelry from their ears and around their necks. They were more opulent than when they were younger, and exuded even more sensuality.

Perhaps it was the insular way the city had developed, the Bordello more-or-less aging with its original occupants. These were older women who laughed easily and who were comfortable with who they were, how they looked, in themselves; even if some might say they looked a little batty, to Orsola and Mœdello, they were colourful, warm and beautiful.

But it got worse in tonight's writing.

The Bordello was like an apothecary. A pantry at the back contained an array of herbal remedies, not just many bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters and walls, but shelves of tinctures.

And then my rampant muse, oh! My rampant muse made an outrageous assertion.

For, besides being hookers, the old Madames were as knowledgeable as trained midwives.

While they laughed often, they were jovial women, particularly hearty laughter shook them when they said they were women from the ancient religion and were high priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, midwives and healers. Of course, no-one took such nonsense seriously.

The NaNoWriMo novella is progressing on schedule. I wrote till 2am last night, this is becoming normal, especially yesterday, a day of kid crises that were finally all resolved at midnight followed by two hours of intense writing, and then an hour to unwind. Slept from 3am-8am without waking, then onward with the day. Day after day of these hours and I do get rather tired, but I'll sleep late on the weekend and catch up. I should finish the 50,000 words five days early, and so I'm considering spending those five days on a 'clean-up' edit for consistency and spelling etc., I don't think it'll be possible to do a rewrite (at 10,000 words a day, uh uh - I'm |insane| but not that |insane|!)

(though my head is heavy and dull, made my word count, before midnight too. 28007 words now.)

If I think my NaNoWriMo's raunchy, I have a ways to go: "My Name is Juani," Spanish flick, won awards, upcoming European Union Film Festival in Toronto.

On my calendar, sigh.

Take notes.

Reached 18,204 words now, becoming more social conscience, clearing out the old order & rebuilding society, ah NaNo freedom!- must stop, got to meet a friend.

I find a daily word goal works best- this year it's 2000 words a day, and thus far I've been meeting it. In the early morning I write 600-800 words, and in the late evening the remaining 1200 or so words to meet that day's target.

Find your rhythm, and go with it.