Well, the first day of the contest is in the books, and what a day it’s been. I’ve been up, down, confused, breaking through, sleepy, despondent, excited–and it’s only been the first day. In the end, I got more work done than I had hoped to, almost eleven thousand words. Much of the character development I did has gone out the window, and the outline has been stripped to the barest skeleton, but that’s par for the course. I have nagging doubts about the whole project, but luckily I don’t have any time for them. I still don’t know what’s in the briefcase, and I don’t know for sure who even has it, but I feel like I’m on the verge of knowing. All in all, it’s been a very good first day, and I’m ending on a real roll.
Tomorrow I hope to get even more done. By this time tomorrow night I want to be at least to twenty-five thousand words, and twenty-eight or thirty thousand would be very nice. Given the breakthroughs I had today, that isn’t out of the question. If I can stay focused, stay with my plan, and hit my marks tomorrow, then I have a good chance of completing the book on time on Monday. I won’t be able to coast to the finish, but at least I’ll have a shot to sprint for it.
Right now, though, I need to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.
