I’m reasonably sure that anybody reading this already knows about NaNoWriMo, but just in case, tis November, the season of Nation Novel Writing Month. I’ve never entered because I’m always knee-deep in something when November rolls around. Besides, I spent summers doing 2500K a day starting when I was 12. (I’ve never had a life.) I kinda need to focus more on putting rather less on the page. Anywho, two years ago Clarity and I started a NaNo tradition wherein I stake 50K of whatever I’m working on at the time against her winning NaNo, winner gets ice cream. Don usually snickers on the sidelines and begs piteously to see the products of our labors before they get polished for to mock us.
Not this year.
Clarity’s gotten all lame and decided that getting into grad school is more important than creating an opportunity to buy me more ice cream. So I talked a co-worker who’s doing NaNo for the first time into making a bet with me. Then, shockingly, Don threw his hat in for a bet too. It’s my understanding that he’s doing NaNo proper and starting a fresh project.
That’s the explanation for this:
Current word count: 51722
Counting words from sections I’ve hidden which will almost certainly get cut because juggling two time lines takes up way too much space: 110834
Pages that, somewhere in what’s there already, need to be cut: 20 (single-spaced)
Words that count for NaNo bet: 0
I’m just going to periodically run a word count on the whole file, subtract what was already there, and call that my progress. If I get around to finding the 20 pages that can be cut, they’ll get their own section in the “cut to avoid another 200K tome monster thingie” file.
Technically I staked being 50K from where I started. Does that mean that when I cut that goes against my progress? People with ice cream on the line get to decide. I’m willing to take the handicap.
Also, I’m willing to extend my bet to include anybody within range of actually buy/receiving ice cream. In other words, if I’m going to see you within, say, by March, I’ll swagger, put my nose in the air and say, “50K? Pah! I could sneeze and 50,000 words would appear on the screen.” Come on, I’ve been so cocky lately that this is almost guaranteed to bite me in the ass.
Anaea Lay 
Ice Cream, Ice Cream!
What happens if we both “win” by writing the 50,000 words? Do we all get ice cream? With marshmallow fluff? 🙂
Perhaps it is how fast we reach that goal that counts?
That’s the way we’ve always played it.
This lead to the day where I buckled down and took the contest seriously two days before the end, and beat Clarity by an hour.
For the record, I bought her porn to make it up to her. Lousy porn, but still…
Yeah, this university is sad if Vita is the best we can come up with.
For the record, the reason I was most upset about that? I really wanted to read that ‘thing’ you produced.
I’m having unwanted reproductive urges. Can you shoot me in the uterus from Madison, or do I have to wait until you come down here?
Hon, Halloween was two days ago. Stop trying to scare me.
But go ahead, have a baby. I’ve got a new mango marinade I’ve been wanting to try out.
Not to mention, if you have a kid, I get to be its Aunt. I’d love to be an Aunt. Muahahahaha!
Also, are we not doing a loser-has-to-show-their-work-to-Nick rule? Because I think that worked well in the past.
No. You lost that fun when you entered the contest. If all agree we might do a losers-show-winners rule, but I’m kinda hoping to turn NaNoers into a long form writer’s group and so everybody will see everybody’s stuff anyway, and spoilers can hurt a writing group a lot.