NaNoWriMo daily update

43,505/50,000
Words

Not much writing tonight. I may have a problem: while I'm still on schedule, I might be finished with the book. That's part of why I'm quitting early tonight, aside from the fact I'm a little tired: I think I'd like to ruminate, maybe figure out where I can add substance and not just padding. The bits I added tonight felt like padding, which is okay for NaNoWriMo purposes but not for any long-term health this thing might have.

I did a couple of little ficlets tonight before I hit Cream And Bastards, not sure if that was good or not, but it was hard to resist. The first little piece was in response to a challenge: write a vampire story. That's not a challenge for me: I have a vampire book on the back burner during NaNoWriMo (and might leave it there for a little bit thanks to another idea I had during NaNoWriMo). But it was fun to do, anyway: it's called "Eternal Monologue" and it's inspired by all those Hammer Films where someone accidentally resurrects Dracula by yanking the stake out of his ribcage--because if you found a skeleton in a coffin with a wooden stake through its heart, that's what you would do, right? But, more importantly, what the hell does Dracula think about when he's waiting for someone to come by? He probably wonders whether he left the iron plugged in, but once he's decided he's not going to burn down Castle Dracula, then what? So I wrote this:

Eternal Monologue

It takes three things to kill a vampire.

Yes, I know.

Of course you do.

Then why are we talking about it?

Because you have nothing else to do for a very long time. The odds of someone just happening to visit the tower, descending into the crypt, opening the coffin, then pulling the stake from your chest are very slim.

I’d rather think about how much time has passed.

It could be seconds, minutes, years, centuries.

I don’t think it would be seconds. That would be pretty daft of them.

Yes, but these are the same people who didn’t decapitate you and place a holy communion wafer in your mouth. Now, as I was saying, there are three ways—

You just said that.

What?

Stake, decapitation, wafer-in-mouth. You covered it.

I did?

Yes.

Hm. Well. What do we talk about now?

Favorite book?

We did that one.

A long time ago.

You don’t know that. It might have been seconds.

You just said that would be daft of them.

Oh. Right. Bleak House.

What?

My favorite book. Bleak House. Dickens.

No it’s not...

Anyway, there's your daily update. G'night. See you tomorrow.