Word count: 42477 | Since last entry: 530 | This month: 6555 It’s a breakthrough for Jason, not for me. I finished up the current section with the scene I began on 11/6, in which Jason explains packet-based wireless communication to Chopper using a handful of bullets and a magazine as a visual aid, and Chopper uses the analogy to suggest a solution to Jason’s problem (without really understanding the problem itself). The trick was to come up with something Chopper would reasonably say, and that would point Jason in the direction of the solution but leave the key insight to Jason. It helps that I can change the technology to match the analogy — a power I don’t have in my day job! The transition between the end of the sex scene flashback and the beginning of the technology-analogy discussion is clunky. I may revisit it tomorrow. When I see NaNoWriMo participants writing 2000 words a day (which they have to, to achieve 50k words in a month), I look at my 500- and 600-word days and think “I could do better”. But those 500 and 600 words a day really add up, when you write every single day. At this rate I’ll be finished with the current chapter before OryCon, and then I can work on a short story for a while. It may be crap, but I feel way productive. And, frankly, I don’t think it’s crap. Oh, it may be kind of infodumpy and in need of tightening, and Jason’s motivations are muddled and the aliens aren’t alien enough. But this is a first draft, dammit, and these things can be corrected in rewrite. Onward!