NaNoWriMo Day 25

It’s Sunday, and these colds are still looming. Miraculously though, I was super-motivated last night, so I managed to catch back up. I’d like to get *ahead* today, but at this point I’m not exactly sure how this book is going to end. Usually by this time I have some great, inspiring, way for my characters to *ride off into the sunset* but I’m not quite sure what that’s going to be yet. My fear was that I was going to finish the story before I hit the 50,000 mark, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s starting to wrap up—so I might have to do some serious “padding.”

And to show you how hard I’ve been working, I’ve decided to post an excerpt (unedited, mind you). This is mid-novel, where things are starting to get sticky. Also, keep in mind that the target audience for this book is the 12-year-old girl. Forgive me for the crazy formatting...

My heart leapt into my throat. “You told them that Cameron McPherson was my COUSIN?” I sat back in my seat. “Ugh! I think I’m going to throw up. I can’t believe you, Trina!”
“I didn’t want them saying you were a loser!”
“So tell them I’m not, but don’t tell them I’m related to a Black Daze band member!”
“I’m just trying to figure out why that makes you so cool,” Simone said, thoughtfully. “I mean, their music bites. You can hardly understand what they’re saying.”
“No way! They’re like, the greatest band ever!” Trina replied.
I lifted my hand to my forehead, unable to believe this was even happening to me. I felt nauseous.
“Honestly, Trina,” I said. “I don’t know why you do this to me. Why would you even think of something like that?”
She shrugged. “I mean, you guys have the same last name. It’s spelled the exact same way. I figured that somewhere down the line you had to be related.”
“This is awful. So how many people know?”
“Not many,” she replied. “I just told those two girls.”
“And the girl I heard you talking to in the hallway,” Simone added.
“Two girls came up to me at my locker wanting to know if I could get Cameron’s autograph for them,” I suddenly remembered. “And then I got a note in class about him. Is there any way that those three girls are the only ones who know about this?”
Trina sat up. “Oh, yeah! I mean, No! I didn’t tell anyone else, I swear.”
“So maybe it’s no big deal, and people will forget about this by Monday, right?”
“Oh, definitely,” Trina said. She seemed more confident now that she realized I wasn’t going to postal on her. “I was really just trying to stick up for you.”
I lifted my hand to stop her. “Well next time just let them call me a loser. I mean, I didn’t want to run for class president in the first place,” I reminded them, shooting Simone a look. “I don’t need this.”
“It’s over by Monday,” Trina promised. “I mean, who’s going to remember over the weekend anyway?”
“The people you told,” Simone said, “and they people they told, and the people they told….”
In my mind I saw Cameron in his most recent music video. He was a lead singer—Black Daze was the name of his band. They were like, number three on the charts right now. Cameron was hot, with black roots and bleached tips, and he wore shredded Abercrombie and had an earring and wore eyeliner at his concerts, and well, he was just about the coolest lead singer in the world right now. Come to find out, he was also my cousin.
I buried my face in my hands. This was So Not Good.

Time: 1:50pm

40,150: number of NaNo words written
9,850: words to go

*Is it sad that, with less than 10,000 words to go, I’ve completely forgotten half of what I’ve written?