Sometime early this morning, I broke the 25k word count on my story for NaNoWriMo. I am over halfway to winning, and it is only day 10! This is especially exciting to me because it is the farthest I have gotten so far in NaNo. My first year was just over 12k words, and while I am still trying to pin down last years numbers (now assuming between 19k and 22k), I know I didn't hit the halfway point.
I am also pleased with the story, both in direction and in staying power. I mentioned previously about the novel being two stories running concurrently. So far, I have been working almost exclusively on Gibson's side of the story (over 20k of the 25k). I am thinking that I will end up finishing it before giving any love to Anne's side of the novel. But, given what I still have to write on Gibson's side, I should easily be able to crack 50k. Gibson's story is maybe only a third of the way done. I just hope my interest and patience stay with me long enough to see it through.
I am having some problems with names though. All of my protagonists have names: Gibson, Anne, Terry, Jeri, John (Gibson's father), and Neal. A number of the ancillary and unimportant characters have names, which I won't bother to rattle off. But two of my main antagonists, that I mention over and over again, don't have actual names, they have titles. The King of the Druids and the former King of Saramis. A quick search found I use 'King' over 30 times as a proper noun, and that doesn't mention the number of times I refer specifically to them as 'ruler/leader of ...' or 'the northern druid'. At first I was fine with this. These people live extremely long lives (these two are both at least 550 years old), and huge parts of these long lives they have hidden away. The Druid King and a bunch of druids shut themselves off in Solemnwood about 500 years prior to the stories, and the King of Saramis (who had caused the druids to go into hiding) eventually turned his city over to advisors so he could travel more freely with his wife. Soon they only gave token visits to important functions, then kinda poofed away from the eyes of the public. But now, the Druid King is out and about, and I still don't have a name for him. Oh well. I should go pretend to write more.
