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Max dated so many boys throughout the course of the book that I had trouble keeping them straight during my constant state of NaNoWriMo exhaustion

Ya know, I thought flipping the calendar into December would mean this whole NaNoWriMo whirlwind would behind me. Or at least that the hard part would be over. Sounds reasonable, right?

In fact, I had this awesome plan that included me spinning through the editing process in four days during my trip to Mexico. But much like my beloved protagonist Maxime, I have a way of ruining even the best laid plans. I’m about a quarter through the editing process: I’ve staged a solid red-pen attack through the first 60 sixty or so pages.

Most of the edits entail switching verbs around, and re-writing numbers to comply with fiction rules rather than the AP Style rules that I’m used to (in newspaper journalism, we write out one through nine and use numerals for 10 on, while in books I guess I’m supposed to spell out anything less than 100 — I’ve found about  25 errrgh, twenty-five instances where I need to change numbers around in the sections I’ve edited so far). Some of them are more embarrassing.

It could be worse. I’m often entertained by the mindless mistakes that made their way into my first draft during half-asleep writing sessions well past midnight over the course of November. IHere are a couple of my favorite gems (Commentary furnished by ExBoyf, who took a crack at editing some of these chapters before I got around to it):

Simple misspellings:

Forgotten words:

Obvious exhaustion leading to a lack of basic knowledge of spacial relations:

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Seriously, because I'm sunburned, and sun block costs 250 pesos per bottle here....

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Irish-American couple in a resort town in Mexico must be in want of sunscreen.

Seriously. We lobestered it out today. For once in my life, I’m actually less red than my vacation mate. SMB is all kinds of toasty red, whereas I was actually able to stay on the beach for an extra hour or two tonight to edit and research literary agents for my NaNoWriMo creation.

We’ve been in Riviera Maya since about noon on Monday, and I have loved every second of it. Monday was sort of a wash, since we woke up at 3:30 a.m. to get to the airport on time. Once we got here, we walked around a bit and got the lay of the resort — it’s huge. Sprawling even, and I’m eternally impressed by all it has to offer — before grabbing a bite to eat and going to bed. I slept from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. without a single interruption. It was heaven. I even mentioned to SMB today that my eyes seem bluer than they have been in a few months, due to all the rest.

On Tuesday, we went to Tulum, which is an old Mayan kingdom. So. Cool.

After we saw the ruins there, we headed over to Xel Ha, which is this natural lazy river. We snorkeled (my first time ever — I found a fish that looked just like Dori from Finding Nemo), rode  zip line, checked out the beach, tubed down the lazy river, got stung by fire ants, and enjoyed the open bar. Yes. Open bar. I’ve been enjoying several of those over the past few days. Our resort is all-inclusive (God bless you, Mexico), and I’ve discovered some personal favorites among the half-dozen bars on the grounds, including the swim-up bar and the one we literally hung out at today, where the seats are swings.

Today we lounged about a bit. And by lounged about, I mean I worked on some post-NaNoWriMo book editing and agent scouting as I previously said. I also edited chapters one through three. SMB read like an entire book — it still mystifies me that he’s able to read that quickly. In fact, he’s read about 50 pages since I started this blog post. I totally thought I’d be done before him, but he just beat me… We also kayaked a little around the ocean here. I still can’t get over how blue it is.

Tomorrow I’m going to do a scuba diving demo, because SMB wants me to get certified so I can scuba with him. We’ll see if I have a panic attack underwater. If I don’t, it should be a go. Also, there’s bocce here, so we’re gonna roll for a bit tomorrow. (Shout out to my bocce team! What What!) I hope we also have time for beach volleyball, but I think that will depend on how our skin’s feeling. Of course, there’s a canopy at the swim-up bar…

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Last night I wrote about how scared to death I was about the idea that maybe — even after everything I’ve done this month — I might not hit the 50,000 word mark by November 30, like I’m supposed to.

Then I woke up this morning, earlier than I had originally planned and looked at my calendar. November 29 meant I had two days left to crank out the 4,000-plus words I needed to type to finish this thing. But it’s also sort of a holiday for me. Today’s my Dad’s birthday.

I don’t say much about my Dad on this blog, especially when you factor in how much I say about my mother. I guess I take him for granted a bit, the way all kids take their parents for granted when they’re around. But my Dad is one in a million.

When I was 8 years old, I told my father I would be the first female president of the United States. He didn’t laugh. He told me to go ahead and make it happen. When I was 10, I told him I wanted to be a writer. He didn’t tell me that making a living as a writer is near impossible; he told me to make that happen too. When I was 13, I told him I was writing a book. He challenged me to get it done without letting my grades suffer. When I was 17, I wrote my fifth book. He bragged to his friends.

Then, when I was 22, I found myself jobless, in need of a place to stay for a summer after my internship at a magazine failed to turn into a permanent job. He didn’t tell me “I told you so.” He started calling me “roomie.”

That’s the thing about my Dad. No success is too big for him, and no failure is really a failure. He promised me once that he would always be there for me when I fall on my face, regardless of how old I am when I take the topple or how muddy I get at the bottom. When I first moved to Connecticut and tried to make a living wage out of a meager salary, he pumped $30 or $50 or sometimes $100 into my bank account almost every month when I’d call him to tell him my bank account was empty, as was my refrigerator and my gas tank.

All I had to promise him in return was that when I finally sold my first book someday, I cut my first check for a ski condo for him to spend his golden years by the slopes. I’d give anything to be able to earn a fortune and turn it over to him someday.

Will I? Who knows. Maybe I’ll never get the chance, but when I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, “You know what, Margaret? You can make a down payment on that today.”

So happy birthday Dad. I finished this book for you.

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I have two days left. Two. Days.

That’s how I’d say it. My main character, Maxime, would probably add in an expletive or two, because she tends to curse like a sailor when she’s stressed out. And I’m gonna go ahead and drop a secret on you: I’m stressed out.

I have to write approximately 5,000 words in the next two days. I know. I know. I’ve done that in one day before, but that was a fluke. A total freak accident. And I don’t have the luxury of time to bank on another freak accident coming my way. So I’m just going to sit here and sulk and think about all the ways NaNoWriMo has ruined my life in the past 28 days: Like the fact that I haven’t really seen my friends; The way the bags under my eyes have swelled to new dimensions that can barely be disguised by concealer; Or the three-to-five pounds I’ve packed on by spending an additional two or so hours on my tush every night.

I think it’s the last one that bothers me the most, since I’m six days away from a vacation to Mexico, where I’ll spend most of my week in a swimsuit. Curse you NaNoWriMo. 

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Don’t ask me how I did it, because I won’t be able to explain today’s sudden, unprecedented burst of productivity. Especially when you factor in the fact that I went into work early today and cranked out three full stories during my shift. I should have been a total puddle on the writing front tonight. But somehow I made it through with more than 5,000 words in one day — finally breaking the 40,000 word barrier.

Yeah. I’m surprised too.

I got home from work a little before 7 o’clock, at which point SMB came over to drop off my cheesecake pan (I’d left it at his place after my last baking endeavor, but needed it back to make a raspberry white-chocolate cheesecake to bring to his extended family’s tomorrow night for dessert). We grabbed a quick dinner and he left me alone for the night so I could bake to my heart’s content.

After that, I even squeezed in a Syracuse basketball game. #WeWon

And somehow, amid all of these potential distractors, I one-upped my previous best day by almost 2,000 words and got myself back ahead of the progress bar. It’s the kind of productivity that can only be rewarded by one thing. An excerpt.

Here’s a little snippet from Maxime’s first (and last) date with a grad student named Todd, during which she locked her keys in her car: