My lead in the Montreal NaNo Word Count Derby has been threatened.

I should explain something. I write as fast as I read, so when I sit down for a couple of hours to write, yes, my word total goes up rather quickly. I’m not steamrolling forward with the intent of finishing first; I’m just writing, and enjoying myself. This isn’t about having the highest word count, not by a long shot. I type fast, I think fast (at least, when I’m on my own – put me in a RPG situation and I’ll wait for someone else to initiate action), and I work at home, so I can fit novel-writing in with less trouble than most people.

When Ceri, with whom I lunched and attended the Place du Canada Remembrance Day ceremonies, informed me that (a) I was universally and cheerfully hated by the other Montreal NaNos at the coffee meet yesterday (which I missed, as I was writing!), I laughed. When she then told me that someone had passed me in the Word Count Derby, I was all prepared to groan dramatically and shake my fist at my agreeable rival Emily (nothing personal, Emily, you know that, right?). However, I was stunned when she told me that, no, it was someone who had been somewhere between seventh and tenth on the list who had skyrocketed up all of a sudden.

Well.

See, I was fine about this word count thing up until the point where Tal mentioned that he’d love it if the first Montreal NaNo to hit 50K was someone he knew.

This, coupled with Ceri’s news… well, let’s just say that all of a sudden, it’s personal.

So I’m off to write. I should be preparing for a class that I’m teaching tonight, but I can wing it.

Maybe I should corral my cats and them start writing from the end of the novel, so we can meet in the middle. Heck, next year, I should just let them write their own novel.