a good running start

I took a good running start at Barbarians_Novel this week and have just passed 20,000 words on the draft I've been building in my head for months, dribs and drabs of existing writing, heavily-overhauled existing writing, and new writing all mixed in. (The documents I'm drawing from were last edited around January, February, March, with another chunk done around July, August, but with inconsistencies written in that I knew I'd have to take care of.)
I also broke down and outlined, though it's not an outline so much as a frequent-line-breaks, sentence-fragment summary.
I have an ending that makes sense.
I've already introduced the plot element that will figure in the climax and finale, which has never happened before; any previous draft's ending, if it had one, was nonsensical and tacked-on. (Shit! I must introduce a villain so the hero can kill him! Well, here he is! *splortch!* Hero: Somehow, I don't feel fulfilled. Me: Shut up, beefcake, or I'll give you more man-angst. Hero: Dammit.)
I've integrated the 'magical' elements of it in much more closely to the rest, which helps the thing not seem so ludicrous.

I haven't made it beyond the sticking points of previous drafts, however. Not substantially. Not sequentially. But I'm probably about 1/4 of the way through the storyline, and I have laid a more solid foundation than ever before, with a tighter and less rambling beginning, and finally remembering to put in enough exposition for a major secondary character who will be needed later when there isn't time to build him up. (Here, look, it's your most loyal friend. Hero: Who? Secondary Guy: Hey, it's me! Hero: Do I know you? Me: Sweetcheeks, don't make me angst you. Hero: Dammit.)

I didn't exercise today, so no reading for me. One thing I've decided I dislike about the novel I'm reading is that the pacing is rushed. Obviously, if it's a trilogy, there's a whole assload of stuff for the author to cover, but she's breezing by some stuff that she's built up to be huge, and it isn't. She's got these mystical layers lined up, exalting certain characters to great heights in terms of their status, and then they're just not acting as high and mighty as they ought.

It does occur to me, however, that distracted as I am as I read this book, and fragmented as the reading is, I should probably hold off on any real judgment of the thing.

Anyhow. I have definitely made progress I never have before on this novel, which I might as well rename That Fucking Novel I've Been Working On Since College Pretty Much. (This year marks my fifth year working on it. Yes, I know.)

In other news, it is colder than a witch's titties in this piece. Breathing makes my nose numb. I am so bravely resisting turning on the heat, but I seriously spent all day in bed under a down comforter wearing a hoodie with the hood up so I could be warm enough to type.


Apropos of nothing, I have a song stuck in my head from Pennsic. Big John Kilt Guy had been to some sort of swinger's convention, and he was singing a song he'd heard from there. It was set to the tune of "Surrey With A Fringe On Top", but predictably enough, the words had been changed to "Furry With A Strap-On Cock".
Which is really not something you want to be singing to yourself as you sashay down the street, eh?

When they see me out with my furry,
when they see me out with my furry
with the strap-on cock!

Oy.
I'm listening to the playlist about drugs but all I've had tonight in terms of "drugs" is caffeine.

And in unrelated news, suddenly Remi is a lap cat. But she just can't sit in my lap. No, she has to have a paw on my breast at all times.
Perv.