Today was, amusingly, all about the writing. Well, it was sort of all about the writing, in that it was all about people getting together and talking about writing, laughing about writing, eating food and avoiding writing, and then finally doing the actual writing.

Since tomorrow’s the 15th, that means we’re about halfway through November. So today was the Halfway Hootenany at our house, which was really just an excuse for people to get together and bring food and laptops and pretend to do some writing.

Richard and I did some cursory cleaning, and decided to see how it would go if we did not lock the kittens away this time around. As long as they were monitored in the beginning of the gathering, it turned out just fine – as the first group arrived, we all gathered in the kitchen, nibbling food and taking turns plucking kittens off the kitchen island and depositing them on the floor. By the time everyone else had shown up, the kittens were finally wearing down, and ended up crashing on Richard’s chair in the computer room (although there were a few of us who made extra sure all food was covered and kitten-proofed, just in case.

There was another write-in scheduled up in Roseville for the evening and originally Richard and I had not planned on going. But as the Halfway Hootenany was winding down, we looked at each other and both agreed that we were more likely to get more writing done if we didn’t just stay home. So we did a hasty post-party clean-up, grabbed our laptops, and like I said, this is why today has been all about the writing.

Nanowrimo update: Two back-to-back write-ins and a looming deadline (the halfway point) were apparently what I needed to get back into the swing of writing. I managed to crank out about 3500 words today, putting me at just a hair under 23,000 total. Somehow, knowing I’ve only got about 2,000 words left to get to that halfway goal is a lot easier to think about than the 6,000 I was facing on Friday night.