November 27

8 a.m. El Paso

I lay in bed for a long time this morning, thinking about what to write, just constructing the scenes. Now all I need is some more of those instant coffee packets for my little hotel coffee maker. And maybe some more non-dairy creamer packets too.

10:00 pm

So I lied. I left my hotel room at 35,000 words to meet nanoer Karen Fonville in my hotel lobby. After I explained that my car and I were in a terrible argument and that I'd be risking my life getting behind the wheel of that little red hellion, she kindly agreed to move our writing session to the lounge at my hotel. We wrote in an almost empty bar while listening to Spanish love ballads set to synthesizers, which conveniently covered the songs' every instrumental need.

Karen and I chatted a good bit and I learned that she likes sci-fi and Christian Romance novels. The novel she's writing with NaNoWriMo sounds like it falls in the latter of the two genres. Have I mentioned that my novel culminates in El Paso? The two main characters will finally cross paths in the fish department of an El Paso supermarket.

Between this stint in my El Paso hotel room and my Thanksgiving with the Texans I've got more novel fodder than I know what to do with. I'm off to Tucson come morning.