seeing the shape more

I wrote on Friday as far as the novel went, but I did not succeed in writing on here about it. I got 72,500 words completed on the rough draft. I am seeing the shape of what I am writing more and more. I am actually starting to see how I could wrap things together. It is kind of like seeing all the loops at the end of a knitting project and casting off. I am not there yet - I still have a lot of loose ends to fiddle with, but I am getting closer and closer. I could see the rough draft of the novel being more than 100,000 words long. I don't really know how long it will be - just until the story line is completed. It is kind of funny to me. I remember a couple of years ago when I first tried nanowrimo, the idea of trying to write 1,667 words per day seemed like craziness, and the prospect of finishing a 50,000 word novel in a month was sheer madness. now i am doing a minimum goal of 2,500 words per day as a regular routine. I guess that means trying something like nanowrimo has helped me grow significantly as a writer. I do have to admit that I was a silly head on Thursday, though. I went to writer's club after substitute teaching, but I did not succeed in bringing a couple of pages of the manuscript with me to edit and revise like I usually do. Silly me! Oh, well. I had my little story dice (I think their official title is story cubes or something like that) with me, so that was my contribution to writer's club this week. I am thinking more and more about what will happen when I finish the rough draft of the novel. I don't know as much about revision and tightness of story line as I do about just dumping all of the ideas out on the page. This will be a learning experience. I have revised pieces before - papers for school and stage plays. I have not finished and edited a novel before. I will be playing that by ear. You do have to start somewhere, though. That is all there is to it. I just have to do it a little bit at a time - have a minimum goal just like I have been doing with the rough draft. I just have to figure out how to measure the goal.