Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

…I’m okay with crashing and burning on NaNoWriMo this year.

Technically I have time left, so I haven’t failed yet. But let’s be realistic, I’m not getting from my current 12,000 words to 50,000 before the 30th.

The first week went alright. I had a schedule going and it was gradually getting better. Then…. I don’t fucking know. Kids starting waking up absurdly early for no goddamn reason. Extra bullshit came up that I had to work on at 6:00 AM instead. Take your pick, life just decided my plans were pointless yet again and I simply have not been in a place to set aside time since.

I got miserably depressed when I couldn’t keep my schedule, even my shitty one that only yielded like 20 minutes of actual writing time a day. I’m still pretty pissed about it.

But I’ve made peace with the NaNoWriMo thing. That’s just an arbitrary deadline. It’s a gimmick. I never cared about that as much as I did actually writing again.

And I did, at least a little. It’s not much, but if I can get the same amount done on a month to month basis, I’ll be finished with this book well within a year. And that’s the pace I want, anyway.

So what the hell am I bitching about? I didn’t get to stress out 300 words at the worst time of day to meet an entirely nonsense goal set by other people who are neither publishing my book nor paying me? No big deal.

I’ll find another way. Saturdays seem like a good time to write.

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…I have a more clear sense of direction for the book I’m writing.

I’m not nearly as far along with it as I need to be to keep up with NaNoWriMo’s arbitrary goals. I’m only at about 6,000 words instead of the roughly 12,000 I should be by now. But who cares. Focusing on word count is the worst way to write.

The thing that matters is I’ve taken my ambiguous half-thoughts and extended them out into a basic skeleton of a story, so I am no longer meaninglessly rambling and am instead actually writing again. It’s the best feeling I know.

Hopefully I’ll have the ending figured out in another week or so. It’ll be fun puzzling that out.

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…I was successfully able to wake up early again.

I’m trying to be up at 5:30 every day this month so I can get an extra hour each day to work on NaNoWriMo, since lord knows anything after the kids are awake is a shitshow.

5:30 is too fucking early for any human being to be awake. People who are up that early naturally should not be in charge of anything.

So far the earliest I’ve been able to drag my ass out of bed has been 6:00. So I’ve really only been getting like 30 minutes of writing in the morning. But… I have been up by 6:00 for three consecutive day, so that’s something. Gotta start somewhere.

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…I’m writing a new novel.

Thank god. I feel physically ill when I go too long between projects.

My coworker is doing NaNoWriMo and wanted a writing buddy. I did this a couple times way back when my kids were just babies and I’ve opted out the last few years since I had a pretty good routine outside of November.

This is as good a reason as any to get started again. I need something to look forward to. I cannot stress enough how bad my depression gets when I don’t stay busy. I can’t stop moving. I don’t have bipolar disorder, I have shark disorder.

The real question is if I’m going to self publish again. I don’t know. On the one hand I need it as a cap to my efforts. On the other, I think going unnoticed on the market is a big reason I get discouraged from doing it again.

Guess you’ll find out in like a year or two.

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