Last Thursday was Halloween. I went and handed out candy at my mother’s house, then came home and watched TV with Hubs like the thirty-something’s we are. On Friday morning I awoke at 5am, unable to sleep due to bad dreams, which have been plaguing me lately. I’ve been very stressed out so I’m sure this is the reason, but alas, I haven’t been sleeping well. So 530am found me at my computer, retyping half of the first chapter of my novel. I could easily have finished it, but I was pacing myself. 1667 word a day is rough. I didn’t want to get too crazy. On Saturday morning I finished the chapter and felt very proud of myself. Only like 14 more to go.
Day three was a little trickier. There was much research of the Eastern Meadowlark, as well as me trying to peck out a couple hundred extra words when I came up short. I wasn’t discouraged though, and sat there typing away while my husband watched the football game. Every once in a while, my click-clacking was interrupted by a holler from the other room. I could tell the Bills were winning.
Monday found me on my sofa not wanting to move. I had to update the blog as well as do NaNo, and I am running out of blog posts. All my writing thoughts have been about the WIP (work in progress, for future reference,) and I have thus been neglecting my blog. I mean it’s easy right now to do NaNo updates on Thursdays, but Mondays are looking pretty bare.
Anyway, I wasn’t feeling it, and then Hubs send me a text saying “break a leg on your writing today. You got this.” That got me off my ass and into the office, where I finished up a blog post and got it out, then did 1500 words on the WIP. A little encouragement goes a long way. I told him so, and therefore on Tuesday I woke up to “never give up on your dreams, you’re an awesome writer.”
I went to the office and did 1800 words, then 2000 words of a short story that was taking up space in my field of vision and needed to disappear. I felt that if I could get it out of me quickly then I could continue focusing on my WIP, which was getting away from me because of a stupid ghost story idea.
Yesterday I dropped another 1700 words which took me over 10k total. I did another 2000 in the afternoon, and today I did 2400, bringing my total up to 14,768.
Pretty good start for a week.
Of course, everything I have done so far has been meticulously planned and many scenes were already written in bits and pieces. In a few days, I will be writing without a net, so to speak; I have less material and notes for the middle and end of the book. I know where I want to go, but we shall see what path I take to get there.
In a few days, my friend Sahar will be in town, and we are planning an epic 24-hour write-in. I am both excited to be working alongside my friend and terrified that she will be typing away while I stare at the ceiling trying to peck out 100 words. This is a stupid fear of course, and I will do everything in my power to ignore it, but it’s symbolic of how I feel without having so much material to work from. Still…I got this far. I wrote this much. I can do this, right?
And so, week 1 comes to a close, and we move on to week 2. I am on the end of Chapter 4 currently, and am excited to see where I will be in another week, even if I am terrified that I will run out of words. To my fellow NaNo buddies, keep plugging away! I promise to do the same.
Ham 'N Eggs 