Before I even dive into my ramblings, I’m going to start with this…
I know, I know. I missed Friday’s blog post. Shame on me. *Slaps hand* I have a reason for it. While I may not be able to say it’s a particularly valid reason, I do have a reason.
To anyone who read my Wednesday Word post This Is How you can probably guess I was less than happy (to put it nicely) with the results of Presidential Election. To be totally honest, the second half of last week was a hard struggle. The results drowned my heart and my will to write for days. I could hardly think straight, let alone focus in the wake of everything.
I honestly fell apart. I’m an author and even I had no words anymore to express what was rampaging through my head. I didn’t write a single word other than my Shard for Wednesday in five days.
Why is this important?
Because it’s the reason I couldn’t make myself write a blog post on Friday either. I knew I should have, but I also knew if I did it was just going to turn into me venting because I was angry, frustrated, fed up, afraid, and on the verge of drowning. I knew I would hate everything I wrote and would simply end up deleting it without even hitting the publish button, so I didn’t bother.
Saturday was my first of two days off and I knew I had to get writing or I was going to really struggle to come out with a win this month.Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally back to myself just yet on Saturday. I was dreading the day — namely the evening — because of an event someone wanted me to go to.
I am not a sociable person, especially to a room full of absolute strangers. Besides, it’s NaNo, I need to be writing, not awkwardly sitting at a table with my head down wishing I could snap my fingers and fast forward time to end the event and get the hell out of there. I just didn’t want to go period, really.
But… To get someone off my back, I told them if I had 25k by Saturday night, I would go. Well, naturally, after falling into a funk for five days that I couldn’t shake, I was nowhere near 25k. It gave me a sort of valid reason to say no, but I had also expected no to turn into a blow out fight, and I was not up for that. Not when said fights always turn around to be blamed on me.
Despite dreading the evening, I managed to force myself to write, and by the time I uttered the word “no” at a mumble to the event, I had gotten about 3k or so written. I was fully expecting a fight and bracing myself, fully expecting to lose the heart to write after, but to my surprise it kind of just blew over without incident. (I think I actually sat in shock for a few minutes that it didn’t turn into a fight. Actual shock, because this never happens.)
Well you can imagine how much of a relief it was to me, and it lifted my spirits. I was able to keep pushing and by the end of the night when I went to bed, I had about 5.7k under my belt.
Sounds great! Right?
Yeah, well, it was still a far cry from where I wanted to be.
You see at the start of Saturday I was 8,009 words below par. Yeah, I crushed half of that deficit to par in one day, and I still had Sunday to write as well. Here’s my dilemma though: This week started what I like to refer to as Hell Holiday in retail.
Work hours are going to start growing longer, days off are going to become fewer. Energy is going to become nearly non-existent thanks to running around like a chicken with no head during work.
That means I’m going to have less time to write, less will and energy to write, and a lot less patience and alone time as well.
Which is exactly why I wanted to be at 25k by Saturday so that everything I wrote Sunday would give me a nice cushion for the last half of the month. Because not only has Hell Holiday officially started, but Thanksgiving is also at my house this year for the family, which means I have to clean on top of NaNo and work. You don’t clean during NaNoWriMo.
Yes I was only 8,009 words below par on Saturday, but I was actually 13,009 words below where I wanted to be. I was only at 11,991 words on Saturday.
Could I write 13k in two days to get to where I wanted to be?
Actually, I knew I could. I’ve done it before. July’s Camp NaNo I wrote 8k the first day, and I’m pretty sure I did another 5k the next day. I knew I could do it probably. However, Sunday also has the only three shows I watch on TV (really the only two, but there’s a show in between them so I watch it anyways) so that already shot 3 hours of my evening.
I tried though. I really tried to get to 25k.
And I nearly did.
By Sunday evening I was at 23,095 words. In two days I had managed 11,104 words out of some maddened induced word sprint panic.
My brain hurt.
I did make it above par finally though! At least until midnight Sunday evening, then I dropped 300 words below it again. In that time frame of maddened writing, I had finished two and a half chapters and nearly finished a third.
I didn’t get a chance to write yesterday because of work so now I’m technically 2k below par again. Thankfully I have a later shift today so I should be able to make it up to par. The next two days will be difficult after this again though. I might just barely be hanging onto par once more instead of having a cushion to work with.
It could be an interesting second half of NaNo yet.
Oh, and did I mention I’m now quite sure it’s going to take more than 50k words to finish this novel? There went that plan.
Darkling Dreams 