Final Days

Two days…

Just two days left to NaNoWriMo.

At this moment, I need 7,790 words in this two days to validate.

It’s doable, definitely doable with me. However, I have two work shifts during that time, neither of which are very kind to the productivity scale. I only managed about 1.1k on Monday because of work and issues coming home. Today isn’t going to be much better because I have the same kind of work shift.

And of course these last two shifts are a closing and then opening shift right after so sleep is already going to be non-existent for the last two days. Add on the energy sucking holiday madness and I have a recipe for being totally burned by the time I get off work on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday I’m also supposed to ride, but again, I have no idea if I’m going. If I still have a big push for NaNo, I probably won’t be going. And if I’m completely exhausted, I probably won’t be going either. (I really need to stop working on Wednesday’s.)

Don’t forget Wednesday also means another blog post and flash fiction Shard, which means time away from writing for NaNo.

It’s not looking good for these last two days.

Of course, I was given the option that I could count my Shards toward my NaNo goal. It is creative writing and words down on a page for this month. If I did that, it would give me roughly another 3.7k worth of words, which means I’d only need 4k to validate, which is a lot more doable than 7.7k at this point.

However… Using the words from my flash fiction writing sort of feels like cheating to me.

Yes, I know it is considered writing and all, but this crazy month of 50k words was supposed to be about finishing Fated to Darkness. (Yes I know it’s not going to be finished, but I’m down to eight chapters left.) To add on something that really doesn’t have anything to do with this series feels like just a cheat to get the win to me.

Granted, if I had finished this novel within 50k words and switched to something else I would have had two works in one validation, but that was because I finished a novel and needed more words to hit goal. Not because I was struggling to make goal and substituting something else I worked on this month that’s more so just for practice and fun.

So I’d like to not use my Shards of Imagination words from this month to validate in the end for a win, but 7.7k is going to be a stretch these two days to make it happen. To be on the safe side of validating, I need at least 3.4k each day to end the month.

That wouldn’t be too bad on Wednesday if I don’t ride, today is the issue though with the shift I work.

I can manage to sneak some words in before work, providing I get my ass up and moving early enough in the morning. (Staying up till 5am Sunday night was not a good idea, and it’s nearly 3am now that I’m writing this so I’m pretty tired.) Hopefully I could get about 2k before work without interruption, and when I get home I still have about two hours before midnight to try to get something more in. Again, providing something doesn’t get in my way as it did last night. As always it seems.

Actually, if I can manage that pattern, I might be okay. Though…I’ll either have to pull an all nighter tonight to hit goal, and then still have time for a Shard after work. That would most likely mean I’ll still be too tired to ride. Or, I could do as much as possible before crashing for a few hours of sleep tomorrow night and probably still missing riding to get this win and maybe get my Shard in.

By the looks of it, depending how tomorrow goes, I’ll probably be skipping riding for the fourth week in a row. Either way, I’m determined to get my first November NaNo win, and hopefully be down to the last six chapters of this novel by the end of this win.

If I can manage that, hopefully I can manage to finish the book by the end of December like I wanted to this year.

Only one way to find out: keep writing. Except, let’s sleep first before I burn out too early.