Pressing Forward
Double word count day done!!
(Two down, three more to go.) One of the things about NaNoWriMo is that this is only possibly for me if it is broken down into bite size chunks. I can eke out enough time to write 1,667 words a day if I don't miss any days. But I made the decision last year (and I'm sticking with it this year) that I'm not going to write on Sundays. That means that I have to double up the word count for each Sunday I miss, and this year November has five Sundays (yikes!!).
1,667 words is a challenge but doable. 3,334 is like staring at a Thanksgiving spread and knowing you have to somehow swallow every bite of it yourself. In one day. Yuck.
I managed it Monday but it was hard. Pulling teeth hard, even though it was the first day of the challenge for me and I should have been nothing but enthusiastic. Tuesday was fine, but then Wednesday I started feeling sick. Now trying to write and keep up with piano lessons and all the kids and their homework pretty much drained me. So today, even though I am mostly feeling back to myself, instead of throwing myself headfirst into the writing, I was just a little overwhelmed staring at the mountain I was going to have to shovel down today. So today became the day of creative procrastination. Things I did to put off sitting my behind in the chair and pounding out the words:
(Two down, three more to go.) One of the things about NaNoWriMo is that this is only possibly for me if it is broken down into bite size chunks. I can eke out enough time to write 1,667 words a day if I don't miss any days. But I made the decision last year (and I'm sticking with it this year) that I'm not going to write on Sundays. That means that I have to double up the word count for each Sunday I miss, and this year November has five Sundays (yikes!!).
1,667 words is a challenge but doable. 3,334 is like staring at a Thanksgiving spread and knowing you have to somehow swallow every bite of it yourself. In one day. Yuck.
I managed it Monday but it was hard. Pulling teeth hard, even though it was the first day of the challenge for me and I should have been nothing but enthusiastic. Tuesday was fine, but then Wednesday I started feeling sick. Now trying to write and keep up with piano lessons and all the kids and their homework pretty much drained me. So today, even though I am mostly feeling back to myself, instead of throwing myself headfirst into the writing, I was just a little overwhelmed staring at the mountain I was going to have to shovel down today. So today became the day of creative procrastination. Things I did to put off sitting my behind in the chair and pounding out the words:
- Washed my van
- Crushed the giant bin of aluminum cans cluttering our garage so they could be bagged
- Read about Hurricane Katrina
- Folded laundry
- Changed out the 5 gallon water container in the dispenser
- Picked up the boys' dirty laundry and organized K's shelves
- Swept the garage
All of those things are tasks I usually put off or never bother with in the first place (well, except reading about Katrina). All of them were easier to face than the writing. But eventually I gritted my teeth and forced myself to do it (kind of like my training run this morning). Now that it's over, I'm going to treat myself to a hot bath and a fluffy romance. As soon as I get my kids into bed.
This November is becoming my own version of pressing forward across the plains-- not in a doomed handcart company, but maybe as part of a well-provisioned wagon train. There's still a lot of work, a lot of pressing forward even when you don't feel like it, a lot of continuing on without anything exciting to greet you when you finish the day except the job of setting up camp, again. But eventually all this moving along will get me there in the end, and the destination will be worth it. Onward!
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