Preparing to Lose

Well, squiders, how’s your November going? Mine’s a cluster, but it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.

There are five days left in November. In those five days (including today), in order to get to 50K, I need to write 19.4K words. That’s approximately 3.9K words a day. In theory doable, especially if one doesn’t have a lot of other obligations.

Alas, I have other obligations.

It feels weird to be so far behind (about 11K words as of this writing). I’ve written every day this month except the 3rd. Which is waaaaay more consistent than I generally am during Nano. I had hopes that I would be able to do some major catch-up this week while I and the small, mobile ones were on Thanksgiving Break, but apparently that was a strange fantasy I made up in my brain.

Thanksgiving is always stressful. We host my spouse’s family, and he gets all perfectionist about the state of the house and finishing projects that have otherwise been languishing. So Wednesday and yesterday were useless. I knew yesterday was going to be, but for some reason I forgot about Wednesday. I should know about Wednesday by now.

ANYWAY, despite excellent consistency, it is time to admit that unless I am willing to do nothing else but write until Wednesday, I am going to lose Nanowrimo.

And I do not have the luxury of doing nothing but writing until Wednesday.

I mean, I suppose I could do what I did a few years ago, and rent out a hotel room for one night (I got 9K in that night) and then I might be good to go! But unless a lot of people get really cool about a lot of things real fast, it’s unlikely.

It’s okay. I’m not even upset. Things happen, and I have 30K on a story that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

And it’s not the first time I’ve lost. Sure, yes, normally things go downhill considerably faster (I think the last time I lost, which was, oh, 2012, maybe? I only got 12 or 14K words for the month) but it’s not the end of the world. And I’d much rather have a story I can do something with instead of throwing together a mess.

Anyway, it’s not looking good, and that’s fine.

How are your months going, squiders?

This is Not Going Well

Oy vey, squiders.

It’s what, the 11th? So, for Nano, I’m probably supposed to be at, oh, 18,300 words or some such. I’m at 11,400-ish. Almost seven thousand words behind and slowly slipping, day by day.

It’s not from lack of trying. I’ve been writing almost every day, which is more than I normally do during Nano. I’m just…not getting enough words. And not because the story’s going poorly. I switched to third person, like I told you last week, and everything’s been going great since then. The story is flowing well, the plot points are being hit appropriately, I’m having fun.

I just don’t have enough writing time.

I mean, I haven’t written today (Thursday, though this will go live on Friday) because I had to paint my entire basement, which took about four hours, but in general I’m eking out about an hour, hour and a half a day. Which is enough to get somewhere between 1200 and 1700 words with how fast I write. Which is good words! But not enough to catch up.

Now, seven thousand words seems like a lot of missing words. I could, understandably, throw my hands up and throw in the towel.

But I don’t actually feel bad about it. It feels fixable. I mean, not if the slide continues, but I’m still optimistic. Not even cautiously optimistic, just optimistic.

And potentially insane, I guess.

There’s Thanksgiving break coming up in about a week. Now, this could be very hit or miss. No work for me that week, so if I can properly entertain the small, mobile ones, maybe I could do a couple days of 3-5K words, which would be a good way to catch up or potentially get ahead. Or, depending on life, the small, mobile ones will require lots of attention and nothing will get done.

Maybe if I take them somewhere and wear them out in the morning, then I could write in the afternoon? Things to ponder.

Anyway, tl;dr, wildly behind on Nano but having fun nevertheless.

In other news, I re-recorded the video that needed fixing for SkillShare (took forever to find time to do that, which is why I didn’t get all my words yesterday) so I just need to edit that and re-upload it, and hopefully we shall be back in business.

Tomorrow (today? Friday) isn’t looking good for doing anything though–meetings out the wazoo. Hooray.

Anyway, how are you doing, squider? How are your goals for the month going?

Wait, When Did November Get Here?

Just as housekeeping, squiders, I’m going to officially go down to blogging once a week through the end of the year. We’re dealing with some things around here, and I need to dedicate my time to those.

Anyway, hi, it’s November. I feel like it came on really fast. Well, like, it was October, and I was on top of things, and I had Nano all planned, and everything was going great and then BAM! November, and everything’s fallen apart.

It’s the third, I’m already a day and a half behind on Nano, and things outside writing just keep getting harder.

It’s frustrating, to say the least.

On top of Nano being behind, SkillShare pulled my outlining workshop because I didn’t follow the template for the intro class. Which, looking back, I always follow the template, so I don’t know why I didn’t this time. Spaced it, I guess? Got so excited about doing a workshop that I just threw convention out the window?

Anyway, I need to fix that. Shouldn’t be too hard, just need to write a script and re-record the video, but it’s been almost a week and I haven’t managed to find the time. It’s probably going to be Friday, at this rate, unless ongoing issues eat my Friday and everything continues in a downhill slide.

Nano’s feeling a bit shaky too. I’m writing first person, which I did last year for my murder mystery, but everything feels clunky and weird, and I can’t tell if it’s because first person was the Wrong Choice, I’m starting in the wrong spot (feels a bit slow), or if that’s just how Starting a Story Goes. If I could get some time here, I might try writing a section in third person to see if that feels better.

I’d hate to write the whole story in the wrong point of view and then have to change it later. That way lies madness.

But also, if things don’t hit their stride a bit here, I’m never going to catch back up.

Aside from Nano and SkillShare classes stuttering along, I haven’t even started my trip journal from our trip to Portland a few weeks ago. (I just realized I didn’t tell you guys we went to Portland. Hooray for pre-writing and scheduling posts, I guess.) At the beginning of 2020 I started a sketch travel journal, where I’ve dutifully drawn my way through every trip since, along with including commentary, which has been an interesting but unintended way of examining the pandemic. Normally I work on it during the trip, but I didn’t even touch it, and I continue to not touch it.

I realize, in the great scheme of things, it’s not that big of deal, but it’s that whole anxiety about not doing something you meant to do on top of everything else.

Anyway, tl;dr, November is off to a rough start, and I’ve got to figure something out or else I’m going to go mad. I hope things are going better for you!