It is almost midnight on the first of November, which means it almost the end of of the first day of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel-Writing Month. The idea is to write a 200-page novel from scratch in one month.
So I set aside the novel I have been working on for the last two years, I made myself a writing schedule, and I started up. To complete it in one month, you would have to write almost seven pages a day. Today I got one. And I ate an obscene amount of Halloween candy, which did not add to my feelings of success. This is going to be a rough month.
But I will keep trying. Even if I only get a page a day, that's still thirty more than I had at the beginning, right?
But writing out a weekly schedule makes me aware of how little free time I actually have. How little rest time. How little time away from tiny people who whine/sob/shriek their dissatisfaction at me. I can squeeze out a scattered two hours to write, and that's assuming no one gets sick and the housekeeping stays at scandalous minimum.
This is going to be an ordeal. And I don't just mean for me.
Every year, I tell myself next year I'll do NaNoWriMo. Then the next year inevitably brings another baby.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year.
"... the housekeeping stays at scandalous minimum." This. I'm going to use this phrase, because this is where I live.
ReplyDeleteHave you written a book before? You have an excellent way with words, and I would be very interested to read a book written by you. Hope you are able to churn one out around all your other duties!
Oh, I am feeling the lack of free time right now, the lack of room in the schedule for me to do anything for myself. It's particularly intense because I have a tiny baby right now; I try to remind myself that this is just a season.
ReplyDeletei decided to do NaNoWriMo with absolutely no planning. I have no plan, I have no plot, and I seriously underestimated how many words equal 50,000. I blame my poor math skills on this decision. I cannot wait to see what crap I come up with. I only have 900 or so words and I'm already bored with myself, so maybe I'll have to stir the pot with some undercover cannibals or something, because vampires are SOOOOoooo 2009. Except I don't like gore. I don't even like fantasy as a genre. Crap.
ReplyDeleteI just pray that you're somehow able to hit your goal AND blog about it.
ReplyDeleteI just set a deadline for the third rewrite of my memoir, but unfortunately it won't end until February. Which means that I'm doing NaNoWriLife. Or, since it's a memoir, NaMemWriLife. Whatever. This analogy isn't working.
But anyway, I am right there with you, and am similarly behind on page count. You have my DM and email if you need someone to vent to.
I admire you for doing it. Every year I think THIS WILL BE THE YEAR, and then every year it is NOT.
ReplyDeleteEveryone keeps telling me that if you want to write you just have to block out the time and DO IT, hell or high water. I wish I could prioritize it like that.