At 11:50 p.m. on October 31st, I sat poised at my computer, fueled by Halloween candy and @NaNoWordSprints, just waiting for the clock to strike midnight. Every year, before I go to bed on the first, I like to have the first day’s words written so I can start off a full day ahead. That’s what I intended to do this year. Then the baby wanted to eat. Then the baby wanted to go down for a nap. Then the baby wanted me to go completely insane with frustration. I saw midnight tick by and I couldn’t write. I set the baby down for one whole minute and let her yell at me so I could at least get the first sentence down. I would start with the rest of the Wrimos! I couldn’t let having a baby stop me from my yearly tradition! I wouldn’t! But, of course, I had to go back to mommyland until Baby Girl finally went to sleep. Lucky me, it only took half an hour and then I was poised at my computer again. I’d been dying to write this novel for weeks! Years even! I had so much to say! And…nothing. I tried out a few sentences, promptly hated them and hit the backspace key (don’t report me to the NaNoWriMo guilt monkeys, please). I tried again, hated it, went back. Thankfully, my home region pals were up writing too or I might have given the whole thing up, crawled into a dark cave and waited until next November. Eventually, though, I did get 785 words written. It wasn’t the big start I’d hoped for but it was a start. I went to bed dreaming sweet dreams of hacking up pencils with a sharp axe.
The next morning I woke up to what was officially the first day of NaNoWriMo (I count days by when I wake up and go to sleep, not by silly things like time). After the less-than-encouraging welcome the night before, I wasn’t exactly motivated but after a few false starts I got back in the groove and it felt like I’d never taken a break from writing at all. On the downside, though, my scheduled 20 minute writing sessions didn’t go quite as planned. Which takes me to my next point–my favorite part of National Novel Writing Month: my writing pals are up past midnight. With about 1,000 words to go, I did a couple of word sprints with my writing buddy until almost 2 a.m. and hit my word count goal for the day. Maybe I could do this after all…
And then, on Day 2, came every Wrimo’s greatest fear…an invitation from a friend. I hadn’t gotten any words logged yet but every friend of mine knows what November means so she had no problem with me writing while we watched a movie. But I only got 600 words written in our 4 hours together, which means by 11 p.m. I still had another 1,000 words to go. Not usually a problem–I live for late night writing–unless Baby Girl decides she wants my complete attention…until 2 a.m. I did get my word count in–I refuse to fall behind so early!–but to the detriment of my sleeping schedule.
A late start today, Day 3. I had stuff to catch up on from sleeping so late but luckily, I made it back home by my Power Writing Hour and by some miracle the baby went down for a nap. It was time to write “the big reveal” and with the help of @NaNoWordSprints, I got 1,087 words written in less than an hour! Okay, speed demons…that’s awesome fro me.
So, overall, I feel like I’m off to a good start. I’m keeping my 785 word lead and hoping to up it soon. If my daughter ever decides to go to sleep. As I write this, at 1 a.m, she’s sitting next to me on the floor singing herself a little song. It’s going to be a long night…
P.S. Please excuse my minimal blogging this month. I need all the words I have for my novel. I’m contemplating copying and pasting this blog post into the file…
I don’t know how you do it!
(The writing part, not the kid thing. I have THAT down to a science. *brushes shoulders off*)
I couldn’t write that fast or stick to any kind of schedule. I like the idea of NaNoWriMo, considering it for next year, but I feel like I’d massively fail within the first week. Do you just write, write, write? Or do you take the time to edit? Do you have your entire novel planned out? What I’m basically saying is, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
In that case, you won’t notice one more. 😉
#1 rule of NaNoWriMo is NO EDITING! The only goal for NaNo is to get the words written. They don’t even have to be good words. The idea is that you can always go back and make it better later, but you can’t edit a blank page.
And about writing so fast, you’d be surprised how fast your can write once you get into the story. During NaNo, you’re so focused on it that you eat, breathe, and sleep your novel. Literally, I dreamt about Matt Damon last night, who “plays” Cooper. Of course, he wasn’t acting at all like Cooper. Shouldn’t have watched A Nightmare on Elm Street last night.
You would not fail because you would have me cheering you on (read: nagging the hell out of you) to make sure you won. 😉
“#1 rule NaNoWriMo is no editing!” *clears throat* ahem
😛
Nothing ever goes over as planned does it?? I’m glad you are ahead though!! Yay!!
Especially not with a baby. I’ll learn that one day. When she’s 18, most likely.