So I’m pretty happy because yesterday went very well. I went running even though I didn’t want to and afterwards felt much happier and more energetic. Also every day for the past few days my husband has made for lunch what I wished for. Well, he has been running out of ideas so he has been asking me what we should eat, but still.
And then there appeared a thread in the NaNoWriMo-group on ravelry for „Those who didn’t“. I’ve been thinking about giving up for more than a week now. Seeing that thread there, though, made something snap in me. There was still a whole week to go. There are people who can write a whole novel in a week. I mean, it is perfectly legitimate to decide not to finish NaNo, no shame in that, it was just that I don’t want to.
I don’t usually care all that much about accountability, and whether I reach the goals I publicly declare but NaNo seems to be a little different, I have won it every single time I did it, and I don’t really want to come out of November without at least the 50K. Even though I was sick for two weeks, and scrapped my novel after three days, and then spent about five days planning a new one rather sloppily. Even though I hadn’t even reached the halfway point with only a week to go.
I sat down and looked at my calendar, and things were looking dire. I knew I’d have quite a bit of time yesterday with only one student, not a lot of time today with all the teaching and the cleaning, and quite a bit of time on the weekend. I will probably not write a single word on Monday because that’s when I get my next thyroid exam, and I have a dentist’s appointment on Tuesday, so there will probably not be any writing that day as well. Wednesday is another pretty busy day, and on Thursday I had planned to record the next podcast episode. Also I really dislike writing a lot on the last day because so much can go wrong, and it is really stressful.
For a moment I was really disheartened.
Then I made a plan. It’s gorgeous, it’s insane, but it just might work.
I planned to write 5,000 words yesterday, 2,000 today, and 10,000 each on Saturday and Sunday.
Easy!
I did actually manage to write the 5,000 yesterday. I employed my little pomodoro timer and it went really well. Was fun even.
Doing the 2,000 today will be a little more challenging, especially since I already wasted an hour between 5 and 6 am (why yes, I woke up early again, yawn). Doing 10,000 a day is just insane, and I have never managed to do it before but I’ll try. And if I don’t quite manage that I will still have a few days left to do the rest.
If I give up – which I don’t think I will – it won’t be with a whole week left before the end. Nope.