NaNo Blahs

According to everything I've read, I'm supposed to be racing to the end of this adventure with joy and exultation, but instead I'm bored and frequently head off on procrastinating side-trips. Yesterday I went to the library to write and spent an hour looking at books in the teen section using the excuse that my book might be for a youngish crowd and needed to do some research. There are some great books written for teens. I checked out three. Then I set up my computer and found a Columbia College catalog and read it for awhile and considered taking so many classes in the Spring that it would be like taking a full load. Then I realized I could get on the wireless hub for the Internet, so I checked my email and looked on Amazon for the investment books that Kenny had suggested and found a 3 for the price of 2 sale and started looking at the mysteries. In the midst of all this Cindy dropped by to say hello, and we visited for a while. I finally got back to Memo a half hour before it was time for me to leave.

Two things worked once I got home—advice that came in pep-talks sent by the NaNo folks. The first was to write a scene that I'd been imagining but which was not necessarily at the point I'd reached chronologically in the book. I leaped ahead and wrote about something I imagined would happen near the end of the book. That garnered close to a 1000 words. Next, I used Julianna Baggott's suggestion: "Polish your jealousy to a high shine---like the chrome of a well-loved Mustang." This was easy when I went to post my word count on the NaNo website and two of my long distance buddies had reached the 50,000 completion mark over the weekend, and Arlyn had pulled ahead of my by 3000 words, and Annie had more than doubled her count over the weekend. What the heck had I been doing?

Dinking around with my blog and all the other aforementioned activities. I dove back in and wrote another 1000 words before bedtime. I'm ready to be done with this. It's been fun, but I want to step into December with all the accompanying wonder and madness of the year's end.

ph