WriMo Bump

I was tempted to write a number 1 after the title of this post as I suspect I've just hit the first of several bumps in this journey, but I resisted the temptation in an obvious attempt to not jinx myself. The weekend was slow in terms of mounting word count. I purposely got myself ahead the first two days because I knew I had a busy weekend. By Monday morning, I was 300 words behind the daily quota and stalled.

Even though I wrote NaNoWriMo at the TOP of my To Do list, I did not start with writing in the morning as I promised myself I would do for the month of November. In fact, I did everything else on my rather long list and at 5:30pm, I still had not opened the word processing program. I was having a crisis. My cold, which keeps fading back, was rearing its head again. I had a sore throat and a headache. (Maybe I'm allergic to writing.) My pelvis, which has been acting up for a couple of weeks, was throbbing after a stint of leaf raking. I had left the novel on Sunday morning a few pages from the end of Chapter 1, and though I'd had an Ah Ha in the shower that morning about how to bring it to a close, I could not remember exactly what the Ah Ha was. The whole story was feeling dry and boring.

But I opened the document and read the last paragraph and started clicking away, first making a few cuts and additions to the last paragraph and then moving ever so slowly forward. I had to get 1967 words in before bedtime and I was already tired. The first 300 words were torture. Nothing was flowing. After an hour or more, I realized I was at the end of the Chapter 1 and it was an OK ending. I moved to a fresh page and typed Chapter 2. All of a sudden, it was 8:00pm and I'd passed the mark. I was at 8450 words. I'd found the groove.

WHEW! I guess that supports the theory about getting one's bottom in the seat (or on the cushion in the case of meditation) and IT will come, whatever IT is.

ph