The NaNoWriMo

Most of you know that I participated the The National Novel Writing Month contest last month.  It was a month of pure craziness.  But I made it! I joined the winners who participated with just 90 minutes to spare.

The Challenge: To write a novel in a month.

The Goal: Write 50,000 words in 30 days.
      -That is an average of 1,667 words per day

There were some obvious obstacles that were going to come up no matter what.  They included work, Thanksgiving, and starting 5 days late.  I didn't even know about the contest until Amy was literally shouting at me on Facebook that we "have to do this!"  :)

Then there were the unforeseen obstacles.  I had an old roommate and her family come in from out of town.  They stayed with me for about 4 days.  I enjoyed visiting with them, and I didn't feel like I could just shut them out for hours at at time.  So I didn't write much then.  Then I started P90X which was took about an hour and half of additional time out of my day.

But all was well.  I was cruising about 10,000 words behind every day.  I knew I would get caught up though.  I usually do well in the 4th quarter.  That is just how I roll.

And then it happened.  Life reared its ugly head and threw every curveball it had RIGHT AT MY HEAD!

First, I notice that my throat was getting sore.  oh no! By Monday morning (Nov 26) I was in full blown cold mode.  My head was in that foggy, stuffy, cant-remember-what-is-going-on phase.  That is when the stress started.  I was out of sick days at work for the year so I had to go to work every day last week.  Then the headache started.  I think it was a stress headache because it was all across the back of my head and down my neck.  It lasted from Monday until Friday with not break!  No joke. Then I slept on my neck wrong so my neck was literally crying anytime i moved it.  I was taking DayQuil and NyQuil to manage the cold but I was still barely able to keep my eyes open at work.  Then on Tuesday my world really started to crash down around me.  My boss told me they wanted us to work an additional 20 hours that week.  Meaning between Tuesday and Saturday we were supposed to get an added 20 hours in on top of the normal 40.  That is when I almost cried at work.  Seriously.  I played the sick card (yeah i did!) and asked if i could just work an additional 10 hours of OT instead of the full 20.  They agreed. Then the cramps started on Wednesday.  In addition, I was going to bed somewhere around 12:30 at night and getting up at about 5:45 am.  I wondered a few times if this was what dying felt like.  (I know that is dramatic but I was drugged and sleep deprived, don't judge)

I was literally a hot mess all week.  They are lucky I wasn't curled up in the fetal position and crying under my desk.  I am proud to say that didn't happen.

Oh and did I mention that i still had 20,000 words to go as of Monday the 26th?  Yeah.  It was pretty awful.  I thought about giving up a few times.  I figured I had enough good reasons to.  No one could argue with me that I didn't have a lot going on.  But I decided I would be disappointed in myself if I did, no matter the reasons.  So I plugged on.  I actually almost finished a day early, but I accidentally fell asleep after work for two hours on Thursday.  I was really dying though.

Then on friday (Nov 30th) I only had 1,540 words left to go.  I got home and opened my laptop excited to finish this thing!  And then life threw its last curve ball.

WRITER'S BLOCK!!!!

I had plenty of material.  But for some reason I had nothing in my head to write.  I knew the next thing that was going to happen in the story, but i just didn't know how to transition into it.  And it is a BIG thing that happens.  So it has to have a transition.  I was just lost.  So lost.  I briefly wondered if this was when I would fail.  On the last day.

I messaged my trusty friend, Nicole, and she came to my rescue.  We brainstormed.  She gave me a scene starter and so I said goodbye and started to write it.  As I was writing it though, it just didn't feel right.  I felt like I was betraying my character.  I knew she wouldn't say or do the things I was making her say and do.  I just told myself to write the words to get to my 50,000 goal and then I would delete it later.  But it still felt like a betrayal.  So I stopped and thought about what she would really do.  I realized what she would do and I finished off the scene that way.  And then inspiration hit.  I realized I had just written a perfect transition to a different part of the story that I had already written but was just chillin at the bottom, getting pushed further and further out, because I didn't know where to put it. Amazing how that works out.

So I made it to 50,000 words! My novel is not done.  I still have probably another 20,000-30,000 words left to go.  Hopefully I can finish that off in the next 2 months or so and then start to edit.  I will keep you posted.  Right now I am taking a break from it for maybe a week or so.  I am working on some Christmas presents and trying to recover from being sick.

What I learned: I am stronger than I give myself credit for sometimes.  And life it hard and sometimes you just have to plunge in and swim hard knowing that it won't always be like this.

Thanks for all of your support guys!  Sometimes it was the only thing that kept me going.  I have great friends!

And for your visual enjoyment, I took photos of myself as i was writing for about the last 2 weeks.  I was fun to see my different stages of tired.  haha