Monday, November 30, 2009

Winner, 4 years running

Not sure how I managed to pull it off, to be honest, but I validated yesterday at 50,549 words. This means I came back from being more than 12,000 words behind. Again, not sure how. This is by no means the most I've had to catch up - my first year I ended up writing nearly the entire 50,000 words during the last three days of the month.

However, my life was a lot different back then. I didn't have a job, and I had classes but they were all online so I could easily fit writing in wherever and stay up half the night every night doing word wars if I chose. Not that I did obviously, but I actually had the ability to blow everything off for a few days and do nothing but write.

Every year that I participate it's gotten progressively harder to finish. It seems that every year I have more going on, whether that's harder classes or being busier at my job or more real life issues coming up. I'm honestly not sure how much longer I'll be able to do this - this may have been my last year attempting, or at least I might take a break over the next year or two.

Since I did manage to win, I decided to treat myself to a present for making it through the month and winning for year number four. I don't know that I really have the money to be spending on fun things for myself right now, with all of the things I have to buy for Christmas, and major purchases that I'll have to be making in the near future (first up, new computer). But I got a really good deal on it, and it's just so pretty.


See, told you! I can't wait until it gets here. Love love LOVE Calvin and Hobbes.

Will post again soon - I still would like to write about a couple of the trips I've taken out to visit Christian, as well as a few other things. I also need to get another couple of goal updates in for the year, and we'll see what else I have time for!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Goals update 13

Taking a break from my Nano to get a goals update in. There probably won't be any more actual Nano updates as no one seemed very interested in the others - in that case I'll spend my time actually writing if I continue, instead of letting people know my progress and looking for encouragement.

1. Play through some of my video games - 5+ hours a week. Been hitting this, though probably not much more than 5 hours. I haven't been playing anything in particular, just whatever I'm in the mood for at the time. But at least I'm getting some time into my games.

2. Write every day. No problems here. I've written daily even though sometimes it's only a hundred or so words.

3. Exercise 5 hours per week. I've been okay with this, but I'm definitely slipping since I'm getting so busy. I've started a schedule and it should be finished tonight, so after that it's a matter of sticking with it!

4.
Save money, and learn to manage my money wisely. Doing well here. For the most part I seem to have hit a balance between bills, buying fun stuff for myself, and saving. I'm still trying to watch and budget carefully for the next few months to try and work in Christmas, a trip out to Philly for Wicked, and DO next year.

5.
Photography. Again, still need editing software. I'm going to try and factor that into my budget for the next couple of months, since I just got a bonus at work. I'm going to see if I can get any pictures of the Leonid Meteor shower. Aside from that I don't have a lot to take pictures of. It's a bad time of year for anything outside. The leaves have all fallen but it's not actually winter yet so everything is kind of brown and boring.

6. Make more time for myself - one hour per day. Still doing well with this one, and making time even outside of writing to relax, read, or game. Quite happy with the progress I've made on this goal. I think it's helped my stress level considerably.

7. And lastly, Nano. Not sure what's going on here. I'm way behind, and as I already posted, I'm not sure if I can catch up, or even want to try. I've still been writing and yesterday was a really good day, but we'll see how it goes from here.

I think that's the shortest that my goals list has ever been, which is fantastic. I'm already thinking of what I want to put on here for next year, which is kind of sad. But hey, I guess if spending the time to spell out goals helps me actually do things, it's worth it, right?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Nano, Day 10

Seriously contemplating giving up at this point. I hit the minimum today and a bit over, but I'm tired, sick, and stressed. I just can't make myself give a shit about Nano or anything else right now.

So sick of everything going wrong at the same time, and I have no idea what I can even do to fix any of it! Gah.

No word counts tonight - my program crashed earlier (yay for auto-backups every 15 seconds) and I never did get around to reopening it.

I'll probably decide in the next day or two if I'm even going to continue writing at all, much less go for the 50k this month. I'll probably post either way...

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Nano, Day 8

I wanted to do the daily updates for Nano again this year, like I did for last year. I've fallen a bit behind though...kind of like I have with the actual novel writing bit. It didn't start off well to begin with. November came up on me all of a sudden, and I had no plot. Hell, I didn't have the beginnings of a plot, any ideas, or even a clue what genre I'd be writing.

So the vast part of day one, when I was supposed to be writing all day and trying to get ahead, was spent in frustration trying to come up with my plot. It wasn't until about 8pm that I had it (big thank you to Corey). I managed to write a bit over the minimum requirement that day, but that was it.

Day two went alright as well. I believe I hit the minimum that day, or at least I was fairly close. You can't fall too far behind only two days in. But after that...I had the trip out to Christian's for four days. Tuesday and Wednesday (days three & four) were so busy between packing and errands that needed done that I maybe wrote a few hundred words in those two days combined. Thursday I worked, and then went straight to Christian's for the entire weekend, and just got back tonight.

I did manage to get a couple thousand words one of the mornings I was up before everyone else, so it wasn't a total waste. But at this point I'm quite far behind, and I need to get in the habit of at least writing my minimum 1,667 words a day during the week, and more if possible. If I do that, I can worry about playing catch up when I have more time on the weekends.

I think that I can still do this. It's only the eighth day. I'm about 8,000 words behind, which isn't too bad. It's not unusual for me to knock out 3,000 words or more in a day when I really spend the time on writing and get on a roll with it. I'm very frustrated that I've let myself get this far behind, but I'm trying to remain optimistic because it's quite possible to catch up fairly quickly. I'll try and post updates on my progress, and any suggestions or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated!

Needed word word count: 13,336
Current word count: 5,182
Needed to catch up: 8,154
Words left to 50k: 44,818