#NaNoWriMo LOG: DAY 06 (A 1st Timer's Journey)
I woke with ease today. That was nice. We’ve flipped the heat on for the Winter months so the house is not too cold to get out of bed into. I have one of those gas fireplaces so I've been using that each morning, mostly to make like I'm a real writer with some cool writer-esque ambiance.
I’ve been working through this challenge so far as a mostly-pantster. For those unfamiliar, a “pantster" is someone who doesn’t plan, but rather flies by the seat of their pants through the project. I like the idea of piloting pants.
I knew 50,000 words was a lot and I did walk into this challenge with a basic outline to ignite my thoughts. I imagined it would see me through well enough, but the scary thing is I’m only at 16,005 words and I have hit every one of my outline headers already. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough for 30 days worth of writing, it's very clear now that I do not.
I’m realizing I need to spend some time today setting myself up to succeed the rest of the way through this challenge. And after I just wrote a journal post called “Planning is for the Birds” - HA!
I’m sticking with my “keep it simple” approach. I know editing is not part of this, but my goal today will be to go back through what I’ve written so far, and add sub-headers and trigger points that I can elaborate on, hopefully for the duration of the challenge. I need a small piece of “word kindling” to get my brain ignited each morning. That's my project for some time today, create word-kindling. Once I start typing, rambling on and on for about an hour, hour-and-a-half flows pretty well, which brings me in right around the 1667-2000 word range.
The unknowns can be a little daunting, but I’ll take what I do know about myself and how I work to give it my very best shot. I am hungrier now to finish this than I’ve ever been in all the years of simply wanting to participate. Actually DOING it is a whole new level of energy and it's AMAZING.
I got stuck today, I used that moment to get up, walk around the kitchen for a few minutes, drink some water, make my coffee, clean up my spilled water, and sit down and continue on for a bit longer. I avoided checking email and social media today. Yesterday when I did that it took my brain into directions best saved for after NaNoWriMo time.
Anyone else have any struggle points yet? What are you working through and HOW are you working through it?
Today's stats:
Started writing at 4:40a
Got stuck at 5:13a (1511 words)
Stopped writing at 5:51a (1975 words)
Started this daily journal post
Decided I was too close to 2000 words to stop, went back and wrote a bit more.
Actually stopped writing at 6:25a
2353 words today, current total 16,005
(holy macaroni, you guys!)