Some Cheese with that Whine?

On a day where I should have 15,003 words committed to paper for National Novel Writing Month, I am currently limping along at approximately 3,500 words. Where did the time and words go? I must confess to feeling a bit of panic last week when the twin responsibilities of work and school crashed down on me until I was too exhausted to breathe. Twitter has helped with keeping the hearty spirit of this frenetic adventure alive, but I find myself falling increasingly behind.

I have read several blogs and articles about all the tips and tricks to get through 30 days of writing insanity and in the moment I do feel encouraged, as if I could do anything, including purging 50,000 words from my brain to the page. But deep in the trenches of work, studying, writing papers and dealing with two feisty dogs, I find myself making excuses about why my word count is dwindling. Better yet I come up with time-wasting projects.

I have just spent the last 45 minutes surfing istock photo for vintage writing images instead of writing 1,500 words that I could easily squeeze in during that short amount of time. Even as I write this now, my eyelids are drooping and I feel the tug of tiredness and the lure of 700-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Even my dogs are imploring me with their slumbery gazes to go to bed. Instead I will hurl my plea for help and stamina out into the ether and hope I am not the only one suffering the second week slump.

For those of you still plugging away, enthusiasm undaunted, energy unsapped, I salute you!

Day Two of NaNoWriMo and all is (relatively) Well!

Today is Day Two of the 30-day endurance test of National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). After preparing so well with my character cards, note cards with 35 scenes mapped out and my outline I was so sure it would be a lock. Day 1 had me writing 1,741 words in just over an hour. I was riding high on my own brilliance. I felt like I could take on the world. I was wrong.

Enter last night. I’m exhausted from getting up at 4:45AM, I’ve just finished slogging through 35 pages of reading for my History class and at 10:30PM I was almost in a rage because my dogs refused to do their business. I’m outside in my robe begging them to just do it already so I could get to bed and do it all over again, but the dogs just wanted to play.

Once I got in bed it hit me – the terrible thought that I just cannot do this. It is too much. My life is too busy, my health won’t stand it, I don’t have the creative juice or the physical wherewithal to get it done. But this morning, when I woke up 6AM – an hour late for my writing time, there was a fire inside of me that had not died out overnight – it had merely banked itself until I could get some decent sleep. I woke up rarin’ to go and here I am on Day 2 having met my daily goal with some words to spare (1,784 and counting).

I’m exhausted, I’m hungry and I’m mean…but I am still eager to do this thing!