Susanne Winter

Yesterday was surprisingly wordy. I ended up with 3,907 words total. Which made me really optimistic for today.

I even started writing right after breakfast. And thing went slow like a snail’s pace. Half an hour later I had 770 more words, and just knew that my second scene was wrong.

Since then I have been running, working the day job, and taken care of my kid. 90 minutes until bedtime. Somehow I’m thinking that I might not be able to write another 2,000 words in that time.

Meh.

I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. Maybe I should go to bed right now, and get up early tomorrow.

After yesterday’s disaster I had high hopes for today. Again. The disaster was not quite as disastrous as I had feared because I managed to write another 500 words late in the evening. But then my son wanted to talk about stuff like music, and computers, and such, and since he is a teenager and rarely communicates I was happy to talk to him. A little less long would have been better for my novel, though.

So I was very resolved to write a lot today, and start a little earlier than late afternoon. And I did. But it didn’t make as much of a difference as I hoped it would. I’d say my process does leave a little room for improvement.

On the bright side I have written 2,336 words so far, and it seem I will write some more tonight after finishing this.

On the not so bright side I spent less than an hour actually writing. It seems that every hour of writing requires three hours of procrastination which makes the whole thing rather time consuming. I might have to work on that.

I’ve been thinking about this all month. If I could just sit down and write fiction the way I sit down and write blog posts things would be peachy. I’d tell myself, „I need to write a chapter of the novel today“, open the laptop, start typing and would be done an hour later.

Well, things could be better but if I can manage to eek out 2,600 words per day I can still make it.

Which means I only have 300 more words to go for today with an hour left before bedtime.

I hesitate to say that that’s doable because of past experience.

So today was the day I was supposed to write something liek 10,000 words or so.

I woke up too early, and read for half an hour, then I had breakfast, and wrote my regular daily blog post, and was on the internet, and talked with my husband, and then I waited for my son to get up for an hour or two, and then I did the breakfast dishes, and then I cleaned most of what I hadn’t cleaned yesterday, and then I helped to make lunch, and then I just sat around and read a book, and then I was just about to start writing (at 4 pm) and my husband enter the kitchen where I was hiding with my laptop to tell me about a problem he had with his new electric guitar, and then I was rather cranky, and took and shower, and gave myself a pedicure with really nice green nailpolish that I hadn’t tried before, and then the three of us watched Beethoven’s violin concerto because our son had made the mistake of expressing an interest in learning about classical music, and then our son and I sat down and watched two episode of „How I Met You Mother“ while eating potato chips, as one does, and then was now, and the wifi will turn itself off in eight minutes.

I did write a sum total of 39 words so far.

The good thing is that I wrote 1,278 words yesterday but the fact that I can write that many words in 27 minutes doesn’t really mean a thing if I don’t sit down and write.

This NaNo might be doomed.

Or I might manage to write some more tinight. Not 10,000 words for sure, though.

Worst NaNo ever.

But at least I have started the new novel?

Well.

It is forty minutes until bedtime and I still have to do a huge pile of dishes. I haven’t written a single word today. And haven’t done any planning. I do remember thinking about the novel for a few minutes while trying to clean the house but I didn’t actually finish the cleaning as well.

I changed the sheets. I cut my husband’s hair. I made pizza from scratch. I talked to my mother-in-law for twenty minutes. I played the piano, and the ukulele, and I worked all afternoon.

No words.

I really hope tomorrow will be better. I’m still a little sick, though, and a free Saturday might mean that I just plunk down in a chair and do nothing because I’m tired and need rest. I also need to finish cleaning the house because I was too sick to clean it last week.

Part of me wants to do some writing, and do the dishes, and clean so I’m done but that’s a really bad idea.

I will do the dishes, get ready for bed, and got to sleep soon. And tomorrow I will start writing. Even if I haven’t finished my outline or anything.

I’m feeling that if I don’t start writing tomorrow I won’t be able to write 50,000 words in November. I have all but given up on finishing the whole novel until the end of the month.

But then when you’re sick, and there is drama, and crises the writing schedule has to give.

Funny enough I have been writing my blog posts all month, faithfully every day. If only writing fiction would feel so easy. I might have to do more of that but then it might never feel easier. We’ll see.

It’s all going a little slower than I would like but I did make progress today. Did not start writing yet but scenes and characters are beginning to accumulate. Not far to critical mass, I’d say,

I’m still a little under the weather, and there has been quite a bit of drama all around which is also to be considered.

I do know who the murderer is now, which is really exciting.

I know the beginning which is always where it all starts, I am slowly developing a feeling for the end and the middle. I don’t think one can rush this, unfortunately. And sine this is mostly a murder mystery I don’t think just writing by the seat of my pants would be a good idea.

Tomorrow will be a really full day but I’m hoping for the weekend.

I had another rather derailed day with a doctor’s visit, and some other things that filled my mind to a point where there wasn’t much space for the novel. I do have a bit more of a feel for it, which is good, but not quite enough.

I’m still hoping to start writing tomorrow, or maybe a little later tonight. There’s still ninety minutes until bedtime.

I have to say that this has been my least productive NaNo ever so far.

Not giving up yet.