Tuesday, November 03, 2015

'NaNoWriMo'ing

I'm pretty sure that isn't a word but you have probably got the gist which is that I've signed up for NaNoWriMo again. So far this has been something of a disaster. On the first morning I got up, made myself a coffee - as you do, well, I do - and sat down with my writing journal to put down an outline of my already planned novel - and discovered a plot hole of gigantic and apparently irreparable proportions.

Undaunted I did a rethink and by the end of the day I had a new outline. So it'd be fine, wouldn't it. I could make up the words easily over the next few days. Hey, I went to Clarion South. You'd be amazed at what I can do.

Then the next day there was a family gathering which was great. It's rare for us all to get together  and I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, that meant no words on the page but that was all right. I was mapping it out in my head all day. It'd be fine.

Except I had a very bad - as in not much sleep for various reasons - night and got up exhausted - so exhausted I ended up back in bed for much of the day apart from a visit to the dentist. At least that wasn't too traumatic. But it'd be fine. I'd get down to it first thing in the morning. No problem.

And I did. Despite only having five hours sleep - yes, sleep can be a mysterious and rare beastie around here - I sat down at the computer this morning, went to open up my word processor  - and it wouldn't work. So I spent much of the day trying to resolve the problem because, although I back up meticulously, if the program won't work you can't access anything. It's - finally - working now and it's almost time for bed - lack of sleep is catching up on me - but there's always tomorrow.

It will be fine. Won't it?

4 comments:

Satima Flavell said...

What a tale of woe, Helen! I hope the wretched machine is back in working order and that you get some words on paper tomorrow!

Jo said...

I echo what Satima said. I think I would have given up by now but I hope you persevere.

Graham Clements said...

Sounds like fate doesn't want you to do NaNo. The three times I have done NaNo, I always had a been thinking about the novel, and knew how it would end, before I started. Fortunately, I never suddenly discovered any gapping plot holes - but that might happen when doing the second drafts - which I am doing one of at the moment. But you still have time to get going. A mate of mine had about only about 15,000 words done by the end of week two, and he ended up getting to the 50,000 words before me last year.

Helen V. said...

Thank, everyone. I'm not doing anything else today except write so I'm hoping I'll be back on track.