Hesitant, Hopeful

Well, I certainly didn't rage. That's for sure. I didn't even saunter. I sort of just flopped. I got, like, 500 words written at Writing Group (which sometimes is much more like Chatting Group) and when I came home I promptly ignored it. Because, well, 500 words is nowhere near enough to get out of the rut I had gotten myself into. Not even close. I had this great bit of action, my heroine stomped off into a storm, and then... what? I have no idea. Or, had no idea. I'm mostly past it now, I think.

Then, I continued to let it rot. Until tonight, when I told Matt that I was 10,000(ish) words behind with NaNoWriMo, which is way more than the 3,375 words I was behind when last I wrote. One is nearly insurmountable. He encouraged me to get back on the pony and go. He said I could do it, that I wasn't so far behind that I couldn't make up the difference. That all I had to worry about tonight was writing 2,100 words. Then, tomorrow, the same and so on. All of that, but not before asking me "aren't you the woman who wrote more than 10,000 words in one day during your first NaNoWriMo?" Frankly, I couldn't believe he remembered that. I sort of accused him of reading that on my blog. Silly me, he doesn't bother with my blog. He actually pulled that from his mind somewhere. Astonishing.

So, I got my 2, 100 words (well, 2,118 actually) for tonight and tomorrow I'll worry about doing the like, until I've done that every day for the remaining 15 days of NaNoWriMo. That's all there is to it... I hope.

But, I've also decided that I'd like to finish the first draft of this manuscript before I go back to work. That means I have from now until January 13th to get this sucker done. Though I have my doubts, I'm trying to tell myself that it not only can it be done, but that I will do it. That's almost exactly two months. Oh man, put that way it sounds like much less time to work with, especially since I've been working at it for a few months and I'm still only less than halfway done. But, if I can manage to finish NaNoWriMo, I can definitely get the first draft done. I'm hopeful.

And yes, I know it's not on the topic, but did you catch that? I'm definitely going back to work in January! I am absolutely thrilled. I've really missed teaching, which is something I thought I would never say. It's surprisingly true, though. I'm only concerned that when it comes time to go back to work, writing will fall by the wayside again. I'm just going to have to work at it. As it is, I have three classes which will put me at work every week day (one class on MWF and two on TR).

So, now, with all that in mind, I'm hoping to avoid another nanoflop like the one I've had this week. Because, frankly, NaNoWriMo week two can bite me. I'm still here, still plugging along. So, take that!