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I am pausing from writing my novel because I really want to post at least some updates about Nanowrimo this year. This project has helped me in so many ways. It is not easy, but I am learning more about writing, about myself and about where I want to go from here.
Granted, I'm halfway through the second week as I look back on week one. Part of this is simply time, there's never enough of it. I always try to wait until after I've done my word log for the day to blog, but I've found this doesn't ever work, for two reasons. The first reason is that I am in a groove with my story and I won't stop until I am dragged away kicking and screaming from my keyboard. The second reason (what happens the other half of the time) is that I am grinding words, just trying to get something, anything written for the day. I've had plenty of both of these days, but either way, I never have any energy or inspiration to blog. Today, I'm making it a priority.
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Week One of Nanowrimo was fun. I'd been anticipating the event for months now and I was so excited to finally start putting my fingers to the keyboard and write. I had lots of thoughts and plans about my story so that first week was a simple mind dump. I wrote all of the most dramatic scenes from my novel that I had already outlined. As I wrote, some things changed, but most of it stayed within the confines of my outline so I had lots to get down. I really enjoyed experiencing all the highs and lows of my character's lives and begin to really get to know them.
This week's biggest tribulation was what Stephen defined as carpel tunnel syndrome. This surprised me, a lot, but the more I read, the more it made sense. I had pain in my fingers all the way up through my forearm. I experienced cramps in my hands and muscle weakness. At one point I could barely pick anything up. It hurt a lot. By the end of the week, my hands and arms were screaming (it didn't help that I had a couple days of heavy lifting and tedious work using my hand muscles at work.)
I started resting more and stretching my hands and they finally started to calm down a little. Even now they still hurt some, but it's that pain that almost feels good, like I've been productive. It feels like I've been working out and my muscles are getting stronger, it just takes time for the soreness to go away.
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As I entered into week two, another obstacle occurred...my whole family got sick. Zoey has been out of school for a couple of days this week with a head cold, which I then got and so did my husband. It makes writing hard because I'm trying to write around a sick kid who is more needy than normal and home during my usual writing blocks. In addition to the physical distractions, I have been really tired and I'm trying to think creatively through the cloud of a head cold, which makes making sense a bit difficult.
Even with all of those challenges, I'm still really excited about my novel and Nanowrimo. By sheer determination, I have managed to write 27,841 in the first eleven days of Nanowrimo, that is over 8,000 more words than my target goal for the same number of days. In other words, I am over halfway through the challenge 3 days before the halfway point. That is a good, productive feeling.
I'm going to end on that feeling. That's a good place to publish my blog and go back to writing my novel.
My #Nanowrimo2015 update:
(as of yesterday) Day 11
27,841 Words Written
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