You Too Can Escape Oblivion, Step 1. Avoid Oblivion

Halfway through this month should have marked the halfway point of NaNoWriMo, for anyone doing their best to tread water and cling to the daily average word count that is. The rest of you breaking the curve who are within spitting distance of (or already over) 50,000 words, bah. Just... just... I can't even with you right now, all right? For me, halfway came a few days late.

I started NaNo strong (IMHO), with a detailed outline but room for creative twists and turns, enthusiasm for my novel, writing support network, and a deep rooted desire to get the 'Winner' t-shirt that I'll never wear outside of my house. I marveled at how well I stuck to the daily word count this year with a little more ease and, dare I say, grace than last year. And then week 1 ended.

I was grumpy, tired, wanting to do anything other than sit at my desk or a cafe table swilling coffee like my life depended on it (it really did) and trying in vain to make the words come. Real life commitments changed. And by changed I mean straight up tripled. It's for a good cause, the health and well being of a few young people in my life, but it does impact my time resources.

So I bailed out for a few days. And by bailed out, I mean passed out asleep by 8 at night. Full disclosure this probably happened once or twice as well:

And this:

And most likely this:

There, I feel better now.

Before this, I had padded about an extra day's worth of words in with dreams and hopes of having several days of thousands upon thousands of words written to effortlessly glide to the finish. *snort* When I finally pulled myself together and mainlined coffee like a proper caffeine junkie, I was thousands and thousands of words behind. My NaNo stats page let me know my projected finish date was sometime late December.

For good measure.

Here's the thing though. I rallied. Yes, I bitched, but I rallied. (It's part of my charm.) I accepted the break was a necessity and didn't dwell much. I accepted the righteous power of word sprints, something previously unknown and snickered at by me, into my writing life. (I'm a word sprinting convert. It truly is obscene how much more productive they make me.) I have horribly abused coffee and forsaken sleep. I write on my phone while I'm in waiting rooms. My hands ache and swell every night, but I slap on a few topical pain relieving patches and keep on going. And I finally let go of trying to trudge through scenes were I feel stuck, put a pin and a few notes in them, and move on to what comes next. In 24 hours I packed in about 4,000 words. I'm still technically behind, but my NaNo stats page tells me that I need less than 2,000 words a day to finish on time. Totally doable with minimum bitching and moaning practices in place.