The Game Plan

Okay, so I'm lagging a little bit on NaNo. Lagging is better than a complete stop, however, so I've come up with a game plan to keep myself in his race.

Right now I stand here:



Technically, I was supposed to be here by the end of last night:



That's about 4200 words behind. But, that's okay. I've been behind for all but the first day of this NaNo and I haven't stopped yet. So what is my plan? There are a few things to consider.

1 - We're leaving for KC on Wednesday, and we're driving. From Denver to KC is about a 9 hour drive if we speed a little more than is necessary and don't stop much. It might be 10 hours if we decide we're not in that much of a hurry, or if there are too many Kansas State Troopers hanging around. Since I'll be in the passenger seat of our comfy rental car (because we are so not taking OUR car on that long of a trip) I'll have some time to pound out a few thousand words. If I don't get carsick.

2 - I'm pretty much not going to write from Thursday to Saturday. This is because I have a very large family and multiple Thanksgivings to attend, plus my mom's 50th bday party on Saturday, and some additional baby shower registering on Black Friday (*shudder*)... not to mention the fact that there are a lot of people waiting to see the pregnant lady. I still haven't posted or sent anyone baby bump pics so they're kind of antsy. Due to the insane amounts of food I'll be eating that baby bump will probably expand to make me look like I'm 7 or 8 months along instead of 6. Anyway, not a lot of writing from Thursday to Saturday.

3 - This leaves me with only Sunday (and if all else fails, Monday after work) to do any catch up from Thanksgiving week. That blows. Why? Because Sunday is November 29thth, the next to the last day of NaNoWriMo. The site will be slow from everyone validating their word count -- which is why Monday after work is completely out of the question. If I wait until the last minute to update my word count I may not register as crossing the finish line within the deadline even if I DO actually do it. This means I want to have my NaNo completely done by Sunday the 29th or I only want to have 1-2k left to go.

So, with all of that in mind, I have to be damn productive from now until next Tuesday.

I figure if I can make myself pump out a good 3k words a day from now through Tuesday, that will leave me with a word count of approximately 46,400. Like this:



(I like pictures, can you tell??)

That means all I would have to do is write 3,600 words between Wednesday through Sunday. My hope is that I can write those 3600 words in the car on Wednesday and have some breathing room for Thanksgiving, but this is uber slacker we're talking about here. I'll probably get 2k in the car and have to find time to write the last 1600 somewhere in there. This is assuming, of course, that I actually make my 3k a day word goal from now until then. But I shall banish such pessimistic thoughts.

I CAN DO THIS.

And if I can't... well, hey, I've got more words written this month than I've done combined in the last two years. That's huge. I've found out that even when I'm brain fried and baby tired (which is like every day after 6pm) I'm still able to force 1k words into a word processor a night. If I choose, I can make that a daily ritual. And I will choose to do that. Oh yes, I will. I miss writing. It's time to insert it back into my busy life.

Root for me, people. I'm on the path to victory!


~Sass~