NaNo Check In: Day Five

Here we go … as a huge storm rumbles it’s way towards where I’m sitting at my desk and a lovely icy winds blows in.

Up early

- YES! 5:00am again – and the novelty of it has worn thin given I’ve been to bed too late the last two nights to get my seven hours sleep. I am definitely early to bed tonight. I do have to admit though – I love being the first one up and having some quiet time. Given it’s early to bed tonight I might aim for 4:00am tomorrow morning – there is so much to get through and now I’m behind big time (not with my word count but with the Chinese Whisperings anthology).

Morning Pages

- YES! Kept it to three today – need to spend more time exploring plot lines in them – rather than what I have been dreaming. Alternatively – my dreaming could assist in my plotting thereby killing two birds with the one stone in the morning with my pages. At least I have a template of sorts to base the development of my male character (which I just reminded myself of now … gosh I’m good – not!)

No internet until word count reached

- NO! It was a terrible morning here and I needed to just chill out, hang out and connect with some writer friends before I could face trying to write.  More on that below.

2000 words per day (or more)

- YES. 2090 which brings my total up to 13256

No sugar

- ALMOST! We drove into The Valley this afternoon to get the choc coated coffee beans for Ben and I needed something to keep me awake on the drive in. Discovered my mental processes were so depleted that I could barely drive and eat my Magnum. The cravings are getting better though.

Walk where possible

- NO! Though I did contemplate going out this morning instead of writing after my morning pages. I should have – it may have proven more productive than sitting to write!

Eat Sensibly

-Got a Bruffin at the bakery when I stopped in to get bread at 6:30am and ate it on the way home. Missed lunch etc. But I did buy myself some raw nuts and have them by the computer now to much on as I write.  Need to keep a water bottle as well (read – hide from Dylan so he will stop chewing and destroying the lids on them!)

Maximise opportunities for creative headspace.

- I’m trying – maybe I am trying too hard. Having a clear head space would help – so sleep. And I think a bath soon would be the order of the day also.

Great stuff

Well when I did get to write the words came relatively easily and I got a great image of where my scene I am working on will go next.  I love my iPod! I incorporated a whole heap of 80s songs into a scene where my MC was running through the forest. Only I could weave some tragic 80s music into a sci-fi novel.

I have a classic line for tomorrow.  “I … you … we bury our dead too.” I see it as sort of a “I carried a water melon” moment – if you can imagine it at the grave of someone.

Crap Stuff

I relied on coffee to get motivated which made it worse than better. Dylan had a melt down, due to lack of sleep, and refused to go to kindy, so ended up sitting to write the first of my words around 10:30am after we’d had a yelling match, I had a debrief and I’d wanted to clean, wash and reorder my entire house – anything but writing. Felt in the wrong head space before I contemplated killing off a favourite character. As it was I struggled until I got a chance to see him die from afar through Shet’s eyes. It’s peaceful in a way – watching the sun go down – both on the day and his life.

Weird Stuff

80s music in a sci-fi novel. Surely that is weird enough …