NaNoWriMo - What I've Learned Week Two

It's been a week and, being completely transparent, quite a frustrating one. After a successful last week both personally and professionally, this week was all the more disappointing.

My NaNo progress suffered in the process. Last week, I hit a word count of 21,492. As of this morning, my word count for this week is 6,987. I know progress is progress and any word written counts, but I know I didn't put the effort in I could have or should have. The only day I had a legitimate excuse was Tuesday when I had a migraine and was dizzy, so focusing on any task was nearly impossible.

So how were these two back to back weeks so drastically different?

For one, I didn't start writing in the morning. Even when I had the time to do it, I puttered around the house with the same old excuses I always use - the dishes need to get done, the trash needs to go out, X-amount of minutes really isn't that much time to get into the story, I'm not really in the writing mood, I'll have more time after work, etc.

For another, I allowed myself to get deterred by other things that didn't matter or didn't change my ability to focus on what I really want to be doing. The biggest of those was some hip pain I've had for several days. This isn't out of the ordinary for me, but it's been really annoying recently and I've been focusing on resting. The reality is that I could have been writing. Of all the tasks that I need to get done in a day, writing doesn't impact the aches and pains I experience (other than if I'm sitting for too long). Instead of pulling up the laptop that was next to me, I reached for the remote.

This is part of the writing journey and I know I'm not the only writer out there who has weeks like this. I've been in a rut, but on reflection, I know I can do better. Thankfully, I've got the rest of the day today to get to work and get some writing sessions in. And I can always do better next week.

How's your NaNo experience going?

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