A quick note: apparently this blog is now three years old. Aw.
So today was the fourth of July (still is for about two more hours – and the guys shooting off fireworks down the street certainly aren’t letting us forget it. Hell yeah, America). Now, I’ve never in the past few years had problems with writing on holidays – even Thanksgiving, I can find time to squeeze in a few thousand words (and, to be honest, I’ve never not hit 50K by Thanksgiving). The fourth of July isn’t a big deal in my family. We do small things, have maybe one family member over. I think this is in part due to the fact that my dad died around this time of year? I mean, not entirely, it’s been five years, but I think the chill fourth events started because of that.
Anyway. I woke up this morning expecting to be able to write a thousand or so but my mom called me – we went shooting (archery) for a few hours. That’s okay, I told myself, I’ll write when we get back. But of course when we got back there was cleaning to be done, and then a guest over (and I’m not rude enough to leave the room/hide in my own when we have company) and, all things told, it’s 10:12 pm and I’ve written a hundred words. Granted, this is better than nothing, and I have thought a lot about what I’m going to write. It’s weird, though.
Holidays have never, ever affected my NaNoing (noveling, I suppose). I can always beg off, or hide in my room, or something. This time, though, the events just took over the day. I’m not complaining, though – I got a good workout and got to have a lot of great conversations with my family that I wouldn’t have had if I’d spent the whole time writing.
All things told, it’s 10:15 and I’m going to try to write a thousand or two before bed (by 12, I think, because I am absolutely exhausted). I’m sitting at 17K at the moment. My ultimate goal is 20,000 words, but I don’t know. If I can’t reach that, I won’t be upset at myself.
This JulNo is so chill. I’m enjoying myself, something that I don’t really get to do during most NaNo months – I spend the whole time not being happy with my output, or wanting to constantly write more. It’s a great experience, honestly! I like being proud of myself. I like enjoying what I write. I like writing 1K in 15 minutes and being proud rather than saying “there was a time I could write 1500 words in that time”. Yes, that’s true, but those words would also have been mostly crap while these are… not good but salvageable.
Essentially (or, as the internet kids say, tl;dr): I get, now, why people dread Thanksgiving so much during NaNo. I get it, you guys. (But I also really had a great day. So. Today was a success, if not so much for my writing.)