Doyce’s comments around De’s post on being behind in NaNoWriMo really hit home in a lot of ways.

Look! A guy! Stressed! Which makes him break his pencil! So he can't write!

For me, too, this has been one of the toughest NaNos (my fifth year participating).  I’ve been behind pretty much  constantly since Day 1 — sometimes catching up very close, but then followed by days of inactivity.

I can point to a variety of reasons — my work’s been nuts, too, from a time perspective but also from a stress perspective. And I’ve let that distract me from all those wise word about writing a little rather than nothing, and basically spent more evenings unwinding rather than working on the novel.

Not that I mind all the distractions, mind you.

Plus this week, the in-laws have been in town, which has provided additional distractions.   Not that they aren’t supportive of my efforts, but there’s a dozen different things being worked on, and when I’m done with my job work, I feel the need to work on some of those home improvement and/or meal prep efforts. In fact, I want to.

A telling point is that the two regularly scheduled Write-Ins I attend have been lifesavers, in terms of word count. And it’s not just the mutual support and all, but because they are regularly scheduled blocks of time (and external blocks of time, not “just” my saying that I’ll write daily from 5:30-7:00pm).

Theoretically, if I had one more Write-In a week that I went to, I’d be golden …. I’m not going to do that (this year), but it’s something to remember.

Aaaaanyway, I’m still plugging away.  I have a Write-In tonight, then the holiday weekend which will be very tough, and then we’re into the last week.  I have no idea if I’ll hit 50K (and here I thought I’d be done with the writing in short order and was puzzling about how to convert editing work into word count, ha!), but I do still have a story to tell, and I want to get on with telling it.

Shucks, nothing that a Time-Turner wouldn't help with ...