NaNoWriMo Day7

I am not competing in this year's NaNoWriMo.

I am not aiming to gain the very lovely fish biscuit of an icon on my Author's page, and I'm not set on the bragging rights that come with completing the 50K in 30Day challenge.

I am not giving up anything to achieve the 50K goal.

I continue to check my social media and play a round or two of various games. I definitely am still watching my K-Dramas. (Lee MinHo does not wait for word count!) I'm not giving up even a minute of time spent with my nephew who is at a very precocious 2 and finally calling me 고모 as I have demanded. (It took a stuffed Pororo all the way from Korea to earn the title, but I am not above bribery.) I have a demanding full-time job that takes a lot of care and feeding and if I'm missing any of it, it's not for my part-time job because both deserve that respect.

I am not attending any Write-Ins.

I am sure my fellow WriMos are terribly lovely people, and I wish them the best of luck, but writing now has to be a solitary sport. I used to have a team. And it was an amazing, talented, frustrating, overly-dramatic team, but if I rely on a team, I'll never fill out more than my limited characters. If I go to a write-in, I'll do what I would do anyway or not do what I should be doing.

More over, the Write-Ins are fleeting. There will be no Write-In to go to in December to get me going.

And see, that's the thing: December.

I am aiming for a deadline.

I am aiming to get something down on paper every day, with the deadline of a First Draft due November 30th. That draft is due no matter that I am in San Francisco for a week, that I have a relative visiting for the first time in 25 years, that I have approximately four Thanksgivings to attend the last week of my deliverable.

My draft is due on that date and if I miss it I'll fall off of schedule, because I have made an agreement with myself to actually achieve this deadline and this deliverable, and it has minimum expectations. It doesn't matter that there's a website, and a crew of people, and a mobilized Social Media forum for this event, because what it comes down to is what I've agreed with myself to accomplish, and I owe myself this chance.

I am building a habit.

I haven't built up a word bank, though I am slightly ahead. I don't have a buffer ready for all these things I have planned. And that's because more important than the deadline is the process, the habit. I get up in the morning and I write a little, or I plan a little. I work all day (ALL DAY) and then at home I decompress with the latest translated (or half translated as the case might be) drama that I'm engaged in, and then I write some more.

I have promised myself an hour each day, and that's what I'm giving myself. An hour of writing. Thank goodness I have another habit to fall back on (probably the better term is addiction) that allows me to spew out 1.5K words in an hour and still be on track to meet my goals. If I want more, I can take more, but I can't take less, and that's the key.

Now, here's the funny thing:

I'm doing more than I was before.

I have added to my life, not taken away from it, and yet, I'm getting up earlier each day, I'm getting to work earlier each day and accomplishing more at work. I'm spending MORE time with my family than typical.

So, that's one week. We'll see about one month. I dare hope we'll get to one year.