NaNoWriMo 2022 Days 8, 9 & 10

Today, I woke up lethargic and achy from some yard work yesterday. I’ve been practicing listening to my body, so I took a slow morning of reading. Intake and rest are important but oft-ignored ingredients for making creative work. One of NaNoWriMo’s problems is encouraging people to throw out everything in their life besides fiction writing, but I am more interested in a sustainable writing practice that complements, not dominates, my life.

I felt better after lunch, but decided to let my brain dig down a rabbit hole of excitement to finish a blog post that’s been sitting in my drafts folder for several months. As I’m reminded of the flaws in NaNoWriMo, I wanted to explore a meta element of writing that I believe NaNo and the writing community as a whole tends to ignore: deciding which projects are worth investing your time in.

Met up again with my friend on Discord and put in a bit under two hours of writing to hit 20k. I’m happy with an average of 2k a day, even though that puts me on track for 60k rather than 70.

I wrote off the edge of my map on Monday, so Tuesday and Wednesday this week ought to have involved outlining, but instead I followed where the writing was going and dove on in to several more scenes that I am delighted with. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d maneuver the pair together but their chemistry sparked immediately and I realized there was Only! One! Bed! on this spaceship, so I got to write the beloved romance trope. There’s been accidental touching and lusting so far, and I am almost onto the next escalation of their physical connection, which I have been planning in the back of my head for months. Excited to write it tomorrow! Huh, this write what you’re excited about thing is going well so far 😂