And yes, it is possible.
And yes, those of us who do it are a bit cracked in the head. But we're awesome.
And yes, the first draft is a bunch of rubbish.
And I’m going to start one more sentence with and because my brain is shot.
Anywho, the other night, on day 21, I was at 34,171 words—before starting for the day. That meant before I could go to sleep I had to crank out two thousand words.
Let’s just say I was in need of some motivation. My hubby handed me my ipod. He found my ear buds. He did the dishes so I didn’t have to. He changed the laundry and put the kids to bed. (He is such a keeper!) But, I needed something more to get my brain juices flowing. And yes, I know I’m pathetic, but I have very stubborn brain juices.
So anywho, I asked him if I could have a reward if I wrote my words.
Our conversation went something like this:
Me: I need a reward to make the words come out.
Him: What kind of reward?
Me: I don’t know. What do I like that isn’t food? (Usually I’m all over food as a reward, but I’d already rewarded myself for breathing and other hard things several times that day and felt kind of full. And when you read ‘full’ you should really read ‘afraid of the bathroom scale’.)
Him: Um, you like art, and books, and fire—.
Me: Ohhh! Can I start something on fire?
Him (looking wary): Like what?
Me: Like my manuscripts! The ones I have to revise!
(Here is a picture of said manuscripts.)
Him (looking scared now): No.
Me: Why not? That would be awesome.
Him: You’ll burn the house down. Remember last time?
Me (smiling): Yeah.
Him: No.
Me: I’ll do it outside. In the culdesac. That’s far from the house. It will look cool in the dark with snow falling down. Yeah?
Him: No.
Humph. How mean is that?
I had to write my two thousand words without any cool motivation—like fire. NaNo is hard without fire.
I know you feel bad for me, because I can feel your pity. Or is that aimed at my hubby?
And no, I did not start my house on fire the last time I burned stuff. I just almost burned down the deck.
Anywho, how about you? Are you doing NaNo? If not, are you doing something else this month that pushes you to greater heights? What motivates you in your goals? Drop a comment and share. My hubby will thank you for new non-flammable suggestions. J
6 comments:
I did NaNo last year, and at this point in the game, I avoided my scale, too. The easy availability of chocolate and cheese nips in our society is a bad, bad thing. Sorry, back to the subject. So, right around day 20 or so, the reward became sleep. Lame, I know, but by then, it was right up there with breathing air and keeping warm - and yes, eating.
Since I am failing in epic proportions at NaNo, I have not rewarded myself at all for the 4000 pitiful words I wrote back on the first 2 days and the thousands of words I have not even made an attempt at writing since. But, if I was going to reward myself in a non-food manner, I would go see a movie. If I need to de-stress, get away, reward or any of a host of reasons - I go see a movie. Sometimes two or three in a row and make a day of it. I get warm fuzzies just thinking of it.
Let's see....
First of all, if I had a fire pit I'd let you burn things here. Under supervision of course. ;-) (I heard about the last time, lol)
How about; a nice bath, uninterrupted time to read, hmmm. I'm back to food & chocolate.
Kid D's cohort says, "Maybe a little bit of some money."
Have hubby give you a long, soothing foot massage. (Shudder with ecstacy.) It's the best activity NOT including food. Honest. Then you could write about your experience in your NaNo. Huh? Huh? Whadda ya think?
You can make it! You're so close! The trick is to just keep typing. Don't let those fingers stop moving. The delete key will work just as well when NaNo is over, and then you can remove anything ugly.
But if you just keep those fingers typing, eventually the creative juices flow and a few surprising gems leak out.
You are amazing and can easily do it without fire. But if you choose to use fire... come to my house. jk lol
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