Nanowrimo is in full swing, and it’s been a nice distraction from being pregnant. Which, PS – the symptoms just got REAL, guys. Like, the crap that was happening before feels like it was just an inconvenience. If I’m up and around now, you can pretty much assume I’m not pain free. Not even Tylenol cuts it anymore. And then there’s the witching hour when, at 7:00 pm on the dot, my right leg decides to get restless to the point where I sometimes can’t sleep. Couple that with a kid shoving his fists into my hips and I’m basically a wreck.
The good news is that we’re at 18 days and counting until this kid is due. I don’t have to suffer for much longer.
Nano has given me something else to think about for a while, which has been nice. Instead of beating myself up about all the stuff on the baby list I have to still do and worrying about my hips, I can instead agonize over the fact that I haven’t been able to get a good word count together for Nano.
I have 450 new words so far. That’s it.
I’ve never failed this badly at Nano, and I’m not 100% sure what to claim as the cause. I’m relatively certain it isn’t the pregnancy, because writing isn’t physically onerous. My brain is working fine. I think it might be that I’m just SO rusty. I probably haven’t written anything new in over a year. I’ve been editing things instead. It feels like I don’t know how to go back to creating things from scratch.
Of course I DO know. The reality is that you sit yourself in the chair and you force yourself to put words down (however bad) until you have a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Then you go back through and make it something that won’t embarrass you to show to others. I’m just feeling such an aversion to it right now.
Maybe I tried to thrust myself too far into the deep end. I don’t know. But I do know I’ll need a new plan if I’m going to make this work. I still have time to turn it around. I’ve done it before six days into Nano, and sometimes longer.
Alright, I’m off to regroup and get some writing done.
Casey E. Hamilton 