Five days out seemed like a good time to look back on the NaNoWriMo progress made to date.

Day 1: I roared out of the start, completing 2,017 words on the first night. This much progress was made in less than four hours, during which time I also was able to eat dinner and talk to my MIL on the phone. I was impressed with myself, perhaps a little cocky. I felt confident that I could write a 50,000 word novel and still have a life.

Day 2: Hubris is an amazing thing. 619 words. I did not turn the tv on. I did not pull out the knitting. It had been a long day at work and Rudi went out for the evening to a meeting, leaving me home alone. I think that a better strategy would have been to take a 30 minute nap and then to have gotten up to write because I was clearly exhausted. I did manage to Swiffer my ceiling, so the evening was not a total loss.

Day 3: Little writing was expected to get done this evening because I had long-standing plans to see a movie with friends. Of course, the movie was sold-out. But we went out for tea instead. The good news is that the victim of the story was named through a joint effort by my friends. When I got home, I fell asleep on the couch instead of writing. Total words: a big, fat 0.

Day 4: Painful, painful, painful. I hate novels, writing, and everything about them. I am miserable. Rudi is miserable. Why am I doing this again? Think of how much knitting I could have gotten done by now this month if I weren’t supposed be working on this stupid thing. The day was lovely and I spent it all inside. I feel like Sally Brown in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, after she skips out on trick-or-treating and a party to sit outside all evening waiting for something she thought would be even better. Is it possible for this to get worse? I eke out just over 600 words.

Day 5: Before going to bed on Day 4, I decide that Kat has the right idea and that I need more micro-goals in order to get where I need to go. So I wrote out a whole page of numbers. This helps some. As does actually leaving the house during daylight hours. The word count currently sits at 5,515. I’d like to get in another 535 words before bed because that will be double what I had when I started the day.

Encouragement is welcome (and necessary).