The day started yesterday a bit later than it needed to due to me sleeping in a bit. The dog had woke me up early again, asking to go out again, and it took me a while to go back to sleep. Then I slept through my alarm. It was a phone call that woke me up.
So I was late to my desk. I faffed around with social media and emails and the like and played a bit of my side-hustle game, then I joined in with the People’s Friend writing hour via the mobile phone. I was late getting there, but at least I made it.
Then I thought I’d catch up on some of the competitions I abandoned when I was busy doing the ghostwriting. And while I was doing that, I did some thinking. About NaNoWriMo and The Secret of Whitehorse Farm.
I was already raving late to NaNo because of everything we had booked in last week, but I did at least start it. However, I was feeling a bit annoyed that I’d missed so much of it and was already lagging so far behind.
I went off and grabbed the short story Take Your Pick and gave it a revamp. This is the last story I wrote as part of the 12 stories in 12 months challenge, which I would like to join again in January.
But I needed it to be out there, earning its keep. So I gave it a revamp, sent it off, removed it from the 12s database, and updated my record of submissions.
I tried to watch a couple of training videos, but something wasn’t working somewhere. I didn’t know if it was my laptop, the browser or something else. So I did some investigation and discovered it’s the external monitor or the monitor cable.
Then I had a look at a writing course I thought I’d enrolled on and saw I was only down for previews and not the full course, yet I’d paid a monthly sub on 10 October. So I fired off a support message about that.
Then I chewed my nails again over NaNoWriMo… I need The Secret of Whitehorse Farm to be a 40,000-word novella rather than a 50,000-word short novel anyway.
So I decided to duck out of NaNo this time and just concentrate on the 40,000 words I want to write. I know I could be a NaNo rebel and just do the 40,000 words, but as I don’t know anyone else who’s doing NaNo this year either, I already know it won’t be any fun.
Decision made, I went back to the writing college to work out why my membership was preview only… and I discovered it’s because I joined as a free member and didn’t pay anything. D’uh!
Off went another email, this time filled with grovelling apologies, and I ummed and ahhed about whether or not to pay the membership and do one of the courses alongside the novella…
I’m still umming and ahhing…
The Secret of Whitehorse Farm
2,296/40,000 words – 6% done!
Good decision! You’ll probably have more fun with the novella without the Nano pressure. This year, it just felt like too much, and like it wouldn’t be fun. Yet I’m working on stuff that IS fun, and it’s flowing better.
If I’d been able to start on time, or even two days ahead in anticipation of the missed time, I think I might have carried on. But once I’d missed that start, it got harder and harder. There will be other years, the novella will still be written, and it will still be written in time to appear in January’s Words Worth Reading.