So Far . . .

So far, the little one is asleep and I’ve just broken 8000 words with my writing for the month.

How awesome is that?

When I’m updating my word count with 100 or 200 words in a day, it feels like a drop in the ocean. My biggest writing day so far? Something over 600 words. My daily average, according to stats tracking on the NaNo site, currently sits at 434, which seems higher than it should be.

It’s a relief seeing these small amounts add up.

I squeeze writing in where I can – where it’s feasible – but I allow myself not to, as well. Frequently, I have a free hand and I don’t use it for words. Instead, I’m reading a book, or catching up on social media, or reveling in this tiny-but-not-as-tiny life we made.

That last one involves snuggling and photos. Lots of photos. My Instagram is nothing but baby photos, Twitter is often hopefully pithy baby related comments, and my daughter has her own album on my Facebook. It’s the first Facebook album I’ve ever created, and I’ve had an account since 2007. I am most definitely one of Those Parents. And yet you would be amazed at my restraint.

It’s good that I don’t try to cram in words at every spare second because that’s not sustainable. I’d burn myself out in short order. Besides which, the whole point of my revised NaNo challenge is to figure out this new balance.

What I’ve learned so far:

1. Don’t draft by hand when I’ll have to transcribe it later. This little one just does not allow me that much time, so in the interest of productivity and my mental state, this is no longer an option (after having been my preferred process for more than a decade). And no, I’m not interested in dictation software; composing aloud is a tragedy waiting to happen, I don’t want to use a crap program that will just cause me more work in the long run but can’t justify to myself the expense of a good program, and the times it would be most useful – so far – are times when I least want to risk waking the baby.
2. Multiple projects at once are my friends. Where before I couldn’t split my focus enough to make this a feasible approach, split focus is now my baseline standard. Can’t make words come on one project? Switch to another. Most recently, I’ve had two short stories in process of rough draft going in Scrivener, plotting of another short story by hand (because plotting just works me through things; I don’t have to type it later), and a novel manuscript on my Kindle for the necessary read-through before tackling revision.
3. Don’t power through; sleep. When the computer starts sliding off my lap, or the pen starts making feathery blotches on the page, or the Kindle starts slipping from my fingers, it is past time for me to sleep. I need to be functional for the little one, and I need to be functional to make my words coherent.

November is zooming by too fast, but at least it’s not over yet! Next month, I get to refigure this fledgling balance (again) with the addition of working part time.

P. S. The baby has slept through the entirety of me writing this post, and today’s word count sits right around 750. The day is still young! The thought of perhaps reaching the 1000 word mark in a single day makes me giddy.