Something NaNo That Way Goes

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I’ve never been so far behind on my word count before, and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of the idea.  Before this year, I’d never been more than 1,000 words behind par before.  And even then, that period of time would only last for a few hours.  The fact that I’ve spent most of the month solidly behind par?  Well, it makes my soul weep.

I got stressed out one of the first weekends, when several aspects of my life decided to converge at once, while I was sleep deprived, to wreak havoc.  Normally I rely on my weekends to give me something of a buffer, so that my weekdays can have some slack to them.  This… did not happen.  And then the start of that week was filled with more obligations and duties… and then Chris Baty came to town, and that’s too unique of an experience to pass up, of course.  And then… well, by then, I was so far behind on my word count that I decided to treat it the same way that I deal with most of my biggest problems- ignore it for as long as possible and hope that it doesn’t get worse in the meantime.  Pro Tip- when the problem in question is a daily word count, ignoring it does not make the problem easier to deal with.

All the same, I’ve been making steady progress.  I’m not too worried, honestly.  My stats graph has yet to dip past December- right now, it’s saying I’ll finish on December 4th, which will be quite easy to tighten up.  Especially since my Thanksgiving holiday will (should?) be of minimal intrusion, which is nice.  Not that I don’t love my extended family, but there are only so many rounds of cards I can play before I want to scream.  I carpooled down with my brother who, darn the luck, has to leave Thursday night because he works in the morning.  Shucky-darn.  I get Friday off as a part of the holiday, probably with the idea that I spend it on family togetherness and yadda yadda yadda.  I’m spending it with the family of me and my novel, and it will be glorious.  I may not have the novel finished by Saturday, but you can bet your (insert funny noun here) that I will be winning on Saturday.

I’m already starting to pad my novel with scenes that didn’t even make it onto the drafting table because they made no logical sense and/or they were too trivial and/or the pacing was all wrong.  I need words at this point, and if awkward non-sequiturs are going to flow faster from my fingertips than the conflict and fight scenes I’ve written myself into, then that is what I am going to type.  I’m assuming this will be the boost I need to take myself over the finish line, but if I need to start scraping together all of my pages of doodles and notes for extra words to count, you can better believe I’m doing it.

Winning over everything.  See you at the finish line, with a snazzy badge on my profile.

Neil Siemers

Neil Siemers grew up in Derby, Kansas, a comparatively small town south of Wichita. He moved to Lawrence to attend the University of Kansas, and hasn't left since. Neil likes to pretend that he is a big shot full time writer, although it's probably closer to a hobby. Either way, it's funded by a full-time job in the insurance industry, where he happily works as a cog in the machine for The Man so that bills can be paid.