NaNoWriMo - putting a positive spin on an epic fail!

Wow! November sure went fast didn't it?

About a week before the start of November I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

National (though it's actually international) Novel Writing Month.

Setting myself the goal of writing a 50 000 word novel in 30 days.

What was I thinking?

Certainly not that I'd get called in to work in the library for 12 of those days.

Certainly not that I'd discover that working 9 am to 5 pm, even only 3 days a week, is hard work when you have a husband, two kids, a dog, a household to run and a part time job running a business from home!

Certainly not that my daughter would have end-of-year ballet concerts to get to, with all the extra rehearsals that entails. 

Certainly not that the closer and closer we got to December, the busier and busier life would get.

Now that I think about it, what was I thinking!?!

The idea of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel quick and dirty.

Just get the words down on the page.

No deleting.

Just do it!

As of today, I have written 4 609 words.

So you could call my NaNoWriMo attempt an epic fail!

Or you could say that I gave it a go, made a great start, and can continue writing whenever I want to.

I don't have to limit myself to a November deadline.

Let's think positive, shall we?

Friday Confessional

It's time for our weekly confessions! Visit Mamarazzi to link up or just read some confessions.

I confess that...


...this NaNoWriMo caper is harder than it looks!

National Novel Writing Month happens every November. 

The goal: to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't think it would be easy! I just didn't think it would be this hard.

The good news is that I have outlined my whole novel. And I think that I've got a good story to tell.

The bad news is that so far I've only written 1689 words. I'm falling behind!

I think that I've underestimated the number of hours that it takes to peck away at the keyboard and get the words out.

I know what you're thinking! GET OFF THE BLOG FIONA AND BACK TO YOUR NOVEL!

...I may have accidentally boarded the end of year silly season crazy train roller-coaster!

Last week I shared that I hadn't done any planning for Christmas yet. I still haven't. But I did make a positive decision about how I was going to deal with it.

I like to do one thing at a time. I like to make a list of what needs to be done and work through it one step at a time. I know that this is the way that I work. I know that I always manage to get everything done in the end. So I decided to just let myself do my thing and not worry about what everyone else is doing.

So what if Christmas planning hasn't made it to the top of my list yet? I'll get there.

But it's hard to keep calm and carry on, when every day someone is adding something to my list! Excuse me everyone, I have enough to do already. Please stop sending notes home from school, emails, or calling me with helpful suggestions of things I need to do. I have ENOUGH!

Want to know what the biggest problem is?

None of the things being added to my list are extraordinary or unreasonable. No-one's being demanding. It's all just completely normal day-to-day running-a-household-and-family stuff. There just seems to be an awful lot of it at the moment. And lots of these things have deadlines that fall before December 25th.

What does that mean?

Christmas is sliding lower and lower down my to-do list. It has almost fallen off the bottom! I'm worried that it will not make it to the top in time.

And so I'm getting tempted to jump right on the crazy train and start stressing. Somebody stop me!

What have you got to confess this week?

Confession Time

I'm doing the Friday Confessional again!

Click the pic to go visit Mamarazzi and play along!

I confess...

...that I'm not finding the planning of my "world tour 2012" very enjoyable.

Let me catch you up if you're new around here or visiting from Mamarazzi's. My family is going on a big, awesome, round-the-world holiday next year.

It is a very big deal and it is going to be awesome.

And it's not even just in the wishin' and hopin' stage; it's really happening! We have forked over our thousands of dollars for the flights. We are visiting our travel consultant tomorrow to spend some more money. Yay!

But I've got to admit that trolling through brochures and surfing the internet, comparing prices and making lists, is getting old real fast. And when Chris and I talk about it, some very real cracks are starting to appear in the "perfect holiday plans", given that he and I have very different personalities and, I think, ver different expectations for the trip.

I hope that the travel consultant is not called upon to do some impromptu marriage counseling tomorrow!

...that I have not done a thing so far to prepare for Christmas.

No. Just no. Not a hope in hell that I'll ever have something like this for Christmas.

Please don't tell me how many shopping days are left until Christmas. I don't want to know.

I have no idea what I'm buying for the kids, or what to tell other relatives to get for them.

I have no idea what I'm buying for the assorted relatives that I need to buy for.

Christmas cards? With a cute picture of the kids/family on them? Haven't done them since 2001. Seriously. I buy my Christmas cards in the supermarket and send them off in reply to cards that I receive. I know. I suck.

...that I signed up for NaNoWriMo.


What was I thinking???

For those of you not in the know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Yes, novel writing. In a month.

For the month of November, I'm going to be madly scrambling to write in every spare moment to reach the magical goal of 50000 words (yes, you read that right!) and get this novel out of my head and onto the page. Pages.

Go here to find out more!

Well that's all for me. What do you have to confess?