Week 1

by G.Parker

I have a house full of NaNoWriMo participants this year.  It's strange, I didn't really encourage this, but I guess children follow your example despite what you say...

My husband isn't thrilled.  He doesn't like National Novel Writing Month anyway. He always asks me every year, "Why didn't they pick March?"  But such is life.

I have a bargain with my eldest daughter.  We can't have any chocolate until we reach 1000 words.  We have to take a break every hour.  We don't write on Sunday (which means we have to write more during the week) and we can't take our stress out on the rest of the family.

I found myself wanting to munch on something the whole time I was writing yesterday.  It was crazy!  I hate how a habit comes back to haunt you, even when it's been a year!  I managed to control myself.  Once I really get into what I'm writing, then the cravings and urges go away.

I have three children doing the competition this year.  My youngest is actually writing his story.  I was surprised, as he's talked about writing several books in a "Halo" type story.  I asked him yesterday why he was writing his story, and he said he just wanted to get it down on paper.  I'm still surprised.  I think it's cool...but you know, I'm not sure it's going to fill out 50,000 words...he's only 17.

Anyway - this is day 2 of the month, so hopefully you've gotten started and have written at least 3,000 words.  I'm working on getting to 6,000 words today.

I went out and did the early voting thing because the lines are insane on voting day.  While I was in the line at the library, I thought about having a write-in at the library or somewhere else.  I think the library would be best...the whole idea is to write while you're in a group, correct?  If you have a write-in at a cafe or something, it seems to me it would be too loud and too busy to be able to concentrate.  But then, I write best to music without words because the words distract me.  You could never tell my kids have ADHD, right?

Well, good luck to all who are writing.  To those who think the rest of us are crazy and don't need something like this to keep you motivated, I'm impressed.  You see though, it's come to the point where I do this because it's fun and I like to see the numbers rack up.  Not because it's the only thing that gets me writing.

What's your reason?