It was a whirlwind ending, but NaNoWriMo FauxNoWriMo, our November novel writing challenge, is over.
I did not make it to 50,000 words in the month, but I knew I would not. Early on in the month, in fact, I gave myself permission to fail, since I knew I would be spending a lot of my time taking care of Izzy. My goal was to write every day, and while I didn't entirely succeed, I also was able to maintain a habit of writing at least five days a week throughout the month.
Perhaps even more importantly, I finished the novel I was working on, the sequel to Amnesia (that still does not have its own name). The ending is flat and I know the novel (well, the entire story arc) needs a lot of replotting, rewriting, and fine tuning, but the first draft is done.
Without wasting any time, I'm moving on to my next project, an idea I had a week or so ago. I'll work on this for a bit, maybe even finish it, and then go back to Amnesia to try and fix it.
I discovered TrackBear has a public profile feature that compiles my writing projects and statistics. I've turned that on and you can see my FauxNoWriMo progress there, as well as my writing challenge for December: to write almost every day (or, in terms that I could quantify for a challenge, to update at least every two days). I've also included my most recent project, Amnesia, as well as the new one I'm working on, The Year of the Horse.
Now that NaNoWriMo FauxNoWriMo is over, I'm going to try to get back to a schedule of getting things done. It'll still be rather limited by Izzy needing something every few hours, but I'm going to see what I can accomplish around her care. Last week didn't produce the results I wanted, but that was in the demanding last week of November, so hopefully this week will be more productive.
My goals for the week are, therefore:
- Keep writing nearly every day
- Clean up and organize in the kitchen and doll spaces
- Get back to work on doll stuff
I have a bunch of doll projects that were put off when Izzy got sick and then again when November started, but now that that's over, I want to try to knock some of those out before the holidays. Plus there is a lot of cleaning that hasn't been getting done while Izzy's been sick, in addition to the ongoing organization projects I was already working on, so I want to make some progress on that as well. It doesn't have to be a lot; I'll settle for small amounts of progress, here and there.
Incidentally, one way I know I've been slowly settling into a schedule is the fact that I'm reading again. For a long time after Izzy got sick, I was barely able to read (or eat, for that matter). Finding time to read again has made me feel like my life is getting back to some sense of normalcy.
I am hopeful that the other areas of my life will follow suit.