The Shut Down (Day 2)

Normally I'm pretty good at getting my stuff done. Stop laughing, I am! Okay, so I can procrastinate with the best of them. I think I even procrastinated on procrastinating once, but that's besides the point. The point is that I normally get my stuff done, if not on the day it needs to be done, then pretty close. Especially if it's a precursor for something else. Like, say, the planning for nano.

This year is my third year doing nano. The first year, I was terrified out of my wits that I wasn't going to write my 50k. The second year I was more prepared, so I upped my goal (then had someone challenge me and I upped it again). This year, though I did up my goal, it was by so little that my brain barely registered it as a challenge.

So, rather than frantically planning and getting things done the couple of weeks before nano, my brain did what I'm assuming it thought was logical. It shut down.

I'm not even kidding on this one. Two weeks before the start of nano, and suddenly I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't even decide what my characters looked like. I found myself watching far too many tv shows, unwilling to even look at the pages I needed to fill before the beginning of nano. The boxes for my move sat unfilled, and the editing I swore I would have done before November sat remembered, but ignored in my bag.

I shut down.

Of course, the sudden descent of unproductivity made for a rather unorganized move, and more than a few headaches on my part.

Add to that the fact that I had to cram all of my planning in to the last two days before nano started, and had to put off the editing until December (which sucks, because I wanted to have it submission ready for January) and going in to November, I wasn't feeling like the robot I normally am.

Despite that, though, I'm determined to get my 320k this year. That might be a little rough, as the first book I've started is coming in under the goal (which might actually be a miracle for me) but I'll make up those words somewhere.

I have an office, I have a calender, and I have all the support of the wrimos here in Calgary. I have everything I need to accomplish my goal. Now I just have to fight off the lazy unproductive part of my brain, and keep writing!

What do you do to get yourself ready for Nano?

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Daily Word Count: 11,488

Total Word Count: 27,683