The Big Distraction

During Nano I always have this incredible focus.  I'm not sure what, exactly, about that month that allows me to just lose myself in my writing.  I've theorized in the past that it's the competition.  Anyone who knows me is aware of just how much that drives me through the month.  Watching my word count rise, and comparing it to that of the counts around me.  I find that incredibly motivating.

I've also wondered if it's just because there are so many people around doing the same thing as me.  Having the ability to go on the chat and know that every person there is struggling to get out the words they need to meet those goals is highly motivating.  It tells me that I'm not alone.  That we're in it together.

Whatever it is, though, it's certainly not present right now.

I've challenged myself to do NaNoEdMo.  Basically I have to edit for 50 hours this month. I haven't done too bad so far.  I've actually finished the book I was editing, and I've moved on to another project.  This one is getting completely rewritten, and it requires a lot of planning on my part so that I don't end up with the same issues that I had with it in the first place.

I'm counting it all as editing, because this isn't a first draft.  Well, technically it is.  There was so much wrong with that original draft, I can't even really call it an outline at this point.  But, to me, all of those hours that I put into that original draft weren't wasted.  It helped me to get to the point with my writing where I feel like I have the ability to write the story that it originally deserved to be, so I'm counting it as a rewrite and therefore editing.

I'm also going to count it as writing next month, but that's completely besides the point.

The point is that I've edited for seventeen and a half hours so far this month.  I'm supposed to be at twenty-two hours.

Why am I behind?  That's simple: distraction.  I'm not blaming the distractions themselves.  Is it Deception's fault that when I watched the first episode I couldn't stop watching it until I finished?  No!  Is it my friends fault that I would rather hang out in my email and wait to see what they say next rather than opening my scrivener project and getting to work?  No!  Is it my cat's fault that I walked away from my computer to go cuddle with her for twenty minutes so she would stop meowing outside my door?  Okay...that one might be on the cat.  But she didn't know that she was distracting me!

I can't concentrate.  I don't know why.  I tell myself that I'll do something, and then I just don't.  I need to figure out how to capture the feeling of NaNo in a bottle so that I can take a swig anytime I need a kick in the butt.

Until then, though, I suppose I'll just have to rely on twitter and my friends there to keep me going.  I need to have, at the very least, the planning for this book done before next month.  No more procrastinating.  No more telling myself that I can catch up on my next day off.  I need to focus.

Now to just tell my motivation that.

How do you keep your motivation in check?  Do you ever find your attention wandering, even when you really want to be working?

A commitment

Now that NaNoWriMo is officially over, I have decided to recommit myself to my blog.  In November I took on the insane challenge of a blog post a day.  Unfortunately that it not something I can keep up with on a permanent basis.  For one thing, by the end of the month I no longer had any topics to write about.  And without any writing to complain about, I'm going to have even less to write about.

Instead, after coming to the conclusion that I want to post more often, I have decided to post once a week.  That day is going to be Sundays, starting today.  (Yes.  I do realize that it's almost midnight and I should really have done this earlier, but as I was at a hockey game with my boyfriends parents, it was a little difficult.)

My commitment is to have it posted every Sunday no later than midnight.  I cannot guarantee that they will all be the greatest posts in the world, but I can guarantee that they will help you to follow my incredibly exciting journey to being published.  (2012 will be the epic year of querying.)

The next year will include a submission to ABNA (Amazon Breakout Novel Award), NaNoEdMo, and the sending out of my first query letters.  Therefore you can expect to hear all about how much I hate editing...why I hate my characters...and the arrival of my first rejection letter.

I know you're just as excited as me, and I hope that hearing about my journey will help you to start (or continue) yours.  But, if all this blog brings you are a few laughs, I'm happy with that too.