Trying to write 50,000 when life doesn’t go as envisioned
Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the evening of 12/14/22 on Substack. I wrote it in real time during NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!
Week 2 // Days 8-14
Week 2 started off with a bang: I came home early from my part-time shift at the daycare with the stomach flu. No writing was completed the rest of that week until mid-day Saturday.
Ant stayed home with me on Day 9 because I was so weak the night of the 8th. I did okay that day and he returned to work the next day. I was able to sit up (after spending most of the prior two days reclining on the couch) in the pink rocking chair and binge-watched the rest of Season 1 and started Season 2 of Boy Meets World.
Day 11 // I had enough energy to attend the Veteran’s Day parade in town. Ant and I ran errands afterwards and oh man was I tired.
Days 12-14 // I was able to write a total of 6,163 words, bringing my Word Doc total to 17, 181 words.
Day 13 // I asked our landlady neighbor friend for two AAA batteries for my graphing calculator. Math is hard you guys, but the math matters in calculating word counts—especially when you start to fall behind and my phone calculator or laptop calculator just feels too small (also, my phone is a huge distraction when I’m writing). Having this graphing calculator with me all through NaNoWrimo was a great help!
Day 14 // NaNoWriMo made an appearance in this year’s One Day Hour-by-Hour (#onedayHH) social media challenge. Also, this was the day I was notified that I was selected as a verified buyer for Taylor Swift tickets =D =D =D
Week 3 // Days 15-21
Day 15 // Purchasing Taylor Swift tickets went pretty easy over here on the West Coast. See next July, Taylor!
On Day 17, I wrote for an hour before going to the daycare and then we went over to friends’ house for dinner and a game that night.
This was the last day of work before having all next week off from the daycare. I was looking forward to writing all the words, catching up, seeing the fam for Thanksgiving. That holiday high and excitement was real!
Day 18 // I cleaned a different friends’ house (this a weekly gig I have currently), Ant and I had lunch with them after I finished, and then we went to where one of my best dog friends lives and I took her on a walk. We got home later in the afternoon and I was tired enough to nap. Upon waking, my throat felt weird and I told Ant I might be getting a cold.
Day 19 // The MVP of this week! Writer friend Katelyn and I planned earlier in the week to writer together all day. The morning of, she invited mutual Writer Friend Jim and I to an extended Google Meets call. All three of us live in different time zones and Katelyn left the call up all day. I wasn’t feeling great, but I still had energy enough to sit up at my desk and tap away.
I had also scheduled a couple calls during this day with long distance friends, one in Oklahoma and another in Oregon. As our treasured people move from the Auburn area, I’m learning that phone calls and FaceTime are sometimes just where it’s at. Yes, send the texts and the funny GIFS, the Reels/TikToks that your people would appreciate, but there’s something powerful about seeing their faces and hearing their voices.
I wrote for like an hour each time. I breaked for lunch and/or a nap. Writing Friends Katelyn and Jim stepped away as needed as well. But honestly, knowing that they were on the other end of that open-ended video call, kept me coming back throughout the day.
In participating in this event previously, I think I’ve attended one local write-in; it happened to be hosted at the Auburn Library. And that was cool, but the all-day video call, was really something else. I called it a day at around 8pm.
I wrote 3,767 words total this day, bringing my novel’s total to 22,320
First half of Week 4 // Days 22-25
I wrote 1,127 words on Day 22, but the rest of this time I didn’t. Ant came from work early Tuesday with the beginnings of aches. the hour drive to my family’s house for Thanksgiving felt daunting (we were still lacking energy), so we stayed home. Thanksgiving Eve, we made it through a shopping trip at our local Holiday Market and bought a rotisserie chicken, corn for a side, rolls, cranberry sauce, and sparkling cider/apple juice (they definitely taste different) as our Thanksgiving Feast. There was lots of rest and reading and movie watching.
Messy Middle Stats:
In 17 days of NaNoWriMo (Days 8-25), I wrote a grand total of 13,068 words. Given two sicknesses, I’m very proud of that total.
I was still using the Harry Potter Word Crawls at this time. I think I was on Year 2 by this point.
Using the graphing calculator to math word counts came in so handy.
And that all-day virtual write-in with fellow writers was my favorite day of the month.
At the end of Day 25, my total novel word count was at 23,357. (And it had been this same total since Day 22.)
What about the final five days?!
This is the third post in a series about NaNoWriMo 2022. See the first post HERE.
Writing Process Notes:
// Originally written and published on 12/14/22
1/16/23 // 12:14pm-12:31pm. copy/pasted from OG posting, added photos, tags/categories, scheduled it.
Mrs. Writer 
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