Weekdays, I spend three to four hours just getting the kiddos to and from the school. I have precious few hours in between to do as many things as I can on an endless list of important tasks, from once in awhile stuff (getting tires rotated or taking a kiddo to an annual pediatrician check-up or a bi-annual dental cleaning) to regular work (teaching, cooking, volunteering as a room parent at the kiddos’ school).
Doing responsible writer things, such as reading, keeping up with Instagram, blogging, looking for other writing opportunities, take time, too.
By the time the kiddos go to bed and I finish reading bedtime stories, I’m ready for bed.
Sometimes I take a nap, a very long nap, before attacking prep for the next day – packing lunches, preparing snacks, filling water bottles.
I’m not fishing for sympathy here, but you may pull out an air violin and bow anyways, if you like, and play me a little song. I probably have it coming.
What’s on my mind is, I need to move along with writing Book 2. It’s time.
What better way to get going than to do the NaNoWriMo (otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month) challenge, which starts tomorrow.
Yeah, I have my reservations and hesitations.
I mean, come on, I’d be committing to the goal of writing 50,000 words by the last day of November.
That means writing an average of 2,200 words a day.
When and how am I supposed to do that?
I have no idea. I didn’t complete it the first time I tried the challenge around five years ago. I think I got about 36,000 to 38,000 words.
The silver lining is, I continued working on the manuscript, really worked on it, polished and rewrote. When I finished, it was 86,254 words.
Still, doing the NaNoWriMo seems like an insurmountable ordeal to me.
I’m afraid if I come anywhere close to that daily goal, I’m concerned the writing won’t be worth much.
Yeah, yeah. I know about the SFD (ahem, you know what that means, right?), but I want to write well and not take forever with this second book.
But, I also need to get cracking.
And so, I’m committing to the task, with a loose grasp, not a white-knuckle of a grip.
WAM - Writing and Art in the Making 