Life, or something like it...

I'm packing away my TV and stuffing it into the back of my closet.

Not that I watch it a lot, but it's clutter and I'm going to clean up my apartment so I don't have that clutter intruding into my concentration.

Over the last few months I've improved my diet significantly and have more energy - waking up earlier in the mornings. I'm a morning person anyway, so I'll harness that energy towards writing. Any chores like shopping, vacuuming, cooking, will be done during nighttime hours when I'm ready to fall asleep anyway!

Life is going to intrude no matter what we do but I have found a few things that will help lessen the impacts.

Prepare your story as much as possible, use notebooks and voice recorders at work to take notes on where you wanat o bring the story when you have time to write later, Tell friends you were arrested and are locked up with no communications, change your voicemail message to let people know it may be a few weeks before you get back to them and leave pets with friends who will hav a life and time to remember to feed them and tell your partener/spouse that you need space and time apart for the sake of the relationship and spread the rumor that you have H1N1 or Hanta so everyone knows why you have disappeared so quickly and drasticaly.

The easiest way is preperation though, have your research done this month, plotlines and chapter outlines as well as character development so that you have far less to determine later. Recording your thoughts and keeping a little notebook in your pockets with your chapter outlines will help keep your thoughts focused and easier to see where things can be changed and still keep teh story on line or where else you are going to have to make changes but don't get buried in editing until Dec NaNoEdMo. Whatever you wrie counts, if you are writing new chapter outlines then use page breaks and place them on the bottom of the story and new developments can be incorporated into the story, cut the old storyline out and place it in the bottom again so the words still count and then keep on plugging away so you do not lose a large chunk because you changed the direction. Get DVR or VHS tapes and begin recording your fave shows or watch them when you are drifting to sleep. Use caller-ID to screen your contacts and let friends know that you are gonig to be busy for a few weeks. Setting goals works for many people but adds pressure to others, find out what works for you now with the 3 day writing contests as practice and preperation. I knew some who took sick days or holidays towards the end in order to make the count and have seen some who have managed to get over 250K during the month because they had time off and spent each day knocking out the count.

Life will not stop for NaNo but hanging out with other NaNo folk will help give focus and drive, the rest is just about minimizing the distractions.

2008. Blade, on Ice. A discussion on Love & Short stories. 150K
2007. Mighy Micks. 53K

Not intruding... hmm... well, pretty much I work during the nighttime hours and I tell others to leave me be... then lock the office door, crank the music up and type away.

My problem is going to be the fact that I'm traveling and doing a few other things this year during November. *wince*

please love me, this blood and the meaning
please love me, this day and this value
...
gasp for breath

~Dir en grey