NaNovember - Day 8

There's a silver lining for me today. I'm hopelessly behind and I don't really want to talk about that, but I've discovered something interesting.

In the past, I haven't been able to write very well in small increments. I've always needed about two hours to get into a good flow and get some serious words written. Usually in a two hour stretch like that I can crank about about 2,000 words. So, if I could set aside a two hour chunk of uninterrupted time each day, I'd be fine for NaNo. I'd beat the goal even.

The problem is, I haven't been able to get anywhere near that much dedicated time in each day.

The last several days, though, I've actually succeeded in writing in shorter stretches. It doesn't feel as productive, but I *am* making progress in little 200 word bites. And while I don't prefer to write that way, I'm realizing that it may be more realistic for me at this season in my life.

I've been able to squeeze anywhere from one to three of these little bursts, writing ~200 words at a time, into several days. That's well below my preferred 2000 word / day writing pace, but even if I could only finish 600 words a day, I could still get 4,200 words a week written. That adds up. The last six weeks before NaNo I wasn't getting anywhere near that much because I was holding out for 2-3 hours chunks of time, not being able to create them, and not attempting to write in anything less.

At this rate, I'm probably going to fall well short of my 50k goal for November. But, if I came away from this having learned to squeeze 600 words a day in, even when I "don't really have time to write," that will have been a pretty big win. At 4,000 words a week I could still draft about two novels a year, which is my main goal.

I think that's the key for NaNo, the point of the event is to learn new habits and learn to fit writing into your life. So, in that way, I feel so far it's been mission accomplished.