Not everyone realizes that Nanowrimo, and being a writer in general, is a marathon, not a sprint. As such, I’ve given myself permission for a skip day, should I need one. I haven’t needed to call a mulligan yet but today was damn close.

I went to the local coffee shop early this morning and added a third of my words. Head down and hauling ass on the day job (optimizing database queries, woo!). Early evening, a dog fight broke out over bones and I dove in to separate them all. That and a shot of adrenaline, as it turns out, does a really good job of triggering an asthma attack and has some fun fibro side effects. After regurgitating fluid from my lungs and taking a short nap, I was awake but I really didn’t think I would get any more writing done.

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Project: Black Mirror

New words written: 1,772

Reason for stopping: Midnight

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One good thing about Nano, for those who aren’t used to writing and follow through with it, is it helps to build the habit of writing every day. I think it can build some bad habits as well, but that’s something worthy of a post another day. The thing is, even feeling like shit and wanting to eat ALL THE THINGS, I couldn’t not write, nor stop even to rummage for a snack because that would mean missing my target.

That’s how I know I’ve found the beat of this project. I had an excuse to stop. I could have played Xbox for the rest of the night and gone to bed early but it felt wrong. I didn’t. I didn’t want to. Now I know I won’t.