November 5, 2003

 Revelations I have had this morning (all 29 minutes of it, so far):

1)  NaNo writing cannot occur in a messy house.  At least not for me.  I have apparently reached a point in my life where I cannot just ignore the physical chaos that surrounds me.  Taking a break from writing to do the laundry or clean up the kitchen is productive.  When the dirty dishes have been removed from the writing desk, the writer's block will follow.

2)  It's okay to let yourself sleep in to 10 o'clock when you have a cold.  Your body and mind will both thank you, in the form of productivity and inspiration.  (Now it I could just find a way to get rid of this goddamned sour throat...)

3)  My blog should not be ignored, even if it does not count towards my word count.  Now that I have gotten back in the habit of posting regularly, whenever I don't post I feel like I'm giving the world the silent treatment.  I don't like the isolation.

4)  Backpacks should be thoroughly cleaned out before they are stored away for latter use.  I cleaned two backpacks this morning, both of which had been set aside because.  One is now headed for the trash (it's my all-time favorite, but it's just too busted.)  The other is going in the closet  (it is good for hiking and road trips, but not good for books.)  Inside these two backpacks, I found the following important things, most which I have been searching for for  months:  my pencil bag (full of  my good pens and pencils), my tampon bag, my pencil sharpener, my pocket knife, my calculator, $2.84 in change, my small level (why that was in my backpack, I'll never know), and, most importantly, my good watch.

It's been a productive morning.

    Fast forward to 9:53 pm.  I'm not nearly so energetic as I was this morning, but I got a lot done earlier, so that's good.  Nine thousand, five hundred and thirty-five words into my novel, and I have completely changed the personality and profession of the secondary character and one minor character, and upped the cheesyness factor by about a gazillion percent (including the introduction of a sexy latin painter named Joaquin).  It has helped.