I’m starting out the second week of NaNoWriMo about 3,000 words short of where I should be. I was doing great for the first three days, even had a bit of a word cushion built up, but then I decided to take Friday off from writing, since it was already filled to the brim with errands and my weekly Bible study. Of course I just knew I’d make it up over the weekend, but on Saturday I was too determined to catch up on TV as well as writing, and thanks to that I only managed about 900 words that day. Sunday was much better–I went to the first write-in for my area and wrote over 2,200 words while I was there, but that wasn’t enough to catch me up to where I should be. Then on Monday, a combination of adjusting to the time change and some *ahem* female troubles knocked me so far off my game that I just sat there in a haze all day, wondering what I should do and trying to decide if it would be better to just go take a nap, until I finally gave up on either notion and went to watch Netflix with Matt. So I did some math, and if I want to be caught up to 20,000 by this weekend I need to write about 3,000 words a day between now and then. I’ve done 1,142 so far today.
And do you know what isn’t helping? That would be the earthquakes. That’s right, we have earthquakes now, apparently. In Oklahoma. We’ve had three pretty significant quakes in as many days, in a state that until last year there hadn’t been a single quake strong enough to be felt in my lifetime, and until three years ago averaged about three too-minor-to-be-felt quakes a YEAR. And we’ve had about ten times that many just in the last WEEKEND, one of which broke the record for the biggest area quake in known history. So it’s a little hard to concentrate on writing when you’re busy wondering if there’s going to be a BIG ONE and if you should be getting ready for it, or if this is the beginning of those birth pangs Jesus talked about and maybe we should be getting ready to be raptured out of here, or if Oklahoma, land of tornadoes, intense heat and drought, wildfires, grapefruit-sized hail, destructive ice storms, blizzards and now EARTHQUAKES, is done coming up with new and inventive ways to kill us all.
You guys, if the apocalypse happens before I finish this book, I’m gonna be SO MIFFED.
Anyway, I was more concerned about just finishing my novel than I was about my word count, but then I found out that CreateSpace is going to be giving free proofs AND five free paperback copies to the winners. That would mean I could actually afford to do a giveaway promotion for Dominion once it’s published. I want those free paperbacks, y’all. I gotta come up with 50,000 words of SOMETHING by the end of the month.
All righty then, I guess I’d better quit blogging and get to hustling on that word count. Here’s hoping the earth refrains from opening up and swallowing us for a while longer.