I’m In NaNoWriMo Crisis

As much as I might try, there’s no one to blame for this but myself.

I’ve got a good start on this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I’ve got a plot, characters, an outline. But while on day three I’m at a respectable word count of 2,804, I find myself wondering if I’ll finish this year.

I’ve done, or at least started, NaNoWriMo every year since 2003. I’ve successfully met the 50,000 word challenge three times. And I’ve always managed to do it with other things going on.

This year seems more difficult. What’s different?

For starters my wife just (thankfully) went back to work. In previous years she was working almost, but not quite full time. And in those years our youngest was still in elementary school. Then, about three weeks ago, after a five month “between jobs” stretch, she went back to work full time at a position with more responsibilty and which requires more travel. Don’t get me wrong, we’re digging this paycheck aspect, but it changes things.

Then there’s the 6th grader. He’s in all honors classes and when you reach junior high, that means more homework. Lots of it. Every night. And while he’s a bright boy, he’s not always motivated to get it done in a timely manner. Enter the parental supervision. I’m hoping we’ll get into a pattern and help him develop some good study habits. Right now my wife and I (when she’s home) are re-learning our algebra, social studies and a little bit of Latin.

As for my schedule, I work a 9-5ish job as a government drone. I freelance in the evenings. Different this year is that after nearly a decade of building this up, I actually have paying clients. Sitting on my desk, or in my Droid or on the desktop sticky notes ont the PC are 15 assignments for the month of November. Granted, I have most of the month to complete them, but I can’t wait until the end.

So, this makes the typical evening picking up the boy and going to Tae Kwon Do, soccer or youth group, dinner in there somewhere, dishes, laundry, homework, packing lunches, practicing clarinet (the 6th grader, not me) and then sending him to bed. By then, even when my wife is home, it’s already after nine o’clock. With a goal of getting to bed by eleven so that I can get up and go swim at the YMCA in the morning, that doesn’t leave much writing time.

Add to that our recently remodel, or at least rearranging of our home office and guest room, the general messiness and time consumption of fall leaves, and the fact that the second season of Glee is finally available on Netflix streaming.

Why am I sharing all of this and not working on my paid assignments or Nanowrimo? I’m an artiste, I’m supposed to share my angst.

So, I’m looking around and seeing what I can eliminate. Nanowrimo rises to the top. My wife and I have already dropped out of our church production of Glorious Christmas Nights something that one or both of us has done every year since we first went to WEAG in 1998. As much as we miss it, I can’t imagine how we’d feel right now if we were adding rehearsals to everything else.

This all sort of sounds like whining doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it to when I set out to write.

What I meant it to be was simply a discussion of a decision I have to make. Do I press on with Nanowrimo? Or do I set it aside?

I’m not throwing the towel just yet. I’ll give it through the weekend. But I’m afraid if something has to go, I know what it is.

I took a walk at lunch today to sort some of this out. The only thing I accoplished was coming up with a plot and outline for next year’s Nanowrimo.

I’m doomed.

Mid Week Round Up

It’s Wednesday. Read this. I have places to be.

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows. OWS Makes Dangerous, Violent Ones
Michelle Malkin, Red County
The next stage of the Aimless Occupation of America is upon us: On Wednesday, rabble-rousers in the San Francisco Bay Area will walk off jobs they don’t have and encourage everyone else around the country to abandon work to protest high unemployment.

GOP Wastes Obamacare Opportunity
Micahel Tanner, National Review Online
Yet Republicans have seemed strangely quiet about the issue of late. So much so, in fact, that the Washington Times was led to wonder if Republicans have “given up” on repeal. There certainly does not appear to be much evidence that Republicans are still making repeal a top priority.

Did Congress Authorize the Obama Refi’s?
NetRightDaily.com
“Some of those things that are being advocated for us to do really go beyond what Congress has given us the authority to do,” said FHFA director Edward DeMarco.

Uh oh: Witness found to Cain incidents?
Hot Air
Could Wilson be more than just a witness in this story? Could he be a source? It could just be a coincidence that a witness to these alleged incidents did work for an organization pushing Perry, and that the story mysteriously got to Politico as Cain took support away from Perry in mid-October. If he is the source, then conducting an interview on the topic has to be one of the dumber political moves I’ve seen.

He could knock ’em dead at the Gridiron Dinner.

Herman Cain Sings “I Must Tell Jesus”

Born On This Day
1734 – Daniel Boone American explorer (d. 1820)
1755 – Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (d. 1793)
1795 – James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States (d. 1849)
1913 – Burt Lancaster, American actor (d. 1994)
1934 – Bill Gothard, American minister and speaker
1938 – Pat Buchanan, American journalist and politician
1942 – Stefanie Powers, American actress
1961 – k.d. lang, Canadian musician