Keller’s NaNoWriMo Korner: “NaNoWri…oh look! A butterfly!”

Hazel says, "Are you writing, Mama?"

Current word count: 15054

In Monday’s column, I told you that I was 500 words behind schedule, but confident that I could make up the deficit gradually during the week. What happened is that I had a sudden burst of inspiration and got in a little over 2400 words. Even more importantly, the plot finally gelled. Whoo hoo!

Then came Tuesday, which was a busy day for me. It was voting day (yeay democracy!), I had some important errands to run in Bangor (during which I got lost), there were school conferences for all three of my teenagers, and it was NCIS night…yet I still managed to reach my daily word count goal, with even more plot-gelling goodness.

And then came Wednesday. I couldn’t seem to write a thing. There were just too many…distractions.

Distraction #1: Hazel, my very adorable cat. She has a tendency to hide out around the computer when I sit down to write. And when she does, how can I not pick her up and cuddle her and pet her and talk with her for awhile? It’s just not possible. Is it, my fuzzy kitty cat? No it isn’t, Hazel Kitty. No it isn’t.

Distraction #2: The late astrophysicist Carl Sagan. You heard me right. Wednesday was Carl Sagan Day. I didn’t know about that until one of my Facebook friends posted something about it (oh, that’s right…I was on Facebook. I guess that should be Distraction #2 and Carl Sagan should be #3), but once she did it reminded me of how much I love his 1980 13-part PBS series, Cosmos. And I remembered that the entire series is free to watch on Hulu. So I watched parts one and two. The good news is that it gave me an idea for my novel, a pretty good idea. I was so excited about the new idea that I emailed a friend about it, describing it in great detail. And then I…

Distraction #4 …did some housework.For an hour and a half. Instead of actually writing the ‘pretty good idea’ into my novel.

And that’s when I had to take a deep breath, put down the mop, and start writing. It was difficult. The 1400 words didn’t flow easily and it wasn’t my finest work, but I passed the 15000 mark. Plus I still think the basic idea is a good one and can be hammered into something great in the days to come.

I honestly don’t know why it was so hard for me to get motivated on Wednesday. Maybe it was burnout or exhaustion, or maybe I just wanted a day to do Whatever. And maybe I deserve a day like that. I’m pretty sure I do. But it’ll have to wait until December 1.

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I’m no stranger to this problem, by the way. Last year my fellow Paper Rat, Kristen Tsetsi, and I devoted an entire episode of Inside The Writers’ Studio to writer distraction/procrastination. You can watch it below. But then get back to work!