Here we are, Day 5. You should be at 8333 words. I’m doing okay, currently at 11,960 words. I am using my dot journal (the pages have dots instead of lines) to track my nano progress. The left page is my daily word count. Each little box represents 250 words. The second page is my quickie Fast Draft tracker. I will write how many pages I complete each day. I like to track things. It makes me feel good. As for my overall November tracker for habits and things that need to be done (i.e., chores), that isn’t going so well. My free time is going to Nano!

I signed up to do Candace Havens’ Fast Draft workshop for November. The trick behind Fast Draft is to write twenty pages a day for two weeks. By the end of that two weeks, you have a solid rough draft to work with. The second half of this workshop is called Revision Hell. That already sounds like a super fun time! But you know I’ve got goals – all parts assembled, cleaned up draft, and wrapped with a bow to submit to those who requested my full manuscript and to enter the Golden Heart. The workshop officially kicked off November 4th. My first day, I managed to write 16 pages and it was a real struggle. I was exhausted after a long day at work and what seemed to be a longer drive home. Then my daughter tells me some of her friends from out of town surprised her. The surprise is they’re staying with us. I forced those pages out of my head then dozed off during my bedtime meditation.

Day 2 started with me having to take my daughter’s car to the dealership for a new tire. The second new tire in the four months she’s had the car. This time it wasn’t her fault, a couple of nails hit too close to the sidewall. While at the dealership, I managed to write 6 pages on my iPad. Those pages flowed smoothly and I was excited to get home and get the rest of my pages done. When I did get home, after a stop to pick up the Ridiculously Large Bag of Dog Food, There were MORE people at my house. I’m not a people person. I don’t like people at my house. I can’t get even pull into my own driveway. So I call my daughter and tell her she needs to carry the 50 pound bag of dog food up the driveway (it’s steep!). For whatever reason, she leaves the front door open and the dogs take off. Now I have to drive up and down the street fooling the dogs into thinking we’re going for a car ride to get them home.  The rest of my pages did NOT flow smoothly. Again, I had to pull them out of my head kicking and screaming. But I managed 19 more, for a total of 29 pages today! Yay, me!! Now I’m exhausted and thinking hard about bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow so I’m going to try to knock out at least half of my pages first thing in the morning.

Good night, Nanowrimo-ers! Sweet dreams!!!