October 10

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 7,975
• Today’s word count: 29
• Thoughts: It wasn’t a phenomenal day of writing, but I did what I set out to do: I wrote more than yesterday. I’m still having trouble finding my focus and that search is eating up a lot of my time.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Hopefully I will be able to write more again. I also want to start focusing on getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I don’t need to work on an outline or anything like that. It’s already done since I’m planning to continue working on The Dreams. But I’d like to remind myself exactly what I want to write and how I want to tell the story so I’m not spending all of November helplessly flailing in the details.

October 11

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 8,016
• Today’s word count: 41
• Thoughts: Things are continuing to look up. I’m writing a bit more each day. It’s not a meteoric rise like I would hope to see as we’re ramping up to NaNoWriMo, but it is better than nothing. I’m still struggling to find focus and motivation earlier in the day while I still have energy. Having people around constantly is a big problem for me. Even when I can seclude myself in a room, it is hard to concentrate while other people are (noisily) going about their day with just a wall or door between us.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Will I be able to write more than today? I’d like to continue the upward trend. I just need to stay focused while I have the energy to do it.

October 12

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 8,130
• Today’s word count: 123
• Thoughts: Writing went pretty well today. The key factor in today’s success was staying up later. I had the energy to do it and that translated into more distraction-free time for writing. If I only didn’t have things to do during the day I’d probably stay up half the night every night to take advantage of the lack of distractions.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Hopefully I will be able to get a ton of writing done. It’s supposed to be rainy and windy all day. I don’t think I’ll be taking any walks so that time can be put to other use.

October 13

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 8,142
• Today’s word count: 12
• Thoughts: My allergies kicked my butt today. I spent way too much time and energy blowing my nose that I might have put to better use writing if my body didn’t hate certain plants sometimes.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Rest up and feel better. I know I’m not going to be of much use to myself or anyone if I don’t get past this first.

October 14 & 15

No writing progress

The allergy attack got worse. I felt really miserable for two whole days. I only thought about writing maybe once during the two full days. All I wanted to do was sleep and I couldn’t even do that most of the time. I wish I could’ve written because I wasn’t doing much of anything else. Alas, my attention span was nonexistent both days. I wasn’t writing, reading, or even watching videos that required focus.

October 16

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 8,151
• Today’s word count: 9
• Thoughts: I started to feel a bit better! I knew I’d get past the allergy attack eventually, but it was still a relief to start to get back to normal. That didn’t mean I got to have a whole day for writing. I ended up cooking with my mom for a couple hours, resting for a couple more, and, finally, at the end of the day, I got to try to write. I’d definitely lost my flow and had to stare at the scene for ages to remember what exactly what I’d planned on writing next. The technique of stopping in the middle of a sentence to make it easier to pick up writing again doesn’t work so well after a few days of head empty allergy time.
• Tomorrow’s goal: As long as I continue to feel better I think I will write more. I might even take a walk!