December 19

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 27,475
• Today’s word count: 5
• Thoughts: Today wasn’t a good day for writing at all. I was busy. Then when I finally could sit down, I couldn’t settle and focus on what I was doing. It was one of those writing sessions where I stared at what I had written and couldn’t see where to go next. It wasn’t just that scene, so skipping around wouldn’t have helped. The part of my brain that imagines what will happen just wouldn’t work. Hopefully I just needed a rest and a reset to get better.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’m babysitting again, but that should be done by the early afternoon. My mom’s cat also has a vet appointment for a tooth abscess. He’s 15 so I’m going to be worrying about him until he don’t with his appointment and probably beyond. Hopefully after the babysitting I’ll be able to find some semblance of peace and turn my attention to writing.

December 20

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 27,482
• Today’s word count: 7
• Thoughts: Ugh. Today was hard. I tried to write, but honestly, I needed a nap way more than I had in months. I took one, but because I spent a good part of the day babysitting and another chunk of my evening helping look after a sick cat, I didn’t have much time or energy to put into writing. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Find time to write. I don’t necessarily want to actually accomplish much writing-wise. I just want to make finding time for writing into a priority in my life again. It keeps getting pushed down my list and it was even happening to me during NaNoWriMo which is wild. Something has to change and I need to be the one to change it.

December 21

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 27,525
• Today’s word count: 43
• Thoughts: Today was a pretty good day. I was on babysitting duty a lot, but my nephew was being a good kid and mostly just wanted my undivided attention while we played. It wasn’t a bad time. I was just too busy to get any writing done until very, very late. I tried to stay up and write, but I could only keep my focus for a short time before I was ready to collapse in a heap.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’m not babysitting so I’m going to focus my attention on writing. The weather is going to be snowy and rainy. I’m not going outside, except maybe to shovel. That should give me a decent amount of time to write. I’ll probably bribe myself with video game time.

December 22

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 27,554
• Today’s word count: 29
• Thoughts: Everything was going great today to start out. Then the weather kept getting worse and worse. My sinuses hated that. I couldn’t focus and I ended up absolutely exhausted way earlier than I’d planned so my nighttime writing session got replaced with an early bedtime.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, I hope. The weather is still supposed to be bad and get worse throughout the day. We’re planning to run errands early to avoid the worst of the cold. After that I should be home all day. Hopefully I will squeeze in some writing time.

December 23

No writing progress

It was cold. I was cold. I played games and tried to keep warm.

December 24 & 25

No writing progress

I decided to actually take a holiday off for once. I usually at least pick at my writing even on holidays, but I think I really have been needing a break lately. On Christmas, I made a point of staying away from my computer because I knew I would start fiddling around with stuff. Even if it was just rewording some stuff here and there or reading over something for 15 or 20 minutes, it would mean I wasn’t taking a break for the holiday. Somehow, I actually managed not to touch anything related to my writing at all on Christmas Day and I think I actually feel refreshed because of it.