November 23

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 15,757
• Today’s word count: 421
• Thoughts: I’m struggling to write. I’m not forcing myself to do it. That wouldn’t work right now anyway. I want to write but actually getting the words out right now is hard. At the moment writing is mostly staring at a wall and thinking about my story. Translating that into writing just didn’t work out.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Keep expectations low. I want to aim for the stars, but I know I’m going through a lot right now. Eventually I will feel better. Until then, I need to be gentle with myself.

November 24

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 16,912
• Today’s word count: 1,155
• Thoughts: My intention was to dedicate the entire day to writing. I tripped myself up at the starting gate. I slept in. I took my time eating breakfast. I decided to cut my hair instead of getting on with my writing. Eventually I did write, and I had a really productive day. I wonder how much more I could have written if I’d started off the day the way I ended it.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Can I continue this writing streak? Can I build off of today’s productivity? I hope so! I’m going to try.

November 25

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 17,464
• Today’s word count: 568
• Thoughts: Oh boy. Today wasn’t a good day. I was distracted. I struggled a lot. My word count isn’t abysmal, but I had such high hopes for today. It just wasn’t meant to be. I’m trying to accept that this just isn’t my year.
• Tomorrow’s goal: What should I expect? It’ll be Thanksgiving. On a normal year I would expect that to completely derail all attempts at productivity for the day, but this year is strange. I might have a reasonable opportunity to get some writing done on Thanksgiving for maybe the first time since the NaNo I was studying abroad.

November 26

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 17,591
• Today’s word count: 127
• Thoughts: My hopes were through the roof for today. The day didn’t live up to the expectations. Oddly enough, it ended up being a pretty typical Thanksgiving for me writing-wise. All other parts of it were atypical but at least something on Thanksgiving stayed the same, right?
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, hopefully. I don’t know what else to do. This is NaNoWriMo. I have to keep writing. That’s the whole point.

November 27

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 17,650
• Today’s word count: 59
• Thoughts: Today was not meant to be a day for writing. I can’t really afford to have those days at this point in NaNoWriMo but it happened anyway. I’m so tired and I don’t think I have the mental or physical stamina to make it to the finish line this year. It’s been a hell of a month.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I know what tomorrow has in store for me and I’m not optimistic for my ability to get my words in. This month has thrown a lot at me. I’m trying to keep my expectations in check. It’s okay if I don’t win NaNo this year. At least I’m still writing.

November 28

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 17,675
• Today’s word count: 25
• Thoughts: Today was another really tough day. I just sat and existed a lot of the time I could have been writing today. A lot of times when this happens I think I could have managed my time differently to make the writing easier. Nothing would have made writing even possible today. It sucks because November is usually all about writing, but I can’t do it these days.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’d love to get back to writing. I’m not going to pretend I have a chance of winning NaNoWriMo at this point. In another year I might be able to summon a massive push and get close enough to make the finish line possible on the 30th but not this year. I would just like to write something again as an emotional release.

November 29

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 18,619
• Today’s word count: 944
• Thoughts: I wrote today and it felt great. Then I ran out of steam and I stopped. Normally during NaNoWriMo I would keep pushing myself to write more, but this month has been so hard already. I’m just happen to write more than a few words. Things have been too hard lately to push myself.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’d love to write an avalanche of words for the final day of NaNoWriMo, but I’m not going to hurt myself to make it happen. I still have periods of time every day where I just need to do nothing at all. I’m not going to ignore that if I need it.

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November 16

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 12,203
• Today’s word count: 1,195
• Thoughts: I’m getting back on track, but I’m not there yet. Whatever happened to my productivity over the weekend isn’t something I can easily bounce back from. I gave myself plenty of time to write today and did everything I could to keep my motivation up. This is what I managed to do. It’s not terrible, but it’s not enough for NaNoWriMo.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I want to get back on track. I’m not sure I’m quite at the point where I can do that, but trying to get there is a great source of motivation. I’ll keep aiming there unless I notice the goal starting to discourage me or (if I’m really lucky) I actually get there.

November 17

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 13,174
• Today’s word count: 971
• Thoughts: Today was another day that I’d be thrilled to have writing-wise outside of NaNoWriMo. However, this is NaNoWriMo and I want to get caught up, not fall further behind. I know I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I’m determined to make this work and win. I need something good to come out of 2020.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I don’t know what to expect. I want to write enough to get back on track, but I don’t think that’s possible. I just need to consistently write more than 1,667 words every day to get anywhere close to my goal for the month.

November 18

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 13,460
• Today’s word count: 286
• Thoughts: Today didn’t start off badly. Then I got busy. When I was back at my desk and had time to write I got anxious. I couldn’t kick that anxiety for a long time. It just froze me. I haven’t felt anxious at all the past few days so it caught me off guard.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Less anxiety. More writing. I know it sounds too simple to be a plan, but I’ll feel like anxious if I write and I’ll write if I feel less anxious. It isn’t simple at all, unfortunately.

November 19

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 14,268
• Today’s word count: 808
• Thoughts: I wrote more today than yesterday, but I’m still nowhere near where I need to be to finish NaNoWriMo. I’m too anxious about too many things to push for writing. I’m not sure I’ll be winning this year. I’m not giving up, but I’m trying to temper my expectations at this point in the month.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Fridays are usually bad for my productivity, but that hasn’t been the case so far this month. I don’t know what to expect. I’m even nervous about expecting the unexpected.

November 20

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 14,391
• Today’s word count: 123
• Thoughts: Well, it looks like Fridays are back to being chaotic and not at all conductive to writing a lot of words. I’ll miss my productive Fridays. Maybe I’ll get them back eventually.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I want to keep my expectations low so I won’t be disappointed, but this month makes that impossible. I want to have a wildly successful day of writing. The end of the month is here. I need to turn things around now or I have no hope of getting to the end goal.

November 21

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 15,020
• Today’s word count: 629
• Thoughts: Today was better than yesterday, but I’m still not thrilled with the amount I’ve written. I’m just not getting NaNoWriMo levels of writing done. Every day this happens I feel more lost. Will I be able to catch up? I’m not so sure anymore.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I just need to keep writing. If I stop I won’t ever reach my goal. As long as I’m still writing I feel like I can still hope for success. Even if I don’t get to 50k, I’ll at least have as many words as I was capable of writing.

November 22

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 15,336
• Today’s word count: 316
• Thoughts: My day was looking like it would be pretty productive. I thought I would write a ton of words. Then I found out my grandpa died and everything stopped. I wasn’t going to write. I couldn’t. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I don’t know. I might drop out of NaNoWriMo. Right now I feel like my connection with my characters and their world has been severed. There’s no space for them in my brain right now. I don’t know when that will change. I don’t even know when I’ll feel okay putting this post up.

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November 9

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 3,446
• Today’s word count: 287
• Thoughts: I knew today wasn’t going to be extremely productive as soon as I woke up. My to do list was too long. I had the best of intentions and overall a very productive day, but too many other things had to be done at a certain time so writing got pushed back. I’m looking forward to having days entirely dedicated to writing. It’s a little concerning that I haven’t had a single one in the first 9 days of the month.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Let’s see if I can make the 10th my first dedicated writing day. I need it. NaNoWriMo is motivating me to have whole days of just writing, of course, but this year has ripped my productivity to shreds and I’ve had more than enough of barely typing up a couple paragraphs before I run out of time or energy.

November 10

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 4,963
• Today’s word count: 1,537
• Thoughts: I finally had a productive day of writing! I was hoping this would happen and now I’m so relieved. I just have to keep it up so I guess the pressure isn’t really off. Now I know I can still do it and I need to keep doing it.
• Tomorrow’s goal: The weather forecast is calling for rain. Rainy days are great for writing. I won’t be tempted to go outside. I’ll still be distracted by cats, but that’s a daily struggle.

November 11

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 6,990
• Today’s word count: 2,027
• Thoughts: This felt like a proper NaNoWriMo day. It wasn’t cold, but it was rainy all day long. I stayed inside and wrote. I had tea and coffee. It almost felt like attending a coffee shop write-in without anyone to chat with. I wasn’t distracted, but I also didn’t have anyone else writing near me to push me to keep going. It’s probably the best 2020 can offer me though.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I think the rainy weather is going to continue. Will I be able to continue my writing streak? I’m motivated to keep it going and I can’t wait to find out what I can do.

November 12

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 8,364
• Today’s word count: 1,374
• Thoughts: Today was a decent day but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. I can’t say anything went wrong. I just didn’t write as much as I thought I would.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I want to have another 2k day, but I know I have errands to run. This year the stress of going out to stores is worse than ever. I don’t know how much energy I will have to put into creativity after.

November 13

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 10,121
• Today’s word count: 1,757
• Thoughts: Today was a lot better than I expected it to be. I actually thought I wouldn’t get to 1,667 words for a while today. Eventually, I got my act together and wrote. I don’t know exactly what changed. Maybe I managed to recharge and that did the trick.
• Tomorrow’s goal: It’s NaNoWriMo. Of course I’m planning to write some more. At this point I just need to keep up the momentum. I also think I need to take a walk tomorrow before it gets any colder and all the leaves fall off the trees. Winter is just around the corner and I feel like I haven’t given fall the appreciation it deserves this year.

November 14

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 10,531
• Today’s word count: 410
• Thoughts: Is Saturday becoming the new Friday? Two weeks in a row my writing has dropped off severely on Saturday. This week I didn’t have much of an excuse either. I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe I just needed a break. Hopefully that’s all.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Back to writing! I have to make up for a bit more lost productivity now, but I think I’m up to the challenge. Aside from today, the past few days have been really good. If I keep working hard, I might not have to make such a huge final push at the end of the month. I’ve only avoided that once before and won. It’d be nice to do it again.

November 15

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 11,008
• Today’s word count: 477
• Thoughts: Today was another demotivated day. I’m just not feeling my writing. I have the time to write. I have ideas. The drive to get those ideas into words just disappeared. It’s so frustrating. Days like this feel awful during NaNoWriMo.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Find my motivation. I have to write. It’s NaNoWriMo. Maybe I should dig around the forums or read some of the pep talks to drum up some motivation provided by others. It might be my only hope. My own motivation is missing. Maybe it’ll come back if it looks like I’m borrowing motivation from elsewhere. Then I’ll have even more drive to write.

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November 2

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 1,102
• Today’s word count: 442
• Thoughts: My anxiety was pretty high again today. Still had a cat under the weather. He’s already doing better, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking on him regularly since he’d been feeling so low yesterday. I also got bombarded with election news accidentally and that led to my anxiety going up even more.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, of course. I’m hoping my cat will continue to feel better. Staying away from election news will probably be nearly impossible. If I get online, I will see it. I’ll still do my best to keep calm and make the most of the day.

November 3

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 1,514
• Today’s word count: 412
• Thoughts: I had another weird, distracting day. I don’t think I actually looked at my project until 9 pm. There’s just too much going on these days to have a day entirely dedicated to writing even though that is what I know I desperately need. It’s not just about my word count. I know my mental health would get a boost from a day of just writing and no other responsibilities or obligations.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I won’t be able to dedicate my day entirely to writing, but I do hope to give it a significant portion of my time and energy. Writing a new story and trying out first person has been so refreshing. I want to explore this new world more.

November 4

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 1,789
• Today’s word count: 275
• Thoughts: These days it is so easy to get distracted. I can come up with a huge list of reasons for being distracted and I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail about it. I just want to keep writing every day because it would be so easy to stop right now.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, of course. I have so much catching up to do, but I’m more concerned with maintaining some sort of momentum. Catch up time will probably be next week. Hopefully things will be a bit more calm then.

November 5

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 2,140
• Today’s word count: 351
• Thoughts: I can feel my mind starting to clear. That’s a good sign for my writing. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting there. Writing will become easier. I won’t be so tense every second of every day. I can’t wait for that.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I don’t want to set my expectations too high, but it is so, so tempting to say tomorrow will be the first day of proper NaNoWriMo writing of the month. I want it so badly. I just don’t know if I can push myself far enough to make itself happen without breaking.

November 6

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 2,568
• Today’s word count: 428
• Thoughts: For a Friday today was a pretty decent day. I need it to be better, but I can get by with Fridays like this. For NaNoWriMo I want to write so much more than this, but this week continues to be horrible so I’ll take what I can get.
• Tomorrow’s goal: At this point I don’t know what to expect. Will I find focus and get the writing done? Will I be stressed all day? Will something come along to distract me from all the stress I’ve been under but it unfortunately won’t leave me time to write? I don’t know. The future is a total mystery.

November 7

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 2,583
• Today’s word count: 15
• Thoughts: I was barely home today and it shows. The entire day was an emotional roller coaster. I was exhausted, stressed, excited, and so overwhelmed. We might be buying a house. Maybe. We started the day seeing the house. We decided to make an offer in the afternoon. We couldn’t look at the documents until late at night and when we did we were so tired and overwhelmed we’re no longer sure we can do it. We need sleep.
• Tomorrow’s goal: SLEEP. I’m so tired. I need to sleep so I can think clearly to do all the things that are making it hard for me to sleep and write. I don’t know what tomorrow has in store for me, but I’m going to do my best to be productive in as many ways as possible.

November 8

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 3,159
• Today’s word count: 576
• Thoughts: First of all, I didn’t get enough sleep. I’m falling apart. I know a lot of people do great things on the amount of sleep I’ve been getting, but I start to unravel pretty quickly and it’s a huge migraine trigger for me. I’m pretty much living in dread of a migraine starting. Even so, I managed to write. It took a while to pull myself together and be coherent enough to write, but it did happen. I’m still not at NaNoWriMo writing levels but I’m getting there. I’ll catch up.
• Tomorrow’s goal: My quest for sleep continues. Hopefully I’ll be back on track sleep-wise tomorrow. With enough sleep I know I can accomplish great things.

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October 26

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 199,358
• Today’s word count: 410
• Thoughts: Today went really, really well. I don’t know what changed. I wish I knew so I could recreate it or maybe even build on it. I want more days like this. Please.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’ll be desperately trying to recreate the magic that happened today. To keep myself sane I should just be happy with whatever I manage to write, but I know I’m going to be discouraged if I don’t have another good day. The pressure is real! I guess my real goal is to not crack under pressure.

October 27

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 199,590
• Today’s word count: 232
• Thoughts: My word count isn’t as good as yesterday’s, but I’m feeling pretty good about being generally more productive the last few days than the rest of the month. Staying positive seems to be the key right now. We’re only a few days away from NaNoWriMo so I really don’t want to lose this positivity.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Stay positive! I don’t care if I write 1 word or 10,000 words. I just want to keep the positivity going. Writing is writing and all writing is good.

October 28

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 199,762
• Today’s word count: 172
• Thoughts: It seems like I’m falling back into old habits. I don’t like it. Maybe I can still turn it around. Today might have just been a misstep. I know I was a bit distracted by NaNoWriMo excitement today. Having anticipation of a writing event is causing me not to write. Sad but true.
• Tomorrow’s goal: It’s time to turn all this anticipation for NaNoWriMo into intense writing energy. There’s plenty of do. I need to do it. It’s good practice and I’ll feel better once I get to work.

October 29

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 200,056
• Today’s word count: 294
• Thoughts: Oh boy. I was aiming to have a total word count of 200k for this draft. Looks like I’m going over again. It might end up being longer than the second draft. Oops? I’ll just keep going and write until the story is over. Maybe next time things will be a bit shorter. Or I might just end up with enough story for 3 longish books.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, of course. It’ll be Friday but I feel pretty confident that I will find a way to write at least a bit.

October 30

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 200,079
• Today’s word count: 23
• Thoughts: I wrote a bit. It’s something. My expectations were a bit lower because it was Friday but maybe I should have lowered them a bit more. Most of the distractions were my fault. I went down a music rabbit hole with friends. Fun time, but not the best for writing. At least I have a massive playlist to mess with now.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, I hope. I won’t be touching The Dreams again until December (in theory) so I should try to get as much of it written as possible.

October 31

No writing progress made

I planned on writing but the day had other plans. I probably could have written at least a bit more of The Dreams before midnight, but by the time my butt was back in my chair, I thought saving my energy for midnight might be for the best. I needed a few hours to get centered.

November 1

• Project: The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons
• Total word count: 660
• Today’s word count: 660
• Thoughts: A new month and a new novel! How long has it been since I started writing something new? I’m pretty sure it was NaNoWriMo 2016 when I started writing Inbetween. It’s been a while. Today proved I’m out of practice. In addition to that, one of my cats wasn’t feeling well so a good chunk of the time I meant to spend writing went to checking on him.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Hopefully things will be a little less chaotic outside of my writing. I want the trouble and drama to be on the page, please. That’s all I want for NaNo this year. Do we get NaNo wishes? I don’t know. I’m a little tired and I’m already in write whatever comes to mind mode.

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It’s true! I haven’t blogged about preparing for NaNo this year. Everything has been too chaotic.

This year I’m going to start a new project and I’m going to be a plantser.

I haven’t started a new project for NaNoWriMo in years and I’ve never started without a plan. Well, I don’t have an outline but I have a plan for handling writing without an outline.

Tarot cards! I’ll be using tarot and my intuition to shape my vague ideas into an actual plot. I have some very magical characters for this story so I think this method will suit them nicely.

If you like witches and dragons, you can look forward to The Mage’s Unwritten Guide to Dragons coming to this blog… eventually. I don’t want to make any promises about when, but it will be coming! Hopefully I’ll have more details about the story itself once I start writing and see where it goes.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? I’d love to hear about it and have you as a buddy. Feel free to add me and we can help keep each other accountable in November.

October 19

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,467
• Today’s word count: 145
• Thoughts: I stayed on track! I had a headache today so I started to despair. It seemed like I wouldn’t have the energy or willpower to write. I made myself sit down and show up to write at least a little and I ended up doing okay.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing and less headache. I know I don’t have much control over the headache. I can treat it and I can take care of myself so it will hopefully go away, but I can’t just willpower it away. However, I can control the amount of time and effort I put into writing. I’ll focus on that.

October 20

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,608
• Today’s word count: 141
• Thoughts: I think I did about as well as I could have hoped. I’ve realized I need to stop minimizing the problems I’m having by calling it something less severe. Yesterday I kept telling myself and everyone else I had a headache. It wasn’t a headache. It was a migraine and it was around today too. Maybe if I’d been honest I wouldn’t have written at all. That wouldn’t be good.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing. Less migraine. I don’t know how much control I have over the latter. I’ll still try to write regardless of how I feel. Not writing feels weird.

October 21

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,730
• Today’s word count: 122
• Thoughts: Things were pretty neutral today. The biggest thing that messed me up was trying to switch over to my laptop. My wifi connection on the laptop was absolutely terrible and getting it to sync my Scrivener project took forever. It messed up my mojo, but I really needed to step away from my desk for a while. I might have written even less if I hadn’t gone through with the switch.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Hopefully my laptop’s wifi will be more cooperative if I need a change of scenery. I just need to sit down and write. Getting started is always the hardest part for me. If I can properly get started earlier in the day maybe I can get a truly decent word count.

October 22

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,877
• Today’s word count: 147
• Thoughts: Today was a pretty ordinary day for writing. I hoped I’d be a bit more productive, but considering this is about average for what I’ve managed lately, I can’t complain.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Who knows? I’m keeping my expectations low. Fridays are weird. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully I’ll find time to write after running errands.

October 23 and 24

No writing progress made.

I realized pretty early on that I needed a day off on Friday. I’ve been pushing to get a little bit of writing done every day for a while now. Some personal stuff came up and I knew I was completely out of the writing headspace and it was better not to fight it.

On Saturday I made sauerkraut. After that my hands were sore and tired. I took another day off to just exist.

October 26

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,948
• Today’s word count: 71
• Thoughts: I got back to writing. I thought my hands felt better, but once I started typing I knew my hands weren’t back to normal just yet. After two days off, I really wanted to write. Getting back into the routine isn’t easy. I’ve learned that lesson more than once. I’m trying to be patient but I’m not good at waiting.
• Tomorrow’s goal: As long as my hands agree with it, I want to write more. NaNoWriMo is less than a week away. I’m excited. I want to exploit that excitement and be more productive.

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October 12

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,741
• Today’s word count: 126
• Thoughts: I’m starting to think I’ve started to climb out of this slump. It’s not happening all at once and it is taking forever, but I can see my word count trending upwards a bit. I want to keep writing more. It feels like I’ve been stuck for a very long time. It’s been so frustrating.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, of course. I think I can do it. I want to really make this upward trend into a trend. The story has been bubbling just beneath the surface for weeks now and I’m desperate to get it out of my head. Hopefully everything that’s been holding me back stays away.

October 13

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,900
• Today’s word count: 159
• Thoughts: It looks like the slight upward trend with my writing is sticking around. I’m very nervous about pushing myself too hard and slipping backward. Striking a balance seems to be the key to improvement.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I just want to keep writing. Hopefully I’ll continue to write more each day. If I don’t, I just want to make some progress. I feel like I’ve been stalling for a while now. I know I’m close to the end of this draft. I want to get there already!

October 14

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,077
• Today’s word count: 179
• Thoughts: Things keep improving. I’m cautiously optimistic after seeing the progress I’ve made so far this week. Can I keep it up? I hope so. I haven’t been writing so much that it is anywhere near unsustainable. If I can’t keep this up, I’m in big trouble.
• Tomorrow’s goal: More writing, of course. Seeing myself write a bit more every day has been the biggest motivation I’ve had in weeks. I want to keep writing and improving my daily word counts.

October 15

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,131
• Today’s word count: 54
• Thoughts: Ugh. I don’t know what happened today. I just couldn’t focus on much of anything. I hope this isn’t the start of another downward trend. I don’t think I could stand it.
• Tomorrow’s goal: It’ll be Friday but I’m determined to write. I’m going to stop this downward trend before it has a chance to become a trend. I have to keep writing. We’re getting too close to NaNoWriMo to slip back to such low productivity.

October 16

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,160
• Today’s word count: 29
• Thoughts: This was such a typical Friday. I had high hopes and it didn’t work out that way. I should’ve known better. Fridays are always a nightmare for productivity. I think the only thing I can do is move on from today.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I’m going to be a bit busy outside of the house. It might help my creativity to go outside and get absorb some sunshine. I’m not a plant. I promise. However, I probably could use more sunlight in my life. This year I’ve spent more time inside than ever. Hopefully I’ll be energized by the sun and come home ready to write the night away.

October 17

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,165
• Today’s word count: 5
• Thoughts: I spent a lot of time outside today. It was lovely. It was exhausting. I spent time in the sun! It was a good day. I just wasn’t sitting down long enough to write much of anything. I managed to write one short sentence though!
• Tomorrow’s goal: I think I can manage to write more than today. It won’t be hard. Hopefully I’ll write a lot more. I should be home all day so the only real danger is allowing myself to be distracted.

October 18

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 198,322
• Today’s word count: 157
• Thoughts: Am I back on track? Today wasn’t too bad at least, but I think I need to see more of a pattern before I can confidently say I’m writing more than before. Maybe I’ll know more in a few days.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Maybe I can manage to write even more? I won’t be ready for NaNoWriMo unless I push myself to write a lot more. My hands might never forgive me if I jump from writing this amount to 1667 words every day.

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October 5

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,102
• Today’s word count: 112
• Thoughts: Well, I didn’t write more than yesterday, but I didn’t have a complete failure of a day. I’ll consider that progress. Finding consistency has been a struggle lately. Maybe I’m starting to win that fight. Only time will tell.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I feel like my goal is always the same. I want to write. And I want to write more. When I barely write the next day it makes me feel like I’m not taking my writing seriously enough, but I spend hours trying to write those words. My only strategy is to keep trying.

October 6

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,186
• Today’s word count: 84
• Thoughts: Writing could have gone a bit better today. Some of the decrease in productivity is my fault. I’ve been distracted reading a very long fanfic. At least reading is somehow related to writing so I’m still engaging that part of my brain in some small way.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Maybe I’ll try to read a bit less fanfiction and write a bit more. It’s hard to tear myself away from a story once I get more than a few chapters in, but I’ll try because I have my own story to finish writing.

October 7

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,244
• Today’s word count: 58
• Thoughts: I thought things were going better, but they ended up so much worse. I’m disappointed and frustrated. I thought I knew what was wrong and was working on fixing it. Now I’m not so sure. There’s something more to this problem I’ve had writing. I need to get to the bottom of this.
• Tomorrow’s goal: If I don’t figure out what’s going on soon, I’m going to lose my mind. Let’s dedicate tomorrow to getting back on track. Everything else can wait, but not for long.

October 8

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,325
• Today’s word count: 81
• Thoughts: I’m stuck in the writing doldrums again. The desire to write is there. I just can’t seem to follow through with any of my plans. I’m stuck in place. All I want to do is move forward but instead of creating, my mind constantly seeks out distraction. The world is awful so I understand why I’m worried about being left alone with my thoughts.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I honestly don’t know what to expect. It isn’t going to be a typical Friday. I’m not running errands in the morning this week. I’ll probably sleep in and see where the rest of the day takes me.

October 9

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,403
• Today’s word count: 78
• Thoughts: It feels like nothing has changed. I’m stuck in the same level of productivity every day. Despair is starting to set in. NaNoWriMo is coming up and I can’t even muster up enough energy/enthusiasm to finish this draft. At this point I’d be fine with not finishing the draft as long as I can get back to writing a decent amount every day.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I just want to write. It’s so hard. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Is it even me? I’m so lost.

October 10

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,480
• Today’s word count: 77
• Thoughts: I’m aware there’s a problem. I’m trying to find a solution. I’m just not there yet. One thing I’m not doing is giving up. I still have to finish this draft. Eventually I will get out of this slump and I want to still have a strong connection to the story when I do.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Stay home. Sit down. Write. I don’t know how much success I’ll have with this plan, but I’m going to try and see what happens. Maybe tomorrow will be the day I have my epiphany and everything starts working again.

October 11

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 197,615
• Today’s word count: 135
• Thoughts: My goal was to really put an effort into writing today. It might not look like it, but I pushed myself pretty hard to get the words I did today. There’s a slight improvement over the last few days, but my word count still isn’t good. What I want to write and what I’m capable of writing isn’t even in the same ballpark these days.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Keep writing. What else can I do? If I don’t sit down and have my writing time I end up feeling off balance for the rest of the day. I have to show up for writing even if I don’t write much once I’m there.

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September 28

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,453
• Today’s word count: 25
• Thoughts: This just wasn’t my day. I can’t really call it a bad day. I had some fun. I just couldn’t do anything that required concentration. My mind only wanted to wander. Once I realized it was happening I probably should have called it quits instead of frustrating myself by failing to focus over and over again.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I don’t know what to expect. I hope I’ll have a better mindset after I sleep. If I do, I should be able to write a decent amount. If I’m still in a weird mood, I might take the day for reading.

September 29

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,504
• Today’s word count: 51
• Thoughts: I’m still struggling. I have energy. I have ideas. I don’t have any amount of focus. All day I jump from one thing to the next. Nothing is getting done. It’s not just writing that’s suffering.
• Tomorrow’s goal: I want to write. I don’t know if it will happen. Before I can try to write, I need to figure out what is causing me to be so distracted. If I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t address it.

September 30

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,746
• Today’s word count: 242
• Thoughts: I was ready to call it a night, shut off the computer and read for a bit when I decided to try writing just one more time. I don’t know if it was the late hour, the random playlist I picked on Spotify, or a bolt of inspiration, but I managed to write more than a few words!
• Tomorrow’s goal: I want a repeat or better. It’d be great if I could pull it off before bedtime too. I’m probably asking too much of myself after the bad run I’ve had.

October 1

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,825
• Today’s word count: 79
• Thoughts: I’m still not back at 100% it seems. There’s a lot going on these days and existing in a bubble isn’t possible, even if I know it would make it easier to focus on being creative. I hate it.
• Tomorrow’s goal: It’ll be Friday so I’ll keep my expectations low. I want to write. Hopefully I’ll be able to carve out some time and muster up enough focus to make it happen.

October 2

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,834
• Today’s word count: 9
• Thoughts: Wow. This was such a Friday. I ended up having so many things to do that had nothing to do with writing. It was a great day, though. Old friends came back online. I watched some streaming spooky movies with friends virtually. Writing might not have been a priority but it was refreshing. Maybe it will help my writing later.
• Tomorrow’s goal: Time to get back to writing! I hope my refreshed energy will stick around and I can put it to good use. I have a lot of words to write.

October 3

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,870
• Today’s word count: 36
• Thoughts: I really did think I would be able to write more today. It just didn’t turn out that way. Today wasn’t a bad day. I just allowed myself to be a lot more distracted than I planned. I wanted to write but breaking away from the distractions was almost impossible. The next thing I knew, it was time to go to sleep.
• Tomorrow’s goal: All I want is a good day of writing. I’m willing to do almost anything to make it happen. If I have to go to bed early to reset my mind, I’ll do it. If I have to switch off the internet all day, I’ll do it. This draft needs to be written and I need to get past whatever is holding me back.

October 4

• Project: The Dreams
• Total word count: 196,990
• Today’s word count: 120
• Thoughts: Today went a bit better than the last few days. Am I bouncing back? I don’t know what to expect. I had a good day a few days ago and it didn’t stick. It’s too soon to get my hopes up. I’ll just have to keep working on writing.
• Tomorrow’s goal: As long as I write I’ll be happy. If I write more than today I’ll be thrilled. My expectations are low. Maybe I’ll start aiming higher after I get back on track.

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