Naturally...

Well, I am sick of zombie references and dystopian books...so naturally I'm writing one for NaNoWriMo. In my defense, this will be less about actual visible zombies and more about human nature, and less about dystopia and more about hilarity. Also my protagonist is not going to be the savior of all people. She is going to be socially awkward and an accidental survivor.

I have had mixed success with NaNo. Lots of my issues come from the "no plot no problem" side of things. I find that I tend to get lost on tangents when I write if I don't know where the story is going, and sometimes endless tangents can take over longer stories instead of being humorously charming the way I pretend they are on this blog.

Please don't disillusion me...I choose to believe you love my tangents.

Tangents are awesome for word count. Deleting them means a day of work is all gone. That's fine when I'm not doing NaNo. I don't mind getting rid of things that don't matter. But when I'm looking at a daily word count goal, I get bitter and keep things in that should go, especially since the whole point of NaNo is to WRITE and not edit.

Here's what I'm doing this year: I'm editing. Yep. I know.

Editing will probably make this more work for me. It will probably suck, be frustrating, maybe even make me throw a small tantrum in my bedroom with only the non-judgmental face of Kate Beaton's Fat Pony looking on (the Fat Pony is my desktop background). But I know me, and that means editing has to happen.

Speaking of tangents, there were three of the sickest people in the world at the library this morning, and I probably have tuberculosis now. Thanks so much, Random Mother, for bringing your sick children to the library to touch all the toys and cough up mucus on the computers. I'll think of you next week when I have bronchitis during my vacation.

I wish I could give that ecard to the mother on her way out. But that would be unprofessional. Instead I'm just leaving it up on my computer monitor REALLY BIG to see if she reads it.

Back to NaNo: I'm also using a technique a few writer friends use, in which you get a sticker on your calendar when you make your word count goal. Also I am bribing myself by giving myself a preward (like a reward, but given BEFORE you do a thing, not after) of a Fat Pony stuffed animal from Kate Beaton's TopatoCo store. Because nothing motivates me like the Fat Pony. I love that pony. SO MUCH.

Basically I wake up in the morning because I can look at the Fat Pony book some more. The Fat Pony is my spirit animal.

I'll let you know how NaNo is going this month by complaining a LOT about deadlines on Twitter! Also my daily tea consumption will probably quadruple.

Are any of you doing NaNo this month? If you are, let me know how your book is going! I love to commiserate with fellow deadline sufferers.

Now, I'm going to go bleach the computers. I hope your Monday is going better than mine.