Saturday, November 27, 2010

TMI Sunday, or how I pulled off 10K in a day.

Or not? Let's see how it played out.

8:00 am Wake up, go downstairs and set up laptop at the kitchen table. Eat and mix up a batch of brownies.
8:30 am Start writing--beginning word count 39,776
9:00 am Log onto Tweetdeck and say: "Today I try for the #10KinAdayBlogfest #amwriting, no #twitter or #facebook allowed. Going to finish my #nano #goal #wip" Then keep writing.
9:45 am Rest of family wakes up so I feed them breakfast and clean the kitchen a bit. Change pj bottoms to blue jeans, but leave on the top (my 2009 Nano winners shirt) for inspiration.
10:15 am Sneak over to Facebook and restock shelves and answer Cafe World item requests. Feel guilty and turn it off at 10:25 am.
10:25 am Eat one of those brownies slathered with failed peanut butter fudge (I didn't boil it long enough so it didn't set, still tastes great.)
10:30 am Write, write, write
11:25 am Get restless, go down and eat left over corn bread dressing and another brownie slathered with peanuty goodness.
11:45 am Write.
12:00 noon Open new document and work on resume because one agent wants one when I send in my full manuscript.
12:15 pm Get frustrated with formating issues and go back to novel. Write, write, write
1:00 pm Hear hubby calling to me from the back yard and go out to help bag leaves (about 15 of them!) 
1:45 pm Right hand is cramping from squishing leaves into the bags. Decided to put on a bra under my nano shirt. 
2:00 pm Eat another brownie a la peanut butter.
2:02 pm Brush teeth in an effort to avoid more brownies.
2:05 pm Sit down to write some more. Start this blog post instead.
2:15 pm Stop because it is time to go help clean the church (our congregation takes turns doing this to save on cost) Word count so far for today 4,675. Almost half way, a little worried. 
2:16 pm Try to round up family, end up sweeping the garage instead while hubby tries to teach 4 year old how to ride without training wheels.  
2:20 pm Wander back up stairs and open Scrivener again. Write a few words.
2:40 pm Actually leave to go to the church.
3:00-3:55 pm Clean church, set up chairs, etc.
3:55 pm Head to McDonald's as a treat for yard work and cleaning the church. On the way there, change to CiCi's Pizza, then Wendy's frosties and Little Caesars Pizza, end up at Red Robin. 
4:10 pm Walk into restaurant looking like white trash (leaves in hair from yard work, holes in kids pants, dirt on other pants, kids loud and obnoxious acting like they've never been allowed out of the house.) Try to look happy. Glut self on California Chicken Burger and fries.
5:15 pm Arrive home and try to convince boys to clean their room. Listen to them fight while opening laptop.
5:20 pm Check email, browse ten blogs in reader, convince self to open novel document.
5:30 pm Check Twitter but don't post anything.
5:32 pm Start writing.
5:45 pm Get sick of hearing the boys scream and fight over who is doing the least amount of work cleaning the room. Go to micromanage the event.
6:17 pm Return to room and hope that Hubby's return does not cause another break in writing. Start writing torture scene to work off frustration.
6:35 pm I've added 700+ words, but realize it is very quiet. Turn on Pandora and hope hubby is aware of whatever the kids are doing. First song is For You by Staind, perfect.
6:48 pm Hubby calls for help putting lights up on the house. Does he not realize it's dark outside? Current word count for the day--6307
7:50 pm Come inside with frozen fingers, but house is beautiful. Decide to warm fingers around a cup of hot chocolate and another brownie, or two.
8:00 pm Realize Hubby has not come inside. He decided to decorate the other side of the house, which I thought we had agreed to save until Monday. Make him some hot chocolate and stay inside.
8:14 pm Hubby comes in and I realize the heater is off in the house explaining why it's 62 degrees. Turn it on and head upstairs hoping to write. Upload pictures to computer instead. Discover the kids played with the camera and took 140 pictures of each other making funny faces and the TV shows they were watching.
8:25 pm Writing once more. 
9:00 pm Pause to rub 4 year olds back, and belly, and arms. Oops, Mom you forgot my neck. (It's his routine that I'm trying to break him of. I think it might be a bit odd when my teen age boy needs these things to go to sleep.)
9:10 pm Son is asleep, I continue writing. Like crazy. Eyes burning, brain turning to mush.
10:00 pm Talk with my hubby about an issue I have with the neighborhood Board. They think I'm a meanie so I try and explain myself as nicely as possible in an email. Can I count that in my daily word count?
10:15 pm Decide I've written all I can stand for the day. I want to go watch an episode of Lie to Me with my hubby and then go to bed. I add up the daily word count:
7,892
Not 10K, but a lot more than I would have written if I didn't try for 10K. Technically, a day is 24 hours so I can wake early and try to write before the 8am deadline. I might still make it. But, even if I don't (or didn't? I don't know which to use since I'm writing this Saturday night), here's my shiny new Nano word count:
47,668! 
Happy day indeed. Monday I'll post an excerpt in all its drafty roughness as part of the 10K in a Day Blogfest.
Now, to switch out these jeans for my pj bottoms.

10 comments:

  1. Your house is beautiful!!
    Congrats on the huge word count accomplishment for the day too!

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  2. Such a pretty house! And congrats on such an awesome word count! I'm hoping to add around 13k to my novel before the 30th!

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  3. Your house looks so lovely! Totally worth it. I didn't write at all over the 3-day Thanksgiving holiday, but I did go mega shopping and buy a Christmas tree, which I'm now letting my kittens get their full exploration of before I decorate. :)

    Congrats on that awesome wordcount! My daily best ever is only 8k, and I felt totally exhausted after that.

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  4. In all that confusion, I couldn't have written that many words! I did crank out over 4500 yesterday and am now just 1300 from 50000. So cheers to us - we're going to make it!

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  5. WOW!!! How on earth did you write anything with a day like that? I'm inspired. I need to try a 10K day sometime soon. I think my best day ever was about 4K.

    Your house is beautiful too.

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  6. Wow, nearly 8k is really impressive for one day! I love how you snuck your writing in between everything. That's a great way to get it done! Your house looks beautiful by the way.

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  7. I got as far as 1:45 and could not stop laughing.

    *wiping tears from eyes and still chuckling*

    Congrats on word count. Good thing you put the bra on before going to the church though...
    FOTFLMAO

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  8. Beautiful lights! I love Christmas. And great job getting so many words on the page! Looks like your NaNo finale is right around the corner. Very inspiring. Maybe I can get back to my 1,000 words a day...

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  9. Thank you everyone. I love my little house. One year we paid someone to put the lights along the roof line, but it is really steep and a lot scary to get on our roof.

    Look--> I made 50K today! *happy dance* Now I can buy Scrivener for half price when it's released.

    Alex, Natalie, Heather, I guess I'm used to the chaos and just know I have to take whatever time I can get. My attention span isn't very long because of it though. :)

    Huntress, glad I could make you life. My hubby will die if he wanders by and sees that I wrote that. Evil, evil things.

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  10. Awesome post! It sounds a lot like my day, and in fact it's probably more typical than most writers will admit.

    You pecked out a lot of words in a short period of time. Good job.

    - Eric

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