Today's Pitfall is less mental and more physical...
NaNo Pitfall #8 or "Something so good shouldn't hurt so much"
Yesterday I banged out over 4K words. Yay! The only problem with that is this morning my hands are lumps of meat with ten tubes of overstuffed sausage attached. Not that I'm complaining. Hurting hands mean I got some real work done, but...
Unfortunately, my brain is still on a roll and my hands don't want to cooperate. Type two words... ouch ouch ouch... If typing this post is killing me, what's my manuscript going to do?
Hang on a sec, I have to slather myself in Aspercreme™.
Okay, that's better. I guess what I'm trying to say, especially since this week marks the home stretch of NaNo is: The more you write the higher the probability that something somewhere in your body is going to protest. Maybe your ass becomes flat and numb. Maybe your back becomes a tangle of tension. Perhaps you're like me and your fingers balloon up to Mickey Mouse proportions.
Take a pain reliever. Rub on some creme. Break out the heating pad or the ice pack. Promise yourself a long, hot bath after your writing session is over. Whatever you choose do, though, don't let the pain in your body stifle the story in your head.
And now that the Aspercreme is kicking in, I'm off to write. Have a great day, everyone. =o)
I'm sure this is a stupid question, but as a new blogger, with a new blog, I have no idea what this Nano Writer's thing is all about. How would an aspiring novelist like myself find out more about it?
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea, and welcome to the Spectacle.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not a stupid question. To me, NaNo (short for National Novel Writers Month or NaNoWriMo) is a celebration of this crazy business we've gotten ourselves into. It's also a time for me to push myself to write in higher quantities than usual.
For most people, though, it's the time when they try to write brand-new novel. Here's the skinny from the NaNoWriMo website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano - they can point you in the right direction if you want to join the group next year. I've never officially joined, but my daughter joined the teen site this year, and she's having a lot of fun writing her first book.
My hands are so bad. With my weird carpal tunnel in my elbows (wth, seriously, only I would get something so ridiculous), my hands give out on me really quickly. Unfortunately, the pain meds don't do all that much. Ah well, I generally just suck it up and write. However, when I've been doing school work all day, I can't write at night, it just hurts too much.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the 4k! Keep it up missy!