Posting a Day Early

Well, here I am, posting on a Thursday instead of a Friday. I'm so daring, right? (Don't answer that.)
I have some time, so I'm posting now instead of tomorrow, because tomorrow I'd probably forget to do it, and that would be terrible. I should probably post tomorrow anyway. Just to make sure I actually post. Maybe. I don't know. I'm blathering right now.
Anyway, I'm posting today to give a little heads-up about THINGS GOING ON DURING NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH!! HUZZAH!!
Not much of consequence is supposed to be happening during NaNoWriMo this year.
Let me rephrase that: nothing much of consequence is intended to happen, outside of an attempt to write a novel during the month of November. I plan to win this year. I always plan to win, but it doesn't always work out. I'm hoping that, now that I've gotten the hang of college, I can actually win, but that remains to be seen.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I need to set some goals for myself to (hopefully) do better this year than I have in the past. These goals are the following:

1. Write every day. It doesn't matter if I only write a page. It should probablybe more than a page. I'm dealing with all my knitting commissions before and after November for the sake of BEING ABLE TO WRITE EVERY DAY.
2. Blog every day. Maybe even twice a day. I don't really know. At any rate, I intend to keep you readers updated on the progress of my novel while (hopefully) not providing any spoilers. We at WriterInCollege don't condone spoilers under any circumstances.
3. Reach the end of the novel. This is not something that I've been able to do during NaNoWriMo before, but that's mostly because I'm terrible at containing stories to 50,000 words. The only novel I've actually finished is around 100,000 words and was finished a month before my next NaNoWriMo.
4. Don't let Writing get in the way of Homework. I only say this because I hope to graduate on time and not fail anything. Contrary to popular belief, I am, in fact, in college for school.
5. Actually take time to edit, once NaNo is done. This has been the other difficult thing in my novel-writing career. I write novels by hand, and I don't like taking the time to type them up and edit them. I should probably do that if I want to actually get anything published.
6. Sleep. Sleep is important. I should do it. I should also write. But mostly sleep.

This is my list of Things I Need To Do During National Novel Writing Month. The next time I post, I should have an approximate National Novel Writing Month 2014 OFFICIAL PLAYLIST OF SONGS FOR THE PLOT. By November 1st, I should have my characters named, my plot built, and my motives in place.
Farewell until then.
To all the Wrimos out there, MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR.

Day 15: halfway!

Current Page: 83
Pages written today: 7.5
Target Page: please, no.
Location in story: PLOT TWIST!  You thought the Mentor's death was the low point?  THINK AGAIN!!  EVERYTHING THAT SPENCER KNOWS AND LOVES IS ABOUT TO GO KAPUT, THANKS TO THAT CREEPY CALL THAT SHE JUST MADE!  Doesn't help that her navigation and her communicators are busted, so she can't really go anywhere accurately and she has to call on her backup communications.  Also, she has ten unconscious guards in her cargo hold.

Yes, that's where I am right now. I've gotten a lot done today, but I still need to keep up this pace if I want to make sure I can get my word count.

On Goals and the Supervillains to Productivity

The last few weeks, I've realized, I've been in a bit of a writing rut.  I just don't know what to write about - nothing of the creative spark I had in high school has decided to manifest itself.

It's easy to point fingers at certain situations.
I've spent a year in college, away from a secure environment where I'm allowed to manifest my creativity.  I actually have to get up every day on my own, get myself to the dining hall, get myself to class, stick myself in the library for a few hours a day, go to clubs and service events and a bunch of activities that take up time I could normally use for writing.  Now I've been around lots of people who take 'no' for an answer, who allow themselves to make excuses, and maybe don't push themselves to 100 % capacity.  At the end of my senior year, I definitely felt like I was not that sort of person - I was the one who, with half a glass of coffee and a few pens, was determined to do what I needed to do to get stuff done.
But, shifting over to this summer in particular, the increase in free time has lead, I think, to a decrease in motivation for doing stuff like writing, but also other things.  I admit, my summer diet is not exactly healthy.  I hardly eat breakfast, and lunch is normally fruit, goldfish, and trail mix.  Sometimes not even that much.  I can see why my parents have started to get on my back about things like getting out of the house and seeing people and having some sort of structure to the day - it helps a lot with productivity.  The danger, of course, is that the mindset of Eternal Free Time - only having to leave the couch and my yarn to get some more food or to maybe go for a run in the evening, and nothing in between - is the worst enemy of productivity; I might even contest that it's ranked higher on the Supervillain list than procrastination.  At least with procrastination, you can recognize that you actually have a goal in mind, but you're just choosing not to pursue it.  With Eternal Free Time, the original existence of a goal is questionable.

As the next big chunk of free time looms over the horizon, I realize that I need to refocus my goals - and make sure that the goals are established in the first place.  That's the real trick to getting any sort of anything done.