Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Goals can be quite an adventure!



During the month of November, while many authors are working on Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) we embark on an adventure.

I have a goal in mind of finishing Insanity Rules. I hope that I get the 50,000 words in, but regardless, I will finish my book.

The adventure comes in the creative ways I find time to write!

Last week I had to go to Seattle for a long financial management class. (Yes, read Ewww. I know there are writers who like numbers, I'm not one of them.) We also had to help pack up kiddo number 3 as she's graduating college in a few weeks. So we drove. Uh huh. We drove.

My back and ahem, butt, are killing me. I'm exhausted. But, I took a car charger in our work truck and attempted to write on the ten hour drive. A pretty creative solution to me. Here's what happened, lol.

I took a motion sickness pill on Tuesday. I knew I couldn't write/read in the vehicle for that long. I can't do it for more than a few minutes without feeling ill. Then I promptly passed out. Yep, I'm a lightweight. sigh. So about 500 words were done that day.

I wrote in the evenings in the hotel, or tried to...the first night, the big dinner lasted 4 hours after a 10 hour day. I added a few hundred words that night.

The next night I tried again. I had about 2 hours and wrote several hundred words. Okaaay. sigh. I was stuck from a sense of overwhelmed exhaustion. I couldn't pull my brain away from numbers.

Then came packing and moving.

Finally on the way home, I attempted to write without the motion sickness pill while riding in the truck. It worked! I wrote just over 1,000 words on that drive home. I know it was a ten hour drive. I should have gotten more. But every time I'd feel ill, I'd look up and get settled again. If I drifted, I'd open a different document and add thoughts to it. Doing that helped me clear my head. (I think I need to try that in my regular writing time, I kind of liked it.)

Yes, I had my laptop on my lap and plugged into the truck. Yes, I was easily distracted and didn't get the thousands of words written that I'd expected. But after such a tough week, I realized I had still written over 2,000 words that I wouldn't have had I not gotten a little creative on this adventure.

So the question is...what is your dream and what lengths would you go to in order to keep inching toward it?

A few more:
How do you turn it into an adventure?

Where or what is the most creative thing you've done to move toward your goal?


Angie
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great post. Yes, you have to get creative in finding time to write, huh? Oh, I've carried notebooks around in my purse, carried my computer with me everywhere I travel (which isn't many places lately), and I plan to have specific time to write, uninterrupted (Sundays are my huge day).

I just sneak time whenever I can or when I feel inspired (even if it's 2am). :-)