Half Way with 10K

Preamble: I listened to Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts for the first time tonight and it’s amazing. Great writing music, especially for emotional sections. Listen here.

November 15th is officially over (it’s 12:06 am as I write this sentence)… and I am, at the moment, a full 15K words behind in my word count. I *should* be at 25K right now… but I’m not. So what do I do? I write a blog about it.

What has been keeping me from writing? Well, thank you for asking. The following are a list of all the things that I like to blame for my not writing, even though I know that the only person (thing?) to blame is myself:

• Work. 9-5 is draining. Yes, yes, I realize there are people out there that work 9-5, have three kids, social functions and whatnot and are STILL writing. These people are amazing. These people are busy. These people are not me. I’d say work is the least of my reasons, but it still keeps me from writing because I have to be working. Besides, I had the exact same job last year and I kicked word count’s butt (I think at this time in 2012 I was at 35K or more by the 15th).
• Freelance work. This one is an “it’s ok” type of “distraction”. It’s much like work, except I’m choosing to do this because this is my future I’m developing. That being said, I’m actually having trouble sitting down to do Freelance work as well… (hope none of my clients read this).
• Soccer. For about four hours a week I’m out playing soccer. I’m also the captain of my co-ed team and that takes up another hour a week, just to write emails and coordinate things.
• Pinterest. Have I mentioned yet that I’ve discovered Pinterest and now I’m hooked? Originally I didn’t understand it (no outsider does) but now that I do understand, I find myself on it for hours just looking at things. And I don’t even realize that time is passing. It’s a very very very dangerous thing, Pinterest. (Also, I’d like to make a public apology to all of my friends that follow my Pinterest account – I’m so very sorry for the sheer number of geeky Doctor Who and Firefly things I pin. I’m pretty sure no one will understand them… And that’s ok.)
• Procrastination oh max. I wanted to name this particular entry “Writer’s Block” but writer’s block is just a myth we writers like use as a scapegoat. “I’ve got writer’s block” gets a lot more sympathy than “I opened up my word document, took one look at the crap I wrote yesterday, saw how many more words I needed to write today and decided I would watch Supernatural instead.” Yeah. No one’s going to give you any sympathy there. So anyway… I have writer’s block.
• My boyfriend. He’s very supportive and does his best to keep me from watching Supernatural for hours on end and tries to push me to write more. But I’m a stubborn person and when he’s home, I like to spend time with him. So there’s that.

So that’s what has been keeping me from writing. Well, that’s not ALL there is, I’m sure there are a million other excuses I could come up with. Instead, I’ll share some of the Pinterest images I’ve found in the last 15 days that have *almost* convinced me to open up my Word document and work on my story. Almost.

This one just made me chuckle and say “No”

ANNNND we end with Neil Gaimon. Because Neil Gaimon is the be all that ends it all. Or something like that.

Post-script: I also didn’t mention that I changed stories COMPLETELY after I’d written my first NaNoWriMo blog. I’m now writing a fantasy with a whole bunch of characters and magic and stuff like that. It’s fun. It’s also a fantasy story I’ve been planning for something like two years, so it’s really intimidating. Which is ANOTHER reason why I’m not writing as quickly – my plot and characters intimidate me. That’s weird right? Things I’ve made up scare me. I don’t want to give them life because they might jump off the page and bite me! Or maybe I’m dreaming right now. That is entirely possible.