My NaNoWriMo: Round 6, Week 4

We’ve reached the final stretch! After a week of holiday meals and family gatherings, the odds were stacked against me to stay on track with my National Novel Writing Month daily and weekly goals.

So, how did I do? Read my progress report below!

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Black Friday! Happy You-Got-PTO or You-Got-Time-Away-From-School!

Now that the seasonal greetings are out of the way, let’s get down to business. This is probably my last NaNoWriMo update for 2018.

Now that National Novel Writing Month is quickly coming to a close, I am glad that I planned ahead to celebrate my writing success before the holiday season consumes most of my time.

Here’s how this week went for my NaNoWriMo goals.

My Progress

I have done so well this month with keeping up with writing over 1,667 words a day, usually 1,700+! That meant to reach 50,000 words by November 30, I didn’t have to reach 1,667 words a day if I needed that wiggle room.

But did you think I’d let myself off the hook like that? Of course not!

Since last week, I am over my goal of 44,420. In fact, I reached 44,738!

I know what you’re thinking: if you’re so close to 45K, why didn’t you just write the 262 extra words?

I’ll let the next part of this blog post explain.

My Obstacles

While many peers took PTO and were out of the office, I was at my desk cranking out work. The holiday season is quickly nearing, so I had a lot of prep work to do so that all promotions run successfully through the channels I manage. Even though I was able to enjoy Thursday and Friday with my family, it still meant pulling long hours the remainder of the short work week.

Normally, I wake up early to work out and write before work. However, I decided to get in the office sooner during when I would usually write at home so that I could cover my bases on all of my projects without fretting about it over the holiday weekend.

This meant coming home and writing after dinner several days this week. Writing in the evenings isn’t my forte, especially when all I want to do is sleep or curl up with a good book, but I pushed myself to write, taking it step by step, paragraph by paragraph. What I found was, even though the energy and focus was lacking, the creativity due to the fatigue of the day still ran strong in my writing and I was able to move the plot forward without dragging down the mood of the writing.

In short, I could write 262 more words to reach 50K. However, I plan to resume my early morning routine this upcoming week when I know I’ll write 262 words of quality instead of 262 words just to write 262 words.

Besides, my laundry from this weekend isn’t going to wash itself!

My Successes

I was fortunate enough to be able to stay in town this Thanksgiving instead of traveling across state borders for the festivities. This allowed me to use the time that I would have spent packing and driving hundreds of miles towards meeting my writing goals.

Since no room was open at the house hosting this year’s festivities, I commuted to and from the hosting household each day. This allowed me to wake up earlier and focus on my writing before joining my family for breakfast and joining in on the group’s outing (or, sometimes, staying in).

This allowed me to enjoy the time that my family was in town without worrying about making my daily word count goal each day.

My Goals

That’s easy—I want to reach 50K this week! My goal is before November 30 because I want to achieve writing 50,000 words in under 30 days. According to the NaNoWriMo website, I am on track to finishing on November 28.

If I don’t write another blog post update for National Novel Writing Month, then please assume that I reached my final goal. If not, I’m certain I’ll announce it boldly on my Twitter account.

I’m also motivated because my 2018 NaNoWriMo winner shirt arrived in the mail two days ago! I want to wear it proudly to work on Casual Friday, which also happens to be November 30.

Now it’s time for you to share! How is your progress this final week of National Novel Writing Month? Will you be a NaNoWriMo winner this year? Tell us your writing status this week in the comments section below.