- Went to Walmart to get new pants and to dump my piggy banks into a Coinstar kiosk to redeem for surcharge-free Amazon credit, but they were out of my size in the pants I wanted and the Coinstar was full and couldn't accept any coins more.
- Was supposed to get some shooting in for Tony Boi, but the weather was dreadful so they canceled all shooting until next week.
- Went to Art Night to make some art and swap some temporary tattoos, but the paper that the tats had been printed on turned out to be decal sticker paper instead accidentally, stickable to everything but human skin- and they hadn't printed out my particular design anyway. And there was just way too much Halloween goodie goodness to do any art.*
And yet, it all feels like the most productive day I've had in months.
I'm a meticulous outliner, but having to charge blindly into a story, knowing only the basic plot points that need to happen and working from point to point, going back and editing as needed in between writing bursts but not generally self-censoring during the writing process... there's something kind of (oh and I also won my League game for the day but lost my Overwatch rounds; laggy internet for the day left us no hope Overwatch-wise but my League team could sweep the floor with the enemy team in spite of my losing mid lane) magical about that, the way the words just come to me, like building a bridge as I cross it.
That's the life I imagined for myself, thinking ahead at what I'd be, near the end of my mission. The life I knew I'd need to live, if I were to accomplish everything I knew I wanted to. Building a bridge as I crossed it, creating awesome well-composed and cohesive things, on the fly. It's a thrill, writing these first few chapters of the Anachronominion, the first book of the Things That Don't Even Come Back Around trilogy.**
And after doing all this writing, I'm already gaining awesome wordcount power. That whole chunk of text up there, till now? Took me like 5 minutes to write. Flaming guitar lick.
Reviewing my earlier short fiction, though, I'm a lot better than I remember. You guys, I think I may actually be a really good writer. That's encouraging. I actually made a lot of compromises with my latest spooky story, come to think of it; it's not bad as a first draft, but... First draft is the NaNoWriMo ideal, getting those words out I mean, but I posted that sucker as a completed story. May have to do some revisions, if that's not too dishonest of me.
As for now, though, cranking through the novel mostly, like a meat grinder. I so need to get groceries, and I've been hungry and fatigued all day-- lesson, lesson; eating is important because even if it takes time it makes everything else so much more productive.
It's also becoming increasingly obvious that I need to structure my writing time better. Cut it down to just a few hours a day, or something. There was an "Evening of Quiet Creativity" at the public library where I could get a lot of work done†, but with the idea of NaNoWriMo looming above my head all day, the knowledge that I could have been working on my novel instead of whatever else I was doing was more like a soft maroon migraine in my skull, than something fun and exciting like it should have been.
The At-a-Glance that I've got this year breaks down each day by the hour; it's been far too restrictive to have been useful to me generally, as apparently I need a to-do list but need to decide the order and scheduling of things on it myself. But this month it's been super useful. Not sure if today was quite as productive as yesterday; I made it through my first chapter, which was the one I had the least ideas/idea about, so.
Also! Signed up for
*Candy and cider and candy and popcorn and candy (and when there's popcorn there, there's always a bowl of it coated in "nutritional yeast" whatever that is, which is a definite acquired taste but when you acquire it it's soooo good.)
**What does that name mean, I don't know, I figured it could be some kind of Silence of the Lambs (the book)-type deal: We must imagine Clarice as being happy, slumbering in the silence of the things that don't even come back around. However that sentence goes again.
†There were tables set up, with little, bags of rocks for some reason, but room for a lot more people than those who showed up anyway. Those being, me, and a librarian who was also there, herself also working on her NaNoWriMo novel (and a couple of teenagers passed through as well but didn't stay for some reason.) The librarian working on her novel sighed as she mentioned it; she said she usually outlines, but she hasn't outlined the story she's doing this year like at all, but at least she got her wordcount for the day. I myself also usually outline a lot harder than the one I've got, but I'm discovering stuff and it's nice and, see above with the bridge stuff, it's pretty dope.
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