5 Nov 2020

How's Today's NaNo Going, Charlie?

Well, I was working, didn't really take a lunch break, still don't have my head on straight after a few days of feeling like my brain was just causing panic attacks every hour on the hour and a few more as surprises and I just went to copy across my words from my Dana to my PC and I forgot to press the start sprint button because I'm actually a bit of a moron, so all those words were counted for NaNo but not in my current sprint battle with a monster I'm trying to defeat to open a new area. (I love how nerdy 4thewords makes me sound :))

I had fully intended to get up today and be a fully functional human again because I actually managed to get to something that felt a bit more normal yesterday after a very slow start, but unfortunately, I couldn't sleep properly anyway and then Teddy started snoring. I know he can't help it but having a companion animal that doesn't sound like they have aggressive sleep apnoea would be wonderful. I had even put a bottle of Sneak by my bed so I could caffeinate early, but unfortunately, it was not to be.

That being said, I should still be able to break the 30K barrier today and I realised this morning, thanks to Facebook memories, that the record I was trying to break, I actually did it last year, so my all-time PB is actually already five days and that was the best I was hoping for this year after the first day didn't quite go to plan.

What I am really thankful for this year as opposed to last is that the verbal abuse, or written abuse, that was hurled at Overachievers has died down. I get that people struggle to understand how the likes of the Overachievers do what they do at the speed that they do it, but that isn't a reason to be sour about it. Granted, I'm not sure if there are more people accepting that that's the way it is because people have decided to be a bit more compassionate or because they know a lot of people have ended up at home that would not have chosen to be there and that additional time on your hands can really help, even if the additional stresses don't. I think we all might be a bit slower than usual as well because the pandemic stress is touching all of us. That may just be my perception of it though. Either way, I'm really glad, because it is thoroughly disheartening in an otherwise exceedingly inclusive competition. 

Something else I found really encouraging recently was Grant Faulkener's admission that he had not been writing for a few days because of the election. Sometimes it is difficult to accept that external forces will have that impact on u. Whether it makes you more jittery or unable to focus, or you're just so busy with other things, it isn't necessarily a bad thing and it doesn't mean that it's over. No one has to make up three days word count at once, no one has to be writing every day, and no one should feel ashamed if the world outside their front door is a little bit scary and it makes you feel a bit neurotic. We're still only in the first week. We have plenty of time.

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