HONEY ROCK DAWN

Nano Fail (But Not Really)

mtnsky

So, even though November felt like it was 400 years long, I did not get 50K words written for Nanowrimo. I wrote about 35,000 words. But I also reworked my plot in a major way, solving what had been a serious structural problem, so I’m thrilled about that. And Nano got me back into my book after 4+ months away, and it was downright fun, so, all in all, I consider the endeavor a success and one of the highlights of a dense and intense month. Now to maintain that momentum and accelerate through December! I shall scale that cliff and dive into the blue….

Backing Up

I was driving home from town today, thinking about the pages I had written this morning, when suddenly, I spun into a panic ~ What if my house burns down before I get home!? What if all my writing is lost!? What if Mike gets home before I do and makes a fire in my woodstove just to be nice so my house is warm for me but a spark flies out and goes unnoticed and he leaves ~ and I left my notebook on the floor in front of the woodstove this morning! And what if all my writing BURNS!!!!!!!???  Needless to say, the rest of the drive home was misery.

But I did think about ways to back up handwritten pages. Typing them into the computer = not an option at this point. I hate typing up handwritten work. There have been so many blog posts that have never seen the internet simply because I never typed them up from my original handwritten versions. (I should photo-post those in the future….)

Making photocopies. This is what I’d do if I didn’t live in the boonies. But I don’t want to waste my printer/copier ink and there’s no Kinkos nearby (the amount of longing/nostalgia I have for Kinkos is….weird. Memories of finalizing college papers at 3am on a 50-hour no-sleep high, the satisfying “machine” noises, all those right angles….) Anyway, photocopying would be easy; then stash the second batch at a second location.

I decided to photograph each page. Quick, free, and it ensures I have the words in digi format in case Frisco shows up and eats the originals. (He would do that). Saved to computer, saved to external hard drive, saved to flash drive hidden off the premises. Whew.

Password Protected

How’s NaNoWriMo going? Part of the fun and challenge of this month is checking in with each other to help keep things rolling along. But I have a feeling you’re going strong on your own. You’ve already learned how to be self-disciplined and focused in your writing. But do you have any tips you can share? Things that work for you?

This is uber dorky but also super helpful (for me) ~ whenever I have something major going on, something that’s a bit nerve-wracking, I change my passwords to affirmations that apply to whatever it is I’m doing. So, every time I log in to X, Y, or Z, I have to type this concise but apropos affirmation, which means I’m saying it in my head, and it actually works.

{for internet safety, don’t use the same password for everything. use an affirmation for the thing you log into the most, or use a different affirmation for each program/app/etc}

Task Master Meow

kingmeow

As I lounge in your chair on my throne, you shall WRITE!

~ NaNoWriMo starts today ~
I wrote 1487 words while doing laundry this morning, 400 of which were about a vulture landing on a fencepost. Hoping for an end of the day total of 2000…
Otherwise I’ll have to answer to Eli.

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