One day I’ll remember to update this site more regularly. Now is not that time.
Every year over the past few years I’ve written about some sort of crash around NaNo time and after NaNo. If you’ve followed me online or read my last few posts here after NaNo (let’s face it, there arent that many), then you’ll know the theme. I get so busy before NaNo for a variety of reasons and I’m ready to crash after the month is over.
This year was no exception, but at least an order of magnitude worse. Where to start? Oh boy.
Some days I’m okay. Other days, when I’m not okay, I’m very not okay. And I’m not sure how to deal with that.
Because since my last post, a lot has happened. More than usual, that is.
Writing 100,000 words for NaNoWriMo this year was my minimum goal, my attempt at taking it easy. But every year I’ve set that goal, I’ve always had the secret goal of wanting even more and constantly feeling behind even when I’m technically on track for 100k. The constant inability to concentrate on writing when I finally had time to write. Writing fifteen words, then switching from Twitter to the NaNo forums to Discord to Gchat and barely getting anything done in any of those places because I didn’t want to lose an hour to any of those places, and then finding my way back to my novel.
Write fifteen more words. Lather, rinse, repeat for the better part of a month. I had my slowest day one in almost a decade and my second-lowest six-digit year. In fact, I wrote 200 more words than my previous lowest six-digit year just so this year wouldn’t be the lowest six-digit year.
There were good times. When I finally started using my lunch break to write, having that tight deadline to write over the course of thirty minutes netted me an extra 2000 to 2500 words.
But I also felt more isolated from the NaNo community and had zero time to myself since the beginning of October. All I wanted was a break to do nothing for a little bit, and I still wasn’t getting it. Quite the opposite, in fact: I kept on trucking and juggling the rest of my life while writing a novel as well, with a trip planned in December that I did not anticipate to be relaxing. Oh, and diving back into my freelance work in December.
Ohhhh and the boycritter. Yes, he’s a new (non-NaNo) acquisition. Because when I found out the former crushperson was interested in someone else, I was hurt. Not because I expected we would end up together, but because sometimes those feelings linger, even after putting them in a box and shoving that box under the bed and dealing with it (or trying to).
So I spent a few days moping, as you do. And then I signed up for online dating again for shits and giggles instead of doing the work I was planning to do that evening.
I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I’d just answer some of those match questions, see who was out there, and then never use it again until I was bored. I even messaged a person or two for shits and giggles, expecting absolutely nothing except maybe a band-aid and self-reassurance that I was actually doing something about my feelings.
Then one of those people replied. We kept talking and I stayed up too late and we decided to meet up the following day for dinner at a local food hall. And then we didn’t part ways until Sunday night.
We’re still together and not tired of each other yet; if you follow me elsewhere online, he’s the person known as Boycritter.
Now that so much has changed over the past few months and I still haven’t fully recovered, I know I won’t fully recover from all these things, for better or for worse. So for now I’ve settled for trying to find a new normal, whatever that might mean. I’m trying to figure out how to balance work and more work and the boycritter and having even more of a social life than ever and maintaining Wikiwrimo and doing some of my own writing and keeping the house cleaner than dump and maybe, just maybe, updating this dang site.
Right now doing it all feels like way too much.
“Well, don’t do it all,” you might say. And I’m trying. I’ve been piecing this post together over lunch breaks and putting together a plan to update all the Wikiwrimo stuff over lunch breaks. That way I won’t have to budget as much time from my non-work life to do this.
That’s why, like last year, my 2020 goals are few in number.
- Read 50 books
- Write 100,000 words and win NaNoWriMo
- Become debt-free
That last bullet point is why I’m not quitting my freelance work yet. Assuming I continue paying at my current rate and no major disasters or changes arise, I’ll make my last student loan payment in March. Then I can throw the rest of that extra money at my old tax debt, which should disappear by the end of this year. Once everything is paid off, I’ll re-evaluate my situation.
For now? I’m going to throw myself headfirst into everything and see what happens.