I need a break. I want a break. Please let me have a break.
20,000 words in, day 9 of NaNoWriMo and I just want to take a day off. It’s Saturday, I need my weekend. I need to stop thinking about my novel.
If all I would do was write all day, I’d be happy enough and I’d be able to write less on some days than on other days, because I’d still get there in the end. But having a day job doesn’t help, because my brain doesn’t get to stop, ever.
To make matters worse, it constantly gives my new ideas, not just for what I am working on, but for future projects, blogs, novels, short stories. I want to go and photograph, I want to try my hand at drawing, although I feel woefully talentless in that area, but maybe copying doodles might be a way to start.
Actually, I’ve always been pretty good at copying paintings and such, but I think in words, not so much in images, maybe that is why I find it harder. Composing photographs, though, comes more naturally. Strange.
I want to work with wood.
Can I just be creative all day?
Hang on a second. How did I get from wanting to be finished with the novel already to being creative all day long?
Well, it’s always been the life I wanted, I just didn’t have the guts to go for it. Instead I went travelling, somehow that seemed easier. Weird, right?
It’s getting dark outside, just after half past three in the afternoon. It’s a miserable November day, cold and rainy, as you would expect. I am having tea, just finished with my novel writing for the day, now killing time to see a movie. And I keep writing.
Later I will be mulling over my novel again, plotting some more, resisting the urge to write some more. I do need to have a bit of a break and I have written enough for the day. I will write more tomorrow. For now this story needs to sit and simmer.
I have 30,000 words to go. My NaNoWriMo dashboard tells me I’ll get there by the 24th of November, which is a Sunday, at my current pace. 15 days then. An eternity.
And yet, I will never not write ever again.
2clouds 
If you have extra time before hitting the end of the month maybe a break is in order. The mind needs rest when being creative. It’s why procrastination doesn’t produce the same quality as slowly plugging away at something. The constant push yields worse results than a well rested mind.
So try taking a day off. Have a pad of paper and a pen on you all day to jot down what to do next and new ideas and maybe a paragraph to write here and there, but try just letting the mind rest. I often have the best material after taking a break. In nothing else in life is pushing for an entire month without a break considered healthy or productive.
And take a longer rest than a day. Take three off. You have the time. Get away from the novel for a bit. I wrote 110k words in a month by letting my mind cool and just rereading what I had already written one day and walking away from it for another two. It increases productivity like you wouldn’t believe.
You certainly have a point. I won’t write for the rest of today. Let’s see about tomorrow, I’m going on a weekend trip next weekend, which will be keeping me away from writing for most of the weekend anyway, so a break is coming one way or another.
I tend not to continue with something, if I find I’m forcing it and there is no flow at all.
Thank you 🙂