Yesterday was my birthday, and it was one of the better ones in a long time. It was just the Mrs. and I for the day, and we went up to Frederick to play pinball at Spinners and then spent the rest of the day in downtown Frederick itself, doing some last minute Christmas shopping. We had a lovely lunch at The Orchard, and later in the evening, when it was dark, we went to see the boats along Carroll Creek Park. Every year they have lighted boats and they're all amazing.

It was pretty much a perfect day.

One of the things that surprised me most about my successful attempt at NaNoWriMo this year was how... not hard it was. I won't say it was easy, but it was a lot easier than I expected. I think there were only two or three nights where I struggled to meet my goal. And yes, some nights I fell short. Not often enough to make it reaching the goal of 50,000 words a serious struggle, however.

My story isn't complete, and if I'm honest with myself, probably won't ever be. I might come back to it someday; as I said in my last post, I'm interested in seeing where it goes. I just have to find the discipline to sit and flesh it out. I've talked about the lack of discipline before. One of the things I've discovered recently is that if I'm given a deadline, I seem to strive to make that. I don't think it can be just me that sets the deadline: I had NaNoWriMo this time around, and last year about this time, I had LNA Does Audio Stuff's 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. It would seem I need an external source to get me motivated.

Maybe I can hire someone.

Some takeaways from NaNoWriMo:

• Sitting down and getting started is always the hardest part. Once I started writing, I often found that I was in the groove within a paragraph or two.
• Each night I would create a new chapter and write from a different person's perspective.
• I think a better approach would be to try and write a single character's view point up until a major plot point is achieved.
• Scrivener is the bee's knees for keeping my thoughts organized. I don't know how some people (e.g., my sister-in-law) can write in a single Word document.
• I tried writing in a coffee house but there simply too many distractions. I found that sitting at my dining room table, after the wife had gone off to bed, was my most productive time.
• I meant to try and write in the morning once, to see if my creative flow was any different, but never managed.

I might try it again in 2024. Maybe I'll need to blow the dust off the current story then and see if I can button it up.