Actually, day 8 has nothing to do with strawberries, goats or indeed anything else other than my novel and Alfred the Advertising Assignment. The weekend, on the other hand...
Saturday was 5k Day for NaNoWriMo's 'elsewhere in Australia' region. I bombed - Saturday gave me a grand total of 2683 for the day, which is only only 183 over my personal quota for the day.
Yes, I decided I needed to write 2500 words a day and finish a 75k story in November. I don't know if I can write that much, but my current record stands at around 43k for a half-finished story, so I was damn sure I wasn't going to be able to finish in 50k.
On the bright side, on Saturday I dug out all my strawberry plants, cleared out their bed and replanted them. They're all looking great and I actually stand a chance of getting a crop this year. I didn't get 5k for The Frozen Tear, but hey - there's always Sunday.
However, Sunday had other plans in the form of Cleome, a precocious little black goat who was about to have her second set of kids for the year. Not being there for the birth could mean disaster for the kids and their mother, so I dropped everything else to make sure I was there. The result: Candice and Crystal, black like their mother and totally adorable.
Which isn't to say I got nowhere at all - I managed to write 1275 words after dinner. I was actually a little disappointed and then felt like giving myself a good butt-kicking. It's not so long ago that I thought I was having a good day if I wrote two or three hundred words. However, it left me 500 behind where I wanted to be for the day and denied me my week 1 block of chocolate that I was only going to get if I hit 17500. Oh, and my internet was down, so I couldn't update my word count and instead of a disappointing 1275 day I had a really disappointing 0 day...
It also meant I had to write 3000 words on Monday to get back on target.
Yes, I did it. In the process, I discovered that if I'm using Write Or Die I can write 500 words in 15 minutes and they actually contribute something useful to the plot. I also discovered that I write faster if I have deadlines every 15 minutes rather than 30 minutes and I need something to distract me from sitting in front of the computer doing nothing. Can you set the screen saver to kick in every 15 seconds?
Anyway, coming up in Siana-land: 1952 words as a tribute to Douglas Adams and 740 words because I have an even-numbered word count (add 100 words), a 14-character user name (add 140 words) and a 5-digit word count (add 500 words). If you'd like to try these dares, the first is to find the year of birth of your favourite author and write that many words. The second is a little more complicated, so read the explanation for yourself: The most epic tip you will ever get. Ever. This is totally NOT a trap.
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