Well that sucked. I got sick over a week ago, and that took me out for a few days. I managed to bounce back a bit for the holiday, and then crashed hard with a different set of illness symptoms a few days later. Due to all the injury that’s happened in the family this year, I didn’t have much sick leave left for myself, so I got to use my vacation time to shiver under the covers where I could barely keep my eyes open. And of course, sharing is caring, so I made sure to pass the misery onto the members of my household.
Needless to say, that put a bit of a damper on my NaNoWriMo progress. Kind of. I still did surprisingly well. As of this moment, I’m sitting at 36.7K. According to the NaNo stats page, that’s an average of 1267 a day. Of that 36K, I’ve marked 6K of it unusable after NaNo is over, but a net gain of 30K good words is still good. I’m pretty sure I’m not cranking out another 14K by the end of tomorrow, but I might be able to manage another 3.3K.
I’ve also simplified things by taking out one group of people I intended to introduce in this book and giving their role to an existing POV character, and also I’ve combined two characters who are there to aid this POV character. That does mean I’m tossing out 22K of previous years’ NaNo work, but it improves the overall arch of the series and gives purpose to one of the details I added to this character.
Due to illness, I’m far behind on all things I intend to do, so I’m probably going to be late visiting all of my fellow bloggers. But I want to give a shout out to Sarah Brentyn, because she just released her next collection of short fiction! If you get a chance, check out On the Edge of a Raindrop.
Any suggestions to avoid getting sick? Have you checked out Sarah’s lates release? Any big writing things you want to share?
Sorry to hear about the setback. Hoping for great health in weeks to come.
I’m not sure how to totally avoid sickness. It seems to usually creep up on me and take me by surprise. I think it also has something to do with mental state. Soon after I got word of my brother’s death on November 8th, I came down with an illness that same day and was in bed for a few days after that and still feeling a bit weakened. Since I’m getting older I tend to blame my illness much of the time on aging. But when I feel good, I feel great!
No big or small writing news from me. I’ve been plodding and drifting through life lately trying to get massively motivated.
Have a great holiday season and a highly production 2018.
Lee
Tossing It Out
Sorry, you felt so bad. Bummer having to use your vacation. I hate when that happens. Hope you are feeling much better and stay well. Juneta @ Writer’s Gambit
Sickness has been rampant in our house this year. Just flus and colds one right after the other, so much so that I don’t know if it’s different illnesses or the same one just never goes away. :-/
30K words is AWESOME. I haven’t written that much in a month in years (certainly not since kids). Congrats to you and keep pumping out the good work.
Sorry illness took over your house and your NaNo efforts. That’s still a good word count.
Tips for not getting sick? Eat healthy, drink lots of water, exercise, and don’t have kids. Some of those you may not be able to control at this point…
What a shame about getting sick and especially for having to use vacation days to recuperate. Ugh 🙁
I think you’ve done fantastic on NaNo with a really great word count. You should be proud of yourself.
Eeek. I think you should get an extra week of NaNo due to illness. It’s like school. You have as long as you were out to make up the work you missed 😉 Being sick sucks. But it sounds like you’ve made good progress on the novel, no matter whether you “win” or not.
My grandmother swore by a fresh hand washing before eating to avoid illness. I extend that idea to always washing my hands after going to places like Wal Mart. I think it helps.
I hope you have built an immunity to every bug you encounter over the rest of the holidays!
The amount of times you and your family have been sick/injured this year should (easily) make up for not having any in the next five.But it sounds like you made some progress in the WIP! Hurray! Don’t you love when things come together?
When you don’t feel good, you don’t feel like doing crap. Hate that. I fortunately don’t get sick and credit my vitamins and active vegan lifestyle for that.
Ugh! Sorry to hear about all the sickness. I am totally impressed, though, with your NaNo progress. That is amazing! 🙂
That does suck. You did pretty good with words though. To avoid getting sick? Live in a bubble? It was very nice of you to share with your family. 😉
I got a super bad flu leading into November which combined with my chronic fatigue. So my Nano plans ended up pretty much dead on the operating table at under 1,000 words. But I still have a new story (Koral, mermaid retelling) and plan to stay positive. Sorry, you got sick Loni but I’m glad you got so many words down on Nano. You go, girl!
Sorry to hear about the prolonged illness. My family has been lucky so far, but our turn will come.
Great work on the NaNo writing. You don’t have to hit all 50k to be a winner in my mind. Combining characters feels great, doesn’t? It simplifies the story and usually makes the pacing faster.
Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear about you being sick and having to use vacation time. Ugh! I don’t have any suggestions on how to avoid being sick. The only thing I do come winter time is take Vitamin C. Big whoop right?
Elsie
That sucks. >_< No suggestions on how to avoid getting sick, as I tend to just suffer through it whenever it happens. Gah. But 30K in a month is still good progress, and it sounds like it's for the best that you've been able to condense and simplify some of your character stuff. Hope it goes well.
Thanks so much for the mention! 🙂
I’ve been ‘out’, too. It’s been fun. I’m sorry you got hit (then hit again) but happy to hear you’re on the mend. Hope everyone gets and stays healthy. It seems you got a major amount of writing (and rearranging and so forth) done. So, yay you!