Seems like this week’s blog posts have been all about getting me back in the writing seat. Like I said Wednesday, I joined Novel Track and challenged myself to write 2000 words per day that I have free to write, working toward the ultimate goal at the end of the month of 44,000.

I thought I did a great job calculating my goal. I thought I took everything into consideration, and landed on an obtainable number–just outside my comfort zone, but achievable.

Head Smack!

Learn from my mistakes, kiddos: always figure in the unexpected.

My internet service has been going out on a regular basis this week. Don’t ask me why–I don’t have a clue. But it messes with my ability to work. No, I don’t need the internet to write, but I do for quick research or for access to my Thesaurus and other writing aids. And I’m very weird about this–when I find out I can’t access what I need, I get upset, and when I get upset, I don’t function well. No matter how many times I tell myself to keep going and come back to the problem spot later, I still check every few minutes to see if I’m on line again. And if I’m not, I get that much more upset.

The “biggie” of unexpected obstacles, though, stems from the idea that I’d calculated Saturdays into my word count goal, thinking MSB would be working overtime as he’d said. I should’ve known better than to count on that. The company is notorious for changing our plans for us; why should this be any different? Whether he’s off every Saturday or not, I don’t know, but he’s off tomorrow, meaning I’ll start next week behind.

That’s not all bad though. I see so little of him these days, I’m looking forward to having a weekend with him. Fair trade.

Of course, where daily word count goals are concerned, I’m already at a disadvantage. I should’ve remembered this from my NaNo days: I don’t outline, at least not in advance. I don’t sit down to a challenge with a clear road map already drawn up, so part of my writing time is consumed with planning–with pen and paper and a big “What happens next?” in my head. With Southern Challenge, I do have my plot points in mind, various things that must happen to make the story work, but all that empty space between points must be filled with the stuff that leads to each point. Hence the pen and paper. It’s still part of the writing process, but it doesn’t get words on the page.

At first, I thought I’d get my word count in before working on my editing jobs, but by the time I sit and figure a quick outline of the next few scenes, then get the words down, I’m tuckered out. I switched yesterday and did one of my edits first, during the wee hours of the morning when I usually do my marketing and social networking. That worked, and may be my future plan. Today, however, I got up late and am writing this instead of doing my edits, marketing, or social networking. Somehow I’m going to have to fit all my responsibilities back into my schedule and get my 2K words down.

I think I should’ve cut myself some slack.

I’ve already turned my goal in to the challenge monitor, though, so I can’t back out now. Today begins day three of the challenge. Wednesday, Day #1, I managed to get down a pitiful 1744 words, short of my goal by 256.

But guess what? Yesterday, I hit 2502. Made up for the loss on Wednesday, with 246 words to spare.

There’s hope!