By the time I finished writing yesterday, I was so exhausted I didn't get a chance to slap up a status report, so consider this a joint post for Days 6 & 7.

Day 6
Yesterday was relatively unproductive. My wordcount went from 13,813 to 14,714, slightly less than 1,000 words, which is, in my opinion, pretty weak considering I had an entire day to do nothing but write. Granted, I did write a 800 word zombie-romance short-story, We Put the Eat Back In Death, but I can't really justify counting those words towards my NaNo goal.

I blame my dwindling word counts on Days 5 and 6 on getting over the honeymoon. A lot of NaNo participants will know what I'm talking about: where you exhaust the initial high of starting a new story and have to start actively managing the various story arcs you've instigated.

Day 7
I started the day with a relatively blasé attitude about my NaNo project. I didn't want to work on it, I wasn't even sure it was worth reading, I didn't know where the characters were going, and I vented my frustation about it with this tweet:

Gabriel Gadfly: Guys, my #NaNo project is floundering. :( I dunno where the story's supposed to go next.

I got a number of responses. Anna Harte suggested I insert one of my weird ex-girlfriends into the story somehow. G. L. Drummond suggested a rabid dog might do my story good. Irk, one of few people that I've let read pieces of my NaNo work, suggested that my protagonist "seems used to misery. You should figure out what would really be awful - like starting to enjoy life."

But really, it was this tweet by Velvet Verbosity that got me going again:

velvetverbosity: @GabrielGadfly Did you read Neil Gaiman's pep talk? Sounds like this is a good time. #nano http://bit.ly/jvSNO

Neil Gaiman's long been a favorite writer of mine and while another friend had mentioned his pep talk to me a day or two ago, I hadn't had a chance to take a look at it. If you're hitting the slow-down point of your NaNo project, I highly suggest you take a look. It made me realize that if Neil Fucking Gaiman feels the same way I did this morning every time he writes a novel, then I'm probably okay.

Ahem. This Writerly Public Service Announcement brought to you by the Gabriel-Needs-To-Stop-Being-Dramatic Society. After Velvet passed that link on to me, I sat down and spent the bulk of the day writing and came out of it with a new word count of 17,563 words -- a good day's work, if I don't say so myself.

I'm still behind Sharon T. Rose by a little over 1,000 words, but I'm not too worried -- the month is still young.