Ten Days Down, Twenty Days to Go

Or, well, almost ten days down. The date throws me off because I don't sleep during nighttime hours anymore, apparently.

I haven't written anything in a few days, as far as NaNo goes. I have two pep talks sitting in my inbox waiting to be read, but I haven't because I think they'll make me feel bad for not having written anything. Not that letting them sit there is any better. Finals time is on me full force now, so I have an endless onslaught of work to do between now and the twentieth. Somehow though, finals time is always when I find the time to do the most useless things -- it's how I cope, maybe. Yesterday, I finished penciling all the pages for my ten-page minicomic, which is my Sequential Art final. That was a little ahead of schedule as far as my day-to-day plans go, but instead of taking advantage of that fact to get a head, I watched Perfect Blue instead, and today, I watched some more of Spice and Wolf. I've got a 6-8 page paper due Wednesday I'm going to try and start now, but...

Still no ideas for where NaNo is going, if anywhere. My roommate has given up, and I feel like it's partially my fault because the idea was to motivate each other to begin with. Of course, there's still time to "catch up later," but by the time I get out of classes, there'll be ten days left -- and there'd still be traveling to do.

I think the idea of giving up completely is only hard this year because I really wanted to have three wins in a row (though of course, after any number of wins, it becomes harder to stop; whether I'd won once before or ten times before, the first year things stop going well will suck). The years before my first win in 2006 were all pretty lackluster like this. I think the worst part is just the idea that maybe I won't have the motivation to try as hard as I did in 2006 and 2007 if I left 2008 die.

Still Nothing

I haven't written anything today. I don't really feel like caring at the moment, but every day I don't write anything and don't know what I'm writing means more to do later if I ever get back to bothering.

I was productive today though, and I'm surprised I'm still awake considering I got about five hours of sleep yesterday morning (7am - noon) and couldn't nap because I had class all afternoon (back-to-back classes, 2pm - 7:30pm). I drew another one-shot sketchbook comic that I'll scan tomorrow and did some other little things.

No writing though. I have 10 comic pages to pencil this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'm even going to try to write.

Hmmm.

Gonna sleep now, I think. I'm on New Zealand time tonight!

I'll Catch Up Later

Dangerous words those are, the intention to catch up later. I think I'll let NaBloPoMo go for this year... laptop dying sabotaged it though I suppose I could have tried harder to update on the down day instead of throwing a shit fit over it. As for NaNoWriMo... I haven't even written half a day's quota. Election night isn't a good night to write or really do anything for that matter. "I'll catch up later" has been in my head for a few days now... not a good sign, especially since finals are more or less already upon me. Art school finals last 2-3 weeks because they're all long-term projects. Sucks.

I refuse to not finish NaNoWriMo though.

I'll finish.

...I'll just catch up later.

National Be a Masochist Month

That's what November is going to be: National Be a Masochist Month. NaBeMasMo.

I've participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the last five years -- in five days, my sixth year will begin. I hit 50,000 words for the first time in 2006 and did it again in 2007. These have been grand victories for me, and yet neither of those novels are finished. I have a terrible time finding motivation beyond November 30th or even after I cross that 50k line (last year, I finished three days early and just couldn't write anymore). This year, I've decided that I'm going to write until I finish the story. It will be at least 50k words, but if it has to be 60k before I finish, then goddamn it all, I'm going to finish before December.

So I guess with that goal in mind this year, it might be (incredibly) stupid of me to even consider another NaNo-inspired event, especially one that also takes place in November. But NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is the first of the spin-off NaNos to have really captured my attention. It doesn't necessary have a specific month, but November is its month of prize-giving. They're silly things, trinkets and artworks donated by members, but I like useless things and who doesn't like free stuff? Besides, I love blogging and have always struggled with consistent updates on not-necessarily-personal subjects so it would be a great exercise.

I think that maybe I like writing too much. Especially if I'm supposed to be primarily a visual artist.

I keep several blogs. My artblog is hosted on Livejournal here: Bad Dog, No Biscuit. Being an artblog, it isn't exactly writing intensive -- most of it is mirrored links and thumbnails from my deviantART account, but I also most weekly sketch posts with commentary and offer way too in-depth reports of events I attend, including conventions and concerts, so a fair amount of writing goes into that. In the same journal, but under friend-based security measures, I also post semi-regularly about my life. I know I'm not the only person that thinks, "Man, I need to write about this," whenever something bad happens in my life. I can't decide if this is a good or bad thing.

I also keep an anime opinion blog on Blogger named Opinion Prone. I try to update it at least once a week, though honestly, I'd love to try for twice a week. It's just that those posts take much longer for me to write because there are more things for me to cite, for me to read before I write my post, etc. I also use Opinion Prone to post my reviews -- typically very long and thorough -- on series, movies, and music. It's a tiring venture, but I'm happy with it for the most part. I enjoy writing it, anyway.

I have another Blogger blog that doesn't really have a name, but is currently titled What Are You Talking About? This blog went on indefinite hiatus when I started Opinion Prone, but I've been toying with the idea of writing in it again though because I've been giving thought to various topics that don't really belong anywhere else. What a time to be getting ideas again, eh?

Lastly, I'm the primary blogger at the blog for my college's student-run writing club. Thankfully, I suppose, school lets out halfway through November (art school, quarter system), and theoretically won't be posting as much during the latter half of the month. I say theoretically because I like writing about grammar even though no one listens and may be inclined to make updates even during the holiday.

I plan to update Bad Dog and Opinion Prone as usual during the month of November, on top of doing both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo. Oh, did I mention yet that I also play at and administrate a substantial-sized, writing-based roleplaying community? Luckily, I have three fantastic colleagues to aid me in general administration, but I'm mostly alone in handling all the technical aspects of the game. And I play two characters who ideally require at least five posts each a week.

Like I said, I write too much.

In case you haven't guessed, this blog, NaBeMasMo, will be the blog I plan on updating daily during the month of November for NaBloPoMo. It will chronicle my life as I hack my way through the month trying to write a novel, trying to maintain the rest of my (writing) life, trying to make it through classes and finals with straight A's, and trying to do whatever else I may or may not decide to add to my plate between now and November first. I don't plan on "trying" to update this blog every day. I will update this blog every day. (I wonder if keeping a backlog of pre-written posts that will automatically update is cheating? It's a moot point anyway, the content of this blog calls for truthful, daily updates. No wriggling my way out of this one, I guess.)

Oh, masochism. It's the only explanation, isn't it?

See you in November.