Hello, hello! Wow, October flew by way too fast. Here we are, first weekend of November, and you know exactly what that means: NaNoFreakingWrimo. And I am ashamed to say that I have already fallen behind. I was so pumped, so ready to start, but then Halloween happened, and copious amounts of chocolate and dance music kind of distracted me from my word count. I even challenged two friends of mine to a word war yesterday, and they destroyed me. I lost with a word count of a measly 353 words. That’s pitiful.

Today I sat my butt on a couch and busted out 977 words, and it felt good, but it’s still not enough. If one wants to win NaNo they must write a minimum of 1,667 words per day (unless they want to play catch up in the end…like I always do). More than anything, I feel that winning NaNoWriMo comes from dedication and perseverance. Last year I had to write 5,000+ words per day in order to win. And that was over Thanksgiving break when all I wanted to do was spend time with my family.  However, every night, without falter, I was at the kitchen table, ear buds in, ignoring the ones I love in order to reach my word count goal. I know that must sound terrible, but sometimes that’s what it takes, and my family knows how important NaNo is to me.

At this point, I’ve already fallen behind, but I refuse to fall any further behind. Not in the first week, at least. The second week is always the hardest, so I need to get myself on a roll before next Saturday comes around. And I solemnly swear that once this post is all squared away I am going to fetch my miso soup and write until I reach 1,667 words for today. Please wish me luck, because I am not sure how well this is going to go.

I’ll update you again next week, hopefully with a vlog as well!

See you on campus, CSU.

Natalie Juteau can be reached at blogs@collegian.com