As I predicted, I did not get much done yesterday. I don’t regret it, though. I really enjoyed my day and feel rested and charged for a full day of writing and then running my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. A full day of storytelling! My favorite!
I realized this weekend that I have a tendency to make a lot of time commitments. I like to fill my time with projects and things to do so that I’ve got very little time to sit around and wonder what to do with myself. I’ll admit it is definitely conscious on some level since my depression and anxiety tend to take any time that I’m not occupied and fill it with fretting and too much thinking. If I don’t have the time to sit and stew in my maudlin musings, I can avoid ruining an entire day with, as John Green quoted in a recent video, “melancholy, minus its charm.”
I often feel like I’m spreading myself thin as a result of this desire to fill my time, and that often results in me spending my time doing nothing. I hope that, since I’m more aware of it now, I can find a way to better balance my proactive time and my rest time so I can eliminate those periods of time lost to depression. There’s no time like the present. Maybe I’ll make it through an entire month without looking at my entire library of video games and sadly thinking that nothing sounds fun and I should just go to bed at 5pm.
Daily Prompt
Today, consider a situation where your character can show off their growth to someone who knew them before they became a protagonist. Show them overcoming a challenge that someone close to them thinks should have stopped them, and specifically focus on how their relationship with this person changes as a result of this person’s reaction to your character’s growth.
Sharing Inspiration
My inspiration is, you guessed it, this John Green video. I had the opportunity to see John and Hank Green touring for John Green’s new book, “Turtles All The Way Down” and had this amazing moment where I heard John Green walk up on stage and talk about problems I’ve struggled with for years. He came out later and told us a story about a friend of his who passed away earlier this year and a song she reclaimed for him. I’d suggest watching the video if you have not already, because I can’t improve on the way he tells the story so I’m not even going to try. It was this amazing moment for me that came at a time I’d been struggling with my own depression and invasive thoughts. He immediately followed it up with a song with his own twist. Hank played Sweet Caroline and, at the bits everyone loves to shout, everyone was supposed to be silent instead of shouting back. As he said, you never really know that everyone is participating when people are shouting but you know that everyone is participating when you’re being silent. It was this amazing moment of connectivity. It was an amazing night and it was the reason I decided to do NaNoWriMo and post every day. Because I’m here and we’re all here and sometimes it is nice to just reflect on that and embrace it as much as you can.
Helpful Tips
Today is day five. If you’re sticking to the NaNoWriMo recommended daily word count, you should be working on words 6,665 through 8,330. If you’re ahead, good job! If you’re behind, don’t sweat it! You’ve got 25 more days to go! If you’re struggling, try a change of scenery! Go out to a coffee shop! Find a nice, cozy library to hole up inside! Move from your writing nook down to a public area around your family/friends! As urgent as this feels, remember that life should not support art, art should support life. Don’t hide away from everything around you as you write, losing touch with the world is only going to negatively impact your writing.