That’s it, November is over. Lots of stuff happened to me this month, but finishing my novel for NaNoWriMo didn’t make the list. I’m less than half-way to achieving my writing goal for the month, and it would take an absolute miracle for me to finish by midnight tonight. Unless any time travelers are reading this an want to lend me a hand, I have to accept defeat.
But, you know what? I knew this month was going to be a challenge, and I decided to go through with NaNoWriMo anyway. First and foremost, my wedding definitely cut into my writing time at the beginning of the month. That alone led me to believe that I was going to have a harder time achieving my NaNoWriMo goals this year compared to last year. And because of that, or maybe because of something else entirely, I found it hard to feel motivated about my writing this month. I love the premise I came up with, and I know how I want the story to start and finish, but I kept changing my mind about the middle. It could be that the impending sense of potential failure was causing some writers block, or maybe I just needed to let the story marinate in my mind a little more before it was ready to end up on the page. Of course, now that the month is over, I have a much better idea of where I want my story to go. I’ve decided to give myself an extra month, and my plan is to finish the first draft before the new year.
On top of that, I had about two appointments per week with doctors and various healthcare professionals this month. Some of it was routine checkup stuff and appointments that were supposed to happen in the spring but had to be rescheduled because of the pandemic. The extra appointments and travel time not only cut into my schedule, but sapped my energy as well. I also had, and continue to have, weekly visits with a physio therapist and massage therapist to deal with some chronic issues. Unfortunately, as we worked to fix the parts of me that were already having problems, more problems were uncovered. Turns out my body doesn’t always want to move in the way its supposed to. This meant that I spent about two weeks dealing with on-and-off pain in my neck, shoulder, upper back, and right arm. Some days were good, and somedays were bad. And I found out that it’s really hard to do things like knit or type/sit at the computer on those really bad days. So, I did have a few days where I wrote nothing at all.
But, like I said, I’m not giving up. Although I may not be able to officially “win” NaNoWriMo this year, I’m still going to commit to finishing what I started. I now have all of December to write the second half of my sci-fi, cyberpunk novel about puppets. And, most importantly, I’m looking forward to it. So, without further ado, here’s a sneak peek at the Prelude of The Puppeteers:
The Puppet Classification System:
L1: Children’s toys and novelties. Items for play that cannot be classified as tools. Simple performing puppets. Puppets lacking technical sophistication.
L2: Simple machines designed to do work that is too dangerous for humans.
L3: Puppets that are humanoid in appearance recognizable as artificial beings or performing characters. It is obvious that they are not sentient beings.
L4: Military grade technology that is permitted advanced coding so long as an operator, or puppeteer, is still involved.
L5: Indistinguishable from humans. Although they are not sentient, they can pass for human in the hands of the right puppeteer. These are illegal.
