I haven’t gotten much sleep the last few nights…

They say your babies go through sleep cycles, where sometimes they’ll sleep through the entire night for weeks on end then one day will decide sleep is for peasants and worms and death to sleep in all its form and if you don’t hold me I swear to God I will scream so loudly all the neighborhood will hear it.

It happened that fast. Yesterday was a blur, as I kept both boys up through nap time to exhaust them at their normal sleeping hour of 8:30pm. They did, and fell asleep like peaceful bugs…

…but woke up late, again, today.

So I don’t know where my writing time is going. Maybe they won’t need naps anymore, which case, I don’t know when I’m writing. I meant to write this post earlier this week, but since I can’t nail down writing time (if the boys no longer need naps) then I write as I go. Wife is, lovingly, covering the boys today to give me a little break so, here we go!

I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.

By choice.

Even with the little time afforded me during the day to write that’s not freelance paid work, I feel like this is necessary. Since the start of 2021 I’ve tried to be more selective, more proactive, about my writing dream. Instead of declaring that I’m going to be a writer, I’ve been, you know, taking steps to really accomplish that. I rewrote and edited a book that I thought was finished from the ground up. Finished outlining another book and am taking it to completion in the next few days. Also, began freelance writing for another site (Uber Facts. Check it here.).

So I’ve been doing stuff.

Now I just want to do more. Writing is an art form, never forget that, because sometimes I do. This dream, this aspiration of mine, can sometimes become a little consuming. To the point where I forget that I like writing stories. I enjoy creating stories. I love building worlds and filling them with people in my mind.

So that’s what this is about. Recapturing that.

I recently had a similar situation with Pokemon. I was a try-hard in the online competitive community and, after a while, it made me really resent the game.

I took a break. Reevaluated why I loved that game to begin with, the role-playing aspect, and hopped back on. Suddenly, it was the game I remembered and I was having a blast again. As for the competitive side? Well…

The success comes with the love. Obviously, you need a schedule, a routine, a gathering of the skills necessary, but the love needs to be at the core of it all.

That’s what this NaNoWriMo book, codenamed Project: KING, is all about. Creating a story with characters I want to read in a world I want to play in. I’m not evaluating it for its mainstream appeal or whether it needs to be turned into a series or not. I’m going to explore and figure that out along the way.

But, “Time?” I hear you asking.

I’ve talked about The Book Plan I’ve been using before on here, stolen from Jane Friedman’s blog entitled, “The Puzzle-Piece Plotting Method” by Justin Attas. In a more detailed way, Justin breaks down the essentials you would need to be able to get the bare minimum of a story plotted. Since my time is limited, I’m using it this year for NaNoWriMo.

I have little time to prep books at this moment. My days of sitting in coffee shops in0between students is gone with the pandemic and my new stay-at-home dad status (actually, every book I’ve plotted out currently was done this way.)

With this, I took the key points, skimmed the important parts, and pasted it into a checklist on Microsoft OneNote. It looks like this:

Can I write notes in a notebook around the house while the boys are scarfing down breakfast or reading books by themselves or playing with their Mega Bloks? Absolutely. It’s not necessary, though, and that’s the key. Everything goes into OneNote., with each section having it’s own page I fill up with stuff. I know the official National Novel Writing Month organization puts out their own material to help writers get prepped (and it’s all good and you can check it out here) but this is what works for me. Not flashy. Simple. Streamlined. This is all I need to get the book off the ground.

Hopefully, by the end of October, this checklist will be complete and I’ll be ready to start November with everything.

Thanks for reading,

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