New Year's Resolution Boogaloo.

Ok, so I've never been one to make a resolution list. I guess it's because I've never really had the motivation for wanting to change things in my life. Which, I suppose, is a good thing. But this year, I want to make a professional resolution.

So here it goes: my New Year's Resolution (I wonder why that's capitalized) is that I will edit, rewrite, and polish my NaNo '09 project enough to begin submitting by the end of Spring (May-ish).

I figure the possibility of public failure is a pretty good motivator. Well, that, and the possibility of getting the thing published. :D

Word Count Sahara.

I haven't written anything lately, not even a to-do list. Which is probably why I have none of my Christmas decorations up. I'm going to cite creative decompression for my lack of updates. It's reasonable, handy, and most important, totally true. For the past couple weeks my head has felt like a sponge that had every drop of creative liquid wrung from it. Which is both good and bad. Good because the end product of a month-long mad dash to a manuscript. Bad because of the amount of physical strength the mental exertion takes out of you.

But that's part of the fun. This happened to me last year, too. And when I do NaNo next year, chances are it'll be another repeat of years past. I think, for me, anyways, that the decompression is a very necessary element. By the time November comes to a close, I'm so tired of the writing marathon that I know I run the risk of true and complete burn out, the type where I never want to see the story again. And that would be bad.

Today is the first day that I even looked at my manuscript. It was mostly to get some feedback on a big edit I want to do, but I still looked at it. I think that I've managed to catch up on all my sleep and my head is starting to fill back up. Which is handy because I have about another fifty thousand words until the thing is complete. :)

Big Sigh.

So NaNo is over for this year.

Thank God!

But there's a sadistic little part of me that was totally bummed once I officially finished (in the context of the rules). I don't think that there was a night where I managed to fall asleep before one a.m. I shudder to think how long it's going to take me to get back to normal. I drank way, WAY to much caffeine. The happy hour two-for-one drinks at the coffee shop seemed like a good idea at the time. The last 10K word dash to finishing was just as stressful as it was last year, even though I had a freakin' outline.

And yeah, I could ruin my sleeping habits and cultivate an ulcer for the other eleven months out of the year, but there is just something magically awesome knowing that there are thousands and thousands of other writers doing the exact same thing as you. I'm already looking forward to next year. :D