This week’s a special one. The munchkin is attending VBS for the first time, and while part of me feels like I probably should have volunteered as a program assistant, the week has an important purpose for me: teaching me what it’ll be like to be alone during the day.
I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for five and a half years now. Time to myself just doesn’t happen. But Eevee starts school in the fall, and I’ll have to know what to do with myself when that time comes.
No more morning snuggles. No more late breakfasts and impromptu park trips. And moving on from that is kinda hard.
But VBS is only half the day. From 9:30 to 12:30, so it’s a good opportunity to ease into things. And part of what I decided to ease into was hitting my writing a little harder, working with the intent to get my books written a little faster and polished a little sooner. I’ve Her Midnight Hunter languishing on the back burner since November, so it’s a perfect time to pick that up and try to make something happen. By the time this goes up, it’ll already be Day 2, so I won’t be doing a daily check-in. Instead, I’ll journal my thoughts about the process at the end of each day through the week, then compile them all into one post to go up on the 12th.
My goal is 2,000 words per day, which would knock out 10k of story and push me fairly close to the midway point in the first draft. From that point–hopefully–things should be downhill. I definitely won’t be able to keep up a 2k/day pace once VBS ends, but I’ll poke at things slowly, and hopefully this will give me the jump start I need. When I was a teenager, I could hammer out 2k words in an hour fairly easily. As I’ve gotten older and more skilled, it’s paradoxically gotten harder and harder to reach those kind of numbers.
To try to bolster my productivity, I am hoping I can spend most of the week out of the house, just me and my laptop and notebooks, away from terrible distractions like the internet. Weather permitting, I’d like to sit in the cloisters overlooking the gardens and write there. There’s a lovely sitting area with ceiling fans and comfortable patio furniture, and hopefully, that will be enough to combat the high temperatures that are supposed to happen later in the week. There’s also the added convenience of restrooms and water fountains nearby. I’d love to be able to hole up in a cafe and write with a frappuccino (or equivalent) close at hand, but I’m on tray 20 of my Invisalign plan and I’ve gone this long without breaking the “no food and water only” rule, so I’d rather not break that streak.
So, if you’re reading this, wish me luck–I’ll report back on my successes and failures on the 12th.