Oh god....

October hits in two days.... November isn't very far beyond that.

Okay, October is going to be a getting-crap-done month, if I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. Principally, my grad school applications need to go out, before taking up this challenge again. That should be quite managable, given that I've got a decent start on them.

The rest of October will be set aside for preparation, then. Last year, I went from here's-a-silly-idea to ready-to-go in under two weeks, but this year, I don't have the advantage of starting from scratch. Last November, I wrote 50,000 words and added another 5,200 in December, before completely burning out. Fifty-thousand was the word count goal for November, but as it turns out the first draft of Consent of the Governed will be larger than 55,200 words. In fact, I think it stands to be a lot larger. Large enough, in fact, that if I commit to another 50,000 words this November, I doubt that I'll run out of plot. This October, then, I need to reacquaint myself with the characters, events, and my outline, before I pick up the reigns again.

Challenges abound in November too. Last year, I had every advantage. At work, there was little to be done and an express prohibition in place on leaving early, so I had six to eight hours a night to write. This year, my employers are running their business a little more like a business, slashing my at-work writing time to a few short breaks each night. The time constraint is by no means insurmountable, but burnout seems like more of a danger on a write-work-write-sleep schedule. Moreover, last November had four full weekends, plus an extra Sunday, providing an extra day of uninterrupted writing time. That extra Sunday is gone this year, and compounding that, this year is mine to work Thanksgiving weekend, so there go another two days that had been writing days.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. I do have November first and second approved as vacation days, so I can tap some of that early enthusiasm and hopefully build a bit of a word surplus to keep me afloat, when I'm dragging near the end of the month. Moreover, I've got some experience under my belt. I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, and I hit the word count goal; it's fully within my ability to do it again.

Let's do this.