Seriously. Free. You go in, order a coffee, and then walk out the door with a coffee in hand, no cost to you. And from what I’ve heard, McDonald’s coffee is better than Tim Horton’s! Though, let’s be honest: that’s not hard to do.

I mention this because every writer needs free coffee. Multiple free coffees, in fact. Now all we need is free cake, and life will be complete.

How do I spend my other time when I’m sitting at the computer, but not necessarily typing away at the storyline?

1) Research. Although I did as much research as I could before the month started, there are times when I need to know something in order to continue writing, and I can’t just make a note to myself in the manuscript that says *fix later*. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can’t. In those cases, I research until I have the answer. In fact, just the other day, I spent 10 minutes falling. Yes, that’s right, falling. I was trying to seriously injure my MC, but I wanted to find out the correct order of limbs hitting the ground, and how much force it would take to do the damage I needed. Thankfully, I also had the husband around to ask for input, seeing ask how he’s a karate expert (so says me) and works on falls in his training. This meant I didn’t have to resort to actually injuring myself in the process. Probably a good thing.

2) Trying to make sense of my outline. I outlined the general gist of things during October, but there are still moments/minutes/hours where I’m not entirely sure where things are going. Yes, I could just push through and write nonsense until I figure out where everyone should be – believe me, I’ve done this many times – but other times I’m just so unmotivated because I’m stuck, that I need to sit here and seriously think about how to get character so-and-so from Point A to Point C, with a side detour at Point B.

3) Making coffee. Hey, it takes time. Not a lot of time, but when you add all the coffees up…

4) Doing other work. Unfortunately, I still have some regular work to do. We’ve got a brand new website going up this week (last I heard, anyway), and I’m going to need to keep writing content for it so it can stay fresh, and there are a number of ongoing projects that need to be worked on in the meantime.

5) …reading? Actually, this hasn’t happened yet. I’ve hardly read a thing this month, but I have a plan: in order to edit this NaNo manuscript properly, I’m going to hold myself to a task of reading X number of YA books each week – this is so that I can re-familiarize myself with the genre, and ensure that I’m keeping the correct tone and pacing for the novel. Yes, I’ve read piles of YA books before, and at least 25 this year alone. However, now that I’m writing one… I need to stay in touch with the genre. So while I’m not spending time doing this right now, I’m actually going to have to schedule it in like work. This could be good or bad, depending on whether I can stick to the reading schedule or not (or just get caught up in reading and never get around to doing any work again…!).

And that’s that.

So, if someone were to ask me again how much time I actually spend writing each day, I’d answer: I’m at my desk all day, 9am until 4 or 5pm. I wake up at 7:30 so I can have time to drink my coffee, eat breakfast, and get all my emails & NaNoWriMo forum browsing out of the way before it’s time to buckle down and start writing.

See? That makes more sense. In other news: my caffeine intake has doubled/close to tripled in the last several days. If you’ve been following the Fuel Count, you’ll see what I mean. o_O It has been/continues to be “one of those weeks”.

NaNo Fuel Count

Cups of Black Coffee: 18
Lattes (cafe or home-made): 4
Mugs of Hot Chocolate: 2
Cups of Tea: 5
Cans of Bawls (energy drink): 2
Baked Goods: 7
Bowls of Ice Cream: 1
Mini Chocolate Bars: 17

It was around 10pm when I started, and I knew it was probably a bad scene to start working that late without any extra caffeine in my system. I vowed to make a coffee after my first 30-minute word war, during which I typed something like 1206 words…! I was elated. I had no idea what I’d written, but it didn’t matter… I was going to make word count! In fact, I was so inspired that I decided not to make myself a coffee…

Bad idea. About halfway through my second 30-minute sprint, I fell asleep. I wasn’t a full faceplant, but one of those sleep-nods that are so dangerous when you’re driving someplace when you’re too tired to safely operate a motor vehicle – or, in my case, a keyboard. Stupidly, I continued to type… despite the fact that I sleep-nodded at least twice more before the 30 minutes was up. Miraculously, I still managed to type just over 1000 words – however, if asked right now, I honestly couldn’t tell you what the heck I typed into the story during that time. Ireland could have been invaded by a race of killer space monkeys, I really don’t know, and as I have a policy of not re-reading anything during November… I guess I won’t find out until December.

Moral of the story: Have a coffee anyway. Seriously. Just do it.

Write-In #1: Blue Dog Cafe

The first write-in went well, if you’re not counting things like actually working on our stories. Only 3 of us showed up, but that was alright – we introduced ourselves, talked about our stories, discussed the November writing life, and the other 2 went on at length about Anime North as I nodded politely… lol. I’m not into the anime scene, but I’m well-versed enough to get the general gist of things… at least I recognize names & various series!

Anyhow, I think we each only got a few hundred words written, but as it was our first time meeting each other and we were only there from about 2:30-4pm, I’d say it was a success. Plus, the coffee was great – definitely going back for that again. I figure the next time we get together, we’ll be more productive in the literary way… and maybe a few more NaNo’ers will join us.

NaNo Fuel Count

Cups of Black Coffee: 13
Lattes (cafe or home-made): 3
Mugs of Hot Chocolate: 2
Cups of Tea: 5
Cans of Bawls (energy drink): 2
Baked Goods: 7
Bowls of Ice Cream: 1
Mini Chocolate Bars: 12

So for now, I’ll admit that I’m behind (sitting at 4155 at the moment, should have ended the day yesterday at 5001 o_O), but I will catch up today. That’s a guarantee. Screw other work – I have NaNo’ing to do!

Current NaNo Fuel Count

Cups of Black Coffee: 5
Lattes (cafe or home-made): 0
Cups of Tea: 2
Cans of Bawls (energy drink): 1
Baked Goods (cupcakes, cake, pie, pastries, etc.): 3
Bowls of Ice Cream: 0
Mini Chocolate Bars: 4

In other news, I sent off my NaNoWriMo 2008 Care Package to my exchange buddy yesterday… I sent it in an Express Post bubble mailer that claimed it would get to her in one day, so I’m hoping that’s the truth (especially for the amount they charge you). I figured it would be best to get it to her sooner than later, so here’s hoping I get what I paid for. I also hope she likes it… I probably spent too much time going around looking for things, but hey, it was fun! The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of ghosty-type paraphernelia in the stores, and I went shopping the week before Halloween! Her story is a “bitchier, edgier Ghost Hunter” type thing (I can’t remember the quote exactly) with supernatural themes, and I wanted to find something like a cuddly ghost plushie or a creepy-looking notebook, but these items were nowhere to be found! Weird. I also wanted to send a map of the Toronto subway, since it comes into play in her tale as well, but apparently they don’t sell those in KW. Hahaha. Can’t imagine why.

Anyway, I think the care package exchange was a great idea, and thanks very much to the NaNo’er who put it all together! When the package for me arrives, I’ll post what was inside (and maybe what was in the one I sent, but I don’t want to put it up now in case my exchange buddy happens to find her way to this site before it arrives!).

Now, off to try and catch up with the word count…