Of course, I'm not cheating the targeted word count by counting what I've already written, so I made a separate document containing only what I've written in November.
In case you don't know what NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's basically a challenge for anyone who's ever thought of writing a novel. From 12 AM November 1st until 11:59 PM on November 30th, you write as many words as you can. The challenge is 50,000 words, but you don't have to make it. Last year, I didn't. It's just a way to see how far you get.
For me, the fun part was updating my word count and watching the column chart grow. I don't know why, I just like graphs and charts. They make things look fun, and they're easier and faster to understand by a quick glance, too.
Last year, I tried writing a side story (not related to the G series) for NaNoWriMo, but I made the mistake of forcing myself to do what I didn't want to do. I kept feeling like writing G4:O. It was pure torture not writing it for an entire month. That's why I missed so many days.
But this time is different. I figured out how to write G4:O without cheating. I had a writing buddy who told me that she was using a story she already started, and her word count was ginormous.
Personally, I don't like cheating, lying, being fake, or anything like that. I got lied to when I was a kid by adults too many times, and kids hardly ever played fair games with me, so I've grown sensitive to it and conscious of myself. But it's not a bad thing. Most people have a bad habit of lying a lot, and they either have difficulty breaking it, or they give themselves the notion that it's totally okay to lie.
But anyway, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. It's not too late for you to join. You can even be my writing buddy. My username is SlugDiaper. http://nanowrimo.org/
Oh yeah, and on October 29th, I took a train for the first time. 65 miles from home to stay the weekend with some cousins. My cousin Sara got married on Halloween, so most people were in costumes of their choice. I wore a dress and a horse head mask, my cousin wore a wedding dress handmade with 100% pure silk by her grandma-in-law, and her husband was the 13th doctor from Doctor Who. It was fun. Later, at the after party, we played a Mario Kart game and a hilarious (though, rather inappropriate) card game of Superfight. Everybody else but me drank mixtures of hard liquor, mostly vodka and juice.
I'm not a fan of hard liquor. I've never been drunk, and never plan on it, either. I'm more of a red wine or ginger beer kind of simple gal. And I rarely drink, especially now that I'm on allergy medicine twice a day.
Other than that, nothing much new other than a little bit of health problems. A week before I went I on my train trip, I had a sinus infection. I got better just in time for the trip, but I had a little bit of allergies during and afterwards because both places were a bit dusty. And since I didn't have much sleep (3 1/2 hours of sleep on the first train trip), my body's resistance went down, so now I think I have a cold, passed over to me from my 2-year old cousin. It doesn't feel like a sinus infection, so I'm sure it's a cold. I've been feeling crummy for the past few days, and my nose has felt like it's been stuffed with a wet sock. Fortunately, today I'm starting to feel better, thanks to chicken noodle soup and a few drops of oregano oil in a high vitamin C juice mixture.
Usually when I have a cold, I feel too fatigued and miserable to write, but thankfully that's not the case this time.
You can keep track of my word count each day (or hour, especially in the evening and night when I usually write, as I like updating it frequently) via the NaNoWriMo website or on here.
*November 2nd: 166 words total
November 3rd: 1,330 words total
November 4th: 1,484 words total
November 5th: 3,714 words total
26,094 (very beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 189,680 + 3,714 (NaNoWriMo total) = 193,394 (absolute total)
Maybe to give me more time to write, I'll do these calculations in threes. Which means less blogging. I'd hate to do that, but it would make it more fun to see in threes. Unless you like seeing math problems all the time. Lol. If you want to see more updated, daily word count totals, you can see them here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/slugdiaper/novels/g4-o-title-abbreviated-i-can-t-reveal-it-on-nanowrimo-spoilers-this-is-the-4th-book-in-an-unpublished-series/stats
P.S. Here's a selfie of me wearing the mask at the wedding:
And the Doctor Who themed wedding cake:
And my cat this morning:
I was starting to make the bed and was about to pull back the brown blanket when I saw this! She was underneath it! I let her sleep. Minutes later, she was still asleep when my mom got home, despite the noise. Only when my mom went in the bedroom to reset my sister's clock for daylight savings time did she finally wake up. Here's a video I took. Oh, and my voice sounds weird and nasally because I have a cold, as you may remember: https://youtu.be/8xDzIOacc4I
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*Edit: At first, I couldn't find the place on the NaNoWriMo website where I wrote on November 2nd. I could have sworn I did write on that day, but for some reason the graph wasn't showing it. I later found it.
I can't remember the original reason why I delayed posting here, but it's mainly because I've been too tired and didn't feel like posting here. It just takes extra time to type here. But really, I don't *have* to say much of anything here. I just feel obligated to. It's a blog after all. Aren't blogs supposed to be fun to read?
...Wait. I remember why! I can't believe I forgot to mention it here. I've been running errands lately because my mom had some blood and mucous, along with lower abdominal cramping, went to the ER and found out she has cysts on her right ovaries and "likely polyps" in her colon. They highly suggested her to have a colonoscopy, so she's going to have one on November 29th. Due to her pain, she had to stay home with a heating pad while I ran errands. I don't have a drivers' license due to my own health issues, as you already know, so grocery shopping involved pushing a cart home (one of the times was with our own plastic shopping cart, but one of the double wheels broke off a long time ago. I was sore for a few days after I tried not lift that side up all the way home (to reduce the change of breaking the last wheel in that corner), while pushing it home.
So, yeah. And then it was worrying about my mom, because it's the fear that she has colon cancer. Her dad, my grandpa, died from colon cancer. Well, he had a heart attack and died, but he also had untreated colon cancer, so it could have been caused by the cancer. He didn't want to tell his family. He didn't want to treat it and leave his family with having to pay huge bills after his death. And my mom likely will want to follow his footsteps. She thinks that low of herself. She's said she'd rather live on the street than live in a retirement center, and she's not saving any money for retirement. It's a huge frustration on my part, because she's lived through some serious stuff, and I don't like seeing bad things happen to people. I'm sensitive to that thanks to watching her get physically abused and seeing other bad things happen. It's things kids should never, ever see.
Anyway, I don't want to talk anymore about it. It's too dark. It's too stressful. I don't want you to worry about it. This is why I've been loathe to go on here and blog to you guys.
It's where I open my mind and don't have to worry about my family and friends commenting on it on Facebook. But I'm not asking for anybody's help. Nobody can help me. People's comments of "I'm sorry hon" and words of encouragement are just words. I read it, and it doesn't improve my situation. They're words meant to hamper fear, but since they're not words that give solutions, I feel more fear because it means I'm alone. Since I was a kid, I learned the hard thing about life: Those who say "everything's okay" is not feeling okay. Those who say "I'm sorry" for your bad situation is distancing themselves from you and basically saying "don't ask me for advice, I'm not going to do anything because that's your life and this one's mine".
Adults couldn't be trusted to tell me the truth when I was a kid. But they didn't realize that I always saw something and heard something there: I saw the clues that something was wrong. And the fear of not knowing was the worst thing. The fear of the unknown is like being afraid of the dark when you hear scary noises, because there could be something there, but you can't see what it is.
I'm stopping here. I need to write, and I'm just in a depressed mood at the moment. Later I'll be in a better mood, read all this, and regret it. My cat has even sensed my heavy heart, as she's sitting on the table in between me and my laptop right now (black cat on the right):
She's a sweetheart.
Anyway, here's what I've been writing. I've made it a goal to write at least one word each day, just as long as I'm writing every day.
Month, Day: Total
November 6th: 5,477
November 7th: 6,461
November 8th: 7,417
November 9th: 7,434
November 10th: 7,474
November 11th: 7,475
November 12th: 7,504
November 13th: 11,695
November 14th: 13,311
November 15th: 13,669
November 16th: 13,741
November 17th: 14,044
November 18th: 14,048
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November 19th: 16,482
November 20th: 17,737
I've been getting myself confused here. I forgot to add a couple of scenes. Minor, but important. But yeah, I foresaw this. Getting confused. I knew I'd get to this point about a month or two ago. It's just because I've reached that point where I have to join two pieces of writing together, which were written over a year apart.
It's like holding two long tiny chains in each hand as though wanting to join them together. But! knowing you have some individual links that fell off the longest link a long time ago, due to being lazy and doing a sloppy job in the beginning, you look up and sigh as you put down the two links, not ready for a delicate challenge. Unfortunately, since you were impatient and didn't feel ready to do some hard work again, your sigh blew away a couple of links. You look down and suddenly realize with dread that you lost some and didn't know where they went because you weren't paying attention, so you look around until you find them. Once they're all together, you try to be more careful with your work and focus harder so you don't mess up again.
Remembering what is supposed to happen both is and isn't the problem. It isn't, because I basically already wrote the scenes and events that are to follow. It is, because when I get nervous or panic (or both), I have difficulty thinking and have trouble with my memory. (I was especially that way when I was being abused, but we won't focus on that.) And when I was getting out of writing the simple, incomplete sentence summary part, I was starting to make slightly more complete sentences in addition to skipping over some scenes, as well as vice versa. And the parts where I didn't quite make complete sentences, I now have to make them make more sense.
I'm not sure if you understood my metaphor about the chains and links, but that's what's happening with me and my writing. From now on, there probably won't be much of a word count.
To put it in a different way from the chains and links bit, I need to sew rags together to join two halves of blankets together. ...Uh, I don't know why I need rags to do that! Hahahaha! Maybe the blanket halves are crooked and I don't want to cut the excess fabric on them because it'd make the entire blanket smaller than it's supposed to be. There we go! Now it's making more sense! Though, you're probably reading this with a funny face right now. My family doesn't understand me either. That's why I write. Also why I've made a few characters talk this way. Because they're somehow able to explain themselves better to others than me. Or that others don't judge them and think they're weird.
If you still don't understand my meaning, I'm sorry. In real life, I'm a worse communicator than this. I'm bad at talking because I have difficulty thinking. I have difficulty thinking because my brain is literally slow at processing thoughts. Even simple thoughts. I used to be much slower when I was a kid. I was called a retard by kids all the time. I was so stupid back then (4th - 6th grade), I didn't even know what retard meant! I just thought "retard" meant "stupid, hyper weirdo" or something. And the thing about my thoughts that makes me even slower is when I, most all the time, pressure myself to think as fast as I can. It works when I'm working and making sure I get things done and not forget things, but when I'm talking to coworkers, friends, and family? (Especially those I know.) I'm often overwhelmed by how quickly others think and talk, that I'm left out in the cold waiting for an opportunity to speak.
There aren't many pauses or gaps in people's conversations, let me tell you. And I'm not one to interrupt people. I don't like seeming rude and brusque. I want to be seen as polite and automatically deserving respect, just as anybody should be treated: Fairly.
From time to time, I do interrupt people, and it makes me feel bad, but it's usually when I feel that what I want to say is important and should be heard. Sometimes it's just a phase, when I'm tired of being interrupted and talked over and ignored all the time. No gaps in people's conversations when I really want to talk frustrates me. Sometimes, that frustration leads into impatience and turns me into a rhino with a long horn (interrupting tongue). Oh, did my horn push you to the side? Sorry. I can't help I exist. (I have to be heard, too, right? We all deserve a chance to speak. I'm not a robot.) Sometimes I've done that to more important people. I've wondered why I do that, and I think on a psychological standpoint, I guess it's because I'm afraid of being treated like I'm just a slave. Just their robot. Just a peasant who shouldn't be respected just because of their low status. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm afraid of being treated like poop. I was abused by adults (the important people, compared to me, a kid at the time), and they treated me like I was a useless animal. And seeing how my mom has been treated by previous bosses, employers, managers, higher-status coworkers, etc., I want to make sure that doesn't happen to me, too. Because I'm afraid of letting others go too far and get comfortable and then think they can get mad at me and try to beat me down when I least expect it.
My aunt, being a bipolar (P.S. I'm friends with two people with bipolar disorder, so I have nothing against those suffering from it) nurse who worked in an adult psych ward in various hospitals for several years, was strange in that she'd get angry for even the littlest things, especially when I let my guard down. If I wasn't silent or if I was having any sort of fun, she'd find ways to shut me up and make me shut down.
I don't want to think of any examples. I just want to move on and forget it all happened.
I have to take a quick shower and get to bed now. I could spend all night talking to you, but it's 3:18 AM, and I have work tomorrow. I did alright getting 8 hours of sleep this weekend, but tonight I'll have approximately 4. *sighs* I originally wanted to make this post short, but maybe you'll appreciate the information I spilled out on you. I was feeling too restless and uncomfortable to get ready yet, anyhow. But then, that's often been my excuse for getting very little sleep, and I need to fix it by forcing myself to get off the computer and do what I need to do.
Stupid anxiety, taking over my life. I need to pick up my sword and start fighting it for once.
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November 21st: 17,743
It's not midnight yet, but I'm heading to bed early. Last night, after showering, it took me hours to fall asleep. It's happened to me a few times before, but it was still agonizing. I was desperate almost to the point of crying to fall asleep, but my body just wasn't listening to me. My mom's alarm clock went off at 5:00 AM, so it was another hour or so until I finally fell asleep. My cat, Sweetie, wasn't faring well with it either. She's in heat (Yes, once I save enough money, I'll have her spayed), so it was bad for her, too. She waits for me to go to bed to go to bed because I'm her bed. (Say that ten times fast!) She sleeps on my legs, and she won't sleep long knowing I'm still awake. Poor little girl. I can always tell when she is super tired. She doesn't get bags under her eyes, but her eyes get slightly droopy and the outlines of her eyelids get tight, especially her lower eyelids. Just a few minutes ago, she was having difficulty staying awake in my lap, and she looked like this (I took these pictures a few minutes ago):
I look as bad, but not as cute, so I'm not sharing you my ugly selfies. No. Really. I have an acne problem right now. I recently saw a dermatologist, so I've been trying out a cream to help bring down the acne. It's two different kinds of acne, so I need to use two different kinds of cream. For some reason, my local store pharmacy didn't have the other one until today.
My face will hopefully improve in two months. I'm tired of looking like the surface of Io. ...No, that moon looks worse (and gross). Maybe that should be labelled as zombie skin.
Whatever. I need to stop writing and get to bed before Sweetie releases a death rattle on me.
😖 <-- Oh! I didn't know I could make these on this blog! Cool! 😃
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November 23: 17,941
Yeah, I broke that daily writing streak. Sorry. I just couldn't write on November 22nd. I was going through a short bit of anxiety that day. No doubt it was mostly because I only had 2 hours of sleep, but I also couldn't get my thoughts together as to what to do next.
I was stuck with a hard decision: What to do first? Go back and write the missing scenes, or continue and carefully incorporate (partially write, partially keep what was already written, and partially rewrite whatever scenes don't work out [while being careful not to do that too much]) where I just left off?
Anyway, I'm getting a better and more sure idea of what to do first: I'll keep going until the two frayed ends are woven together, then I'll go back and write those missing scenes. Because I see it now: I became indecisive when I realized I missed those scenes. The guilt of leaving those friends behind (figuratively speaking) made me screech to a halt and spin out in all directions. I've started to reorient myself, so once I get back in the right direction again, I'll be heading on my way.
Unless November 23rd was going into progress? I can't remember much of yesterday. I had a little less sleep last night because I went to bed at [I think?] 2 AM, and got up for about 15 minutes this morning at 6 AM to watch the Thanksgiving parade (Yep, that's today. Happy Thanksgiving! Even though some of you don't live in the United States, I wish you a happy and safe day/weekend/rest-of-your-life. <-- I didn't want to keep it just to one day, then I didn't want it to be just a weekend. Hahaha!
I also have some difficulty remembering yesterday because I had a long, complex, realistic dream this morning before I woke up. I was having some kind of family reunion, and I was meeting distant cousins for the first time. Although I can not exactly remember much of the dream now, it had to do with me seeing a threat and giving warning to one of my cousins, saving his life several times. In return, when I was in danger, he rescued me. Even though he was such a distant cousin, there was something that I still didn't want to do, just because he was family: It was hard not to be attracted to him and fall in love with him. I kept thinking of his personality and personal qualities, and how he was... um... hot. I've never felt this way about a family member, so this was very strange to me. And I don't normally think this type of thing (guys, relationships, etc.), let alone use that word, believe me. I've barely been attracted to any guy.
Since I went through traumatic things when I was a kid (abusive men), I have had trust issues. It started with me being afraid of men for many years. Boys I wasn't afraid of at all. I can't say I acted normally around them, though. I used to freak them out by being hyper and weird all the time (It was fun giggling and snorting on purpose as I chased them around at recess and in between classrooms in Elementary school. Their reactions and faces were funny when they ran away from me, and that's why it took me so long for me to learn the meaning of "retard". I thought the word meant something like "hyper weirdo".). Anyway, after I grew out of my fear of men, I still didn't trust them. With good reason, too: I hear of men cheating on women all the time. Sure, it's often the other way around, but I used to watch a lot of Divorce Court (a TV show that had a divorce judge finding out why one or both in a couple wanted to divorce), and the majority was that men couldn't keep their thing in their pants and their eyes away from other women. Then, in high school and beyond, I've had so many friends who've broken up, and I shake my head at the thought and say, "No, I can't risk going through that. I have a sensitive heart, easy to hurt, and I've already been hurt by adults when I was a kid. I'm a one-time love. A swan mates for life: If its partner dies or goes away, that's it. It's done. The swan never finds another mate ever again. Therefore, I am a swan. But a scared swan. If I ever feel loved, if I ever learn the feeling of the opposite of alone, I would never be myself again. A part of me would be torn out of me. I want to be whole. I want to be preserved. I want to be left alone. I'd rather make myself feel happy and find satisfaction in life in what I do rather than depend on others. Like some needy puppy. I already had to watch my pathetic mom not be able to stand it anymore, seeking for a mate again like an animal in heat. I already had to watch my mom look lost and confused by herself. Like she lost something but can't remember what it was and where to look for it. She never was able to find it. She tried several times. She still has hope of finding it one day, but I have a strong gut feeling that she never will find it again. I'm relieved she isn't actively seeking, being too busy for a relationship, and being more careful than she was before. But yeah, I've never actively sought for a relationship, myself. I'm never planning on it, either. I'm staying in my comfort zone, and it only takes a look and a short sentence to make a man afraid of me and grow silent. I'm glad I'm ugly, too. You can't convince me from saying I'm not a hot chick, as I don't feel very bad about it. Sure, I wish my acne wasn't so bad and that my smile didn't look so much like I'm baring my teeth, but overall I'm happy with my looks. Many women are so uncomfortable with themselves these days, they compare themselves to others and strive for being thin, hiding their face with caked-on heavy makeup, and wearing clothes from the latest fashions. That's because they can't find satisfaction within themselves. Until they do, they will forever be in that vicious circle of changing their looks, constantly seeking to be perfect enough to be noticed by others and loved. No one likes to be invisible. No one does. I wish I could hug all of them and say they are beautiful and that I care about them, even though I've never met them, nor heard of them.
*wipes away tears* Pardon, I got side-tracked. ...But I suppose some of you need an explanation to my sign of emotion. Needless to say... I once felt invisible to the entire world. Nobody should ever have gone through constant isolation like I did in my bedroom at my aunt's house, but the one thing I had to do to comfort myself out of my depression and extend my sanity was to open my mind to the entire world.
Doing that was scary and overwhelming, like a sort of spiritual meditation, I suppose. I imagined myself surrounded by billions of people living their lives around me, oblivious to what I was going through. Although that gave me a deeper sense of loneliness and helplessness at first, my personal emotions quickly turned off and it was silent where I was, while the rest of the world, wherever there was a person, there were emotions, thoughts, and voices. And everywhere there were people, there were also situations. Some were okay and safe. Others were afraid and in various terrible situations: Witnessing terrifying things, car accidents, people or animals getting hurt. Them being so scared, they're all screaming, crying, or both. Then there were lonely people, angry people, sad people, even people in similar situations as me. It was then I realized I was not alone. I was never alone. Someone out there is still living in isolation and abuse, and I'm simply having my turn of peace. Whatever peace is. The world is an ever-moving, flowing, unpredictable ocean. Anything can happen anytime, anywhere, anyway, anyhow. There are all kinds of possibilities in everything that happens. And when things don't happen, other things are always happening.
When I became conscious of the screams and crying and other terrible things happening all around me, all around the world, I realized the world was a terrible place. You hear all the time of bad things happening in the news, and there are far more things that are not reported. If the news was on 24/7 with no commercial and just reported bad things happening, not even all the channels on TV would cover everything. The world has always been bad, but the more people there are, the more bad things happen. It's just due to hardship from the constant competition of daily life. City people in traffic are more compulsive and competitive than people on empty roads in small towns. And when people can't stand it anymore, they break and don't make good decisions. It's just the way it is. When I realized that, only then did I finally calm down. Because at first, I was overwhelmed and was so dismayed at seeing the world so corrupt, I thought it was close to the end of the world. Thing is, we don't know when the end is, and neither should we. Can you imagine how much worse the world would act if everybody knew when the world would end?
Once I was calm, I finally looked at the entire world as just an ever-moving, flowing, unpredictable ocean.
The world was the world. It was what it was. I was just one person. I can't change the world. The world would be the world the way it wanted, and there was no stopping it. Sure, you can talk to a lot of people, and you can slow them down, but they will still forget or think it's okay to do the wrong thing a little bit. They'll do the wrong things again and again until they give up doing the right thing and just do what they want. Thing is, they're used to memorizing information more than their meanings.
It starts in school. They memorize information in their minds for tests, but they don't memorize the importance in their hearts.
...Okay. That was a coincidence. Just now, my mom told me she was going to have a "tiny bit" of sweet potato. She can't eat it because she's going to have a colonoscopy on Tuesday. I told her what I wrote two paragraphs ago, and she argued that it was "just a tiny bit" and that she didn't think it would affect the procedure. Another reason why I don't believe I can change the world. I can't even change one person. Although my mom is a very stubborn person, other people can be stubborn in some way, too.
Anyway, after school, people live as adults and work at their jobs. Information changes all the time, some more than others, but there is always new information and new things to learn. Taxes, laws, money, paperwork, rules, etc. And when people are busy enough, running errands and otherwise living life at a fast pace enough to not have time to care for anything outside their own lives and what concerns them and those they know, eventually they lose their inner sight of the meaning of things. There may be moments where they will wonder what is the meaning of life.
My answer: The meaning of life is meaning, not information. People are so used to information, they expect the answer to the meaning of that kind of question is information, but they will not find it that way. The answer is meaning, and they will find it in themselves. What they feel, what they will understand inside their hearts when they see the world as a whole as I did.
The meaning of life can not be put into words, it can only be understood.
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November 24th: 18,272
It's 2:04 AM, Friday, November 25th. The book is now joined. O__o
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Last night (or rather, 2:04 this morning), I was going to finish spreading out the G4:O files (because the majority of the writing was in one file, and it takes a long time for a large file to load), but my laptop was having charging issues. It happens a lot. I'll be using the laptop while it's charging, and then the lights will start blinking on and off. Then a notification pops up saying I have only a certain percentage of power left, as though it wasn't charging, even though the charger is plugged in. Some odd months ago, I had that problem, only worse. It wasn't charging at all. I called customer service, and they said it was either the battery or the charger or both. I followed their steps and did a hard refresh, which killed the battery completely. I bought a new one, but ever since I bought it, I have still had trouble charging it, so it might be the charger. *sighs*
Anyway, I shut the lid last night and charged it, keeping it asleep because I decided to keep myself logged in more often, rather than log off every night. It doesn't make sense to do that anyway because nobody else uses my laptop, and I rarely take it places outside home.
So, that's why the 2:04 AM post left you hanging wondering what in the world I was talking about.
Now for the great news: I finished joining the documents together. The writing part (weaving together the frayed ends) and the dividing of the documents. Each document has approximately 100 pages, depending on where the end of a chapter is.
They are as follows:
Document 1:
97 pages, 53,275 words
Document 2:
99 pages, 62,715 words
Document 3:
102 pages, 59,561 words
Document 4:
54 pages, 32,586 words
Total page count: 352 pages
Total word count: 208,137 words
Since Document 4 isn't full at 100 pages, I'll be calculating the first 3 documents + Document 4 = total word count from now on. Oh, and what am I going to do with NaNoWriMo, you wonder? Well, I won't be authenticating my word count, but what I will do is just subtract 208,137 or an individual document word count from the total word count I'll be doing each day up until the very end of November (one minute before midnight).
However, on November 29th and 30th, I'll be busy taking care of my mom after her colonoscopy. I don't know what the doctors will find in her colon, so I don't know how busy I'll be (a.k.a. I don't know if I'll be writing at all during those days). I'm hoping it isn't anything bad like a large polyp or a tumor, where she'll need surgery or anything more than a colonoscopy. Since her dad had colon cancer, and she seems to have no muscle tone down there (she doesn't have to push to go "number 2". Everything just comes out on its own, often leading her to have an accident.), it's worrisome. So, please keep her in your hopes and prayers. Thank you.
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November 25th: Document 1: 53,796
NaNoWriMo word count: 20,013
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November 26th: Document 1: 53,883
NaNoWriMo word count: 21,335
Onto Document 2! ...Yeah, I got carried away reading and couldn't stop afterwards. I've taken note of all I need to fix and add in (the missing scenes) later on. I might even do that tomorrow. Not sure. Right now, I feel unpredictable. I might any day force myself to stop reading (and editing a little here and there while I read), and fix those spots, but for now it looks like I'm reading onward. Oh well! *shrugs*
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November 27th: Document 2: *Eh?
NaNoWriMo word count: 23,464
*Yeah, I got myself confused with the two word counts. I wrote this down on a piece of paper. I'll figure it out later:
Doc 2:
62,715
63,662
63,700
64,836
64,864
64,957 (last night's earlimorn of this day, which is not over yet, 11/29/16)
Several of these were in one day, so that's why I have to figure it out later.
The NaNoWriMo word count is already recorded, so I'll use those to help me figure out my math problem.
November 28th: Document 2: jkgw9e8r6397er3wo689fije64g (gibberish for now)
NaNoWriMo word count: 23,475
At least I can trust NaNoWriMo with my word count. Hahaha. But it's a pity I can't use it year long. Once the end of the NaNoWriMo challenge comes, then I'm not able to add to my word count and see their wonderful graphs. 😞
I'm a visual kind of person. I like seeing projects from different perspectives when I'm working on them. It makes me feel like I'm actually doing something. And when I see not much has been written, I give myself a push and bump up the wordcount to see how far up it will go. Take a look for yourself!
Up, level, up, level, up, level, up, level. The graph looks like stairs. I guess that's how I write. It's cool to see it, and that's why I love NaNoWriMo. I've tried doing my word count on Plotly, but I can only have one graph. If I want to make more, I have to pay money. Nobody likes paying a bunch of bills, so I'm not paying to make more. What I could do is make one graph, download or make a screenshot of it, delete it and make a new one. But I won't pay for anything I don't professionally need for a job. A writer's life is like a hobby until you get published. I like thinking a writer is someone who just writes and isn't published, and an author is someone who writes and is published. It just doesn't feel right calling myself an author. I'm just a writer. I'm not ready to publish. I just write, so I'm a writer.
Anyway, if any of you happen to know of a good website you can make graphs on that doesn't cost anything, feel free to comment below. I'd love to try it out.
Oh, and about my mom's colonoscopy? She had an allergic reaction to the laxative, so she has to reschedule the operation. She drank two glasses of the laxative last night, but then an itchy rash appeared underneath her ear and an itchy bump underneath her armpit, an itchy bump on her head, and a small feeling of tightness in her throat. Since the pharmacy label said to call the doctor if those signs of allergic reaction appear, she stopped drinking it and called the doctor. She cancelled the appointment, and she plans on doing a home colonoscopy test the clinic can send her in the mail instead. And if the test says she has something in her colon, she wants to have a colonoscopy in the summer. I don't like the prospect of her waiting that long, but I'll try to convince her to do it earlier than that.
I can understand why she wants to wait, though. Our weather gets nasty in the winter. Always rainy, cold (It's mild here compared to other places, but it feels cold to us when it hits the lower 50s.), and constantly cloudy.
She's feeling better now, but she didn't have much sleep all last night. She finally stopped having accidents at 6 AM. I slept through all of it, having been used her getting ready to work at 5 AM.
I lost my train of thought at the moment. My mom and sister are talking (they have loud voices), and I often get distracted. Time to put on headphones and listen to music! (My writing music playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqOSidSfqbI&list=PLF07Q8clXG4QwU-dVaKRxG_ZeIP1PKryn)
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Okay, I figured it out, now. Seems I got the numbers wrong when I was calculating the two word counts, just as I thought.
Corrections:
November 27th: Document 2: 63,700
NaNoWriMo word count: 24,449
November 28th: Document 2: 64,864
NaNoWriMo word count: 25,613
November 29th: Document 2: 65,415
NaNoWriMo word count: 26,164
Although November 29th is not over yet, I'm putting it here anyway because I just got done with Document 2. Onto Document 3! 😃
1.
2.
I'm better at figuring out math problems on paper and calculator. And those weird zig-zag marks are my way of adding or subtracting numbers together without taking up space on paper and "showing my work". I just wanted to make lists right where I want them and yet make something that will remind me how I came up with those numbers, so I made this method in high school. It wasn't what my teachers wanted me to do, but it worked for me. I'm not good at math, yet I come up with my own system. Whatever works, right?
So, what you see here in 2. is me subracting 62,715 with everything below it, because that's the word count that Document 2 was originally. The bigger numbers below it were the times/days I was writing and editing/writing more to it. After subracting, each resulting number was then added to 23,464, which was the word count before I started working on Document 1. Now that I've finished Document 2, the same method can be done while I'm writing Document 3. ...At least, until the end of tomorrow. NaNoWriMo officially ends at 11:59 PM on November 30th, so after that's over, I don't have to worry about calculating two word counts. NaNoWriMo is just a challenge to see how much I can write in a month. So far, I've only missed two days of writing (If I don't write a single word tomorrow, that will make 3 days, but I'll try to keep that from happening by writing a little past midnight tonight.).
Oh, and I must not forget the corrected NaNoWriMo graph:
...Here's the total word count of Document 3 on November 29th:
November 29th: Document 3: 59,610
NaNoWriMo word count: 26,213
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November 30th: Document 3: 60,309
NaNoWriMo word count (final): 26,912
Woohoo! I did it! ...I mean, I didn't make it to 50,000 words, but I made it past halfway, which was my personal goal. I didn't want to share it with you in case I humiliated myself by writing well-below 25,000 words. After I hit 25,000, I forgot to mention it to you because time was running out, I forgot, and I wanted to see how far I'd get in the end. But I wasn't seriously planning on sharing it with you, knowing I'd still be happy anyway.
