How long can I get away with this?

We're just four! more! posts! until NaBloPoMo is over, and I'm not sure who should be more relieved, you or me.

I think it's probably me, but not by much. Posting on weekends and holidays means, for me, slapdash posting with little thought or concern for niceties like sentence structure and transitions. So, for the sloppy writing, I apologize. And, as God as my witness, come December, we'll be back to high-quality writing. Most of the time. When I remember.

The other part of NaBloPoMo that has me very! happy! that we're almost done is that I don't necessarily have anything to say everyday. My life, and I assure you, I like it this way, is pretty low-key and drama-free. Sure, we have our ups and downs, but mostly we chug along, doing our work, trying to be good parents and good neighbors, keeping the damn kids off the lawn.

And that kind of life, my friends, does not make for fascinating reading.

I spent a lot of time this month trying to write a novel, and documenting that effort here. I haven't written one single word on the novel in a week, and I'm not sure there's even a remote, snowball's chance that I'll get done this month. Writing 2,000 words a day, give or take, is not how I roll. I can write 500 words a day, when I feel like writing, and then revise something I've already written, netting about 750 words a day. That works better for me.

So. Taking stock.

NaNoWriMo: not a dismal failure, but barring cheating, I won't hit the goal.
NaBloPoMo: SUCCESS! I can't say I wrote a great post each day, but I never really thought that would happen. I posted every day.

And the combination of the two? Not as daunting as I would have thought, since they involve completely different disciplines, at least in my brain. Writing fiction is much harder than transcribing my interior monologue. Journaling and essaying (if that's not a word, so what?) are much more my cup of tea, my natural mode as a writer. Fiction, however, especially historical fiction, is an effort. Sometimes it came naturally and the words poured out of me almost faster than I could type, but there was a lot of staring at the computer and not knowing what to do next.

All that's to say that I'm definitely doing both again next year.