I love my classes, but between a full course load and full time job, I don't have time to do jack anymore for fun. I haven't baked anything since the beginning of September, and my coworkers are complaining about that, believe me. I'm behind on my blog reading, which sucks since I love reading other peoples' blogs; and I haven't been commenting as much when I do read. I've read a few non-school books, but not nearly as much as I used to. I haven't taken my dogs for a walk in a while; I haven't worked on my cross-stitch (yeah, I have old lady hobbies); I haven't been to a movie in ages or really done anything. I'm behind on housework and laundry; I'm behind on ebaying things; I'm not 100% on top of my studying stuff either, but I'm hanging on.

But I'm also crazy, which is why I dared to take on NaNoWriMo despite all that. And that was probably a bad idea. I'm 11,000 words behind at this point, which is just ridiculous. I have written a bit every day, but it comes in so far down my list of priorities that it's only averaged out to about 500 words a day.

Part of it, part of why I'm behind in general, is that I'm not very linear when it comes to completing tasks. This blog entry has been open for half an hour, because I've wandered off to gather stuff to ebay, or to fill my humidifier, or whatever. If I could learn to keep myself in one place, I'm sure I'd get a lot more done, but it's not how my brain works I guess.

It used to work that way--I'd sit in one place for hours, reading or writing or whatever, almost never moving. Now it seems like every fifteen minutes or so I have to get up and do something else or even just wander into another room and come right back. I'm not sure what caused this--maybe it's a by-product of the multitasking necessary for waitressing? Maybe it's a result of habitually working multiple jobs, so I'm just used to my time being broken up into fragments of differing tasks?

It's probably also because my schedule is so varied--I go in to work at a different time every day, I get off work at a different time every day, my classes vary from day to day ... actually, I guess it's completely understandable that my attention is so fragmented.

For several years now, I've said every year that I'd do NaNoWriMo "next year". If you don't know what I'm talking about and don't want to visit the site, I'll explain: It's basically a challenge to myself to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I actually have written that length novel before, although it took me a hell of a long time--and it sucks. I started it on a notepad when I was thirteen, and a few years ago I wrote a horrible ending just so it'd be finished and I'd stop thinking about it.

Anyway, I'm finally doing it this year. Or at least, that's the plan. It's day three, so I ought to have 5000 words by now to be on schedule. But I forgot about it the first day; yesterday I didn't make time; and tonight I feel like I have too much to do to work on something that's not "mandatory". But I've got to make time; I want to do this.

So far I have 524 words, which is at least a start.