<Insert Cool Title Here>

I should have about 15k words by now if I was keeping pace. I'm about 11k short.

Some mornings, you just have to hate math.

Same routine: Got up at 530 or so, saw wife off to work, tossed dinner in the crock pot (beef stew!), and now I'm trying to wake up enough to write.

I'm going to try to start early again today, rather than be fully awake. It seemed to help a bit yesterday. If I can avoid running out of steam, I hope to put a nice dent in that deficit.

Word count: ______ <-- watch this space.

Well, I'm starting earlier today. I decided in favor of getting a good night's rest last night and an early start today, rather than going for a few more pages on my insane goal yesterday. Setting the goal did help, even if I didn't come close to it, as yesterday was my highest gain so far.

Today I'm going to set a time goal instead of a word count goal. That will simply be to stay in this chair and working on (or staring at, as the case may be) my manuscript for two 3 hour stretches, one in the morning, starting now until noon, then one three hour stretch from about one to four PM.

I'm feeling a bit less stiff today, so hopefully the seat time will be doable.

Word Count: 4229

(Well, apply butt to seat worked out OK, but I'm still not that used to writing during the day time.)

The usual wake up routine today, except I tossed tonight's dinner in the crock pot while I was at it.

Dull knives and slippery onions do NOT go together, kids. Just a word of advice.

Still sore, so didn't hit the gym. Will probably just hit the treadmill tonight after dinner for a walk.

Today's goal: Fifteen draft pages. I type in Verdana 10 point, one inch margins in my drafts because the sans serif is easier to read on the screen. I get about 775 words per page on my draft.

So, the tortoise enters a sprint. It will be a long night, I think.

Word Count: 3163

(Well, I didn't quite make my goal, but I hit my first chapter ending and started on the second.)

I am actually writing this post on Day 7.  I barely touched the computer yesterday. Sitting up and typing is painful. I think I'll leave the heavy things alone for a while. I may have to inflict some physical discomfort on my poor protagonist just to get it out of my system.

Today's pep letter was filled with split infinitives. I found that encouraging. =)

Workout today was walking. Not much, though.

Word count: 1765

Day 4, I rested. And by rested, I mean I did lots of housework and watched a bad movie with my wife.

I'm starting the week a bit behind on word count. An extra thousand words a day during the weekdays will catch me up to the NaNoWriMo goal, so all hope is not yet lost.

I haven't yet established a firm routine as far as timing goes, but I'm adding another element to the mix: Exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind, and all that. Not to mention I'm super slow to wake up, so that gives me something to fill the time while I'm half asleep.

So, here's my day so far, and probably pretty much the rest of the week:

Got up 530-ish, packed off wife to work by 6-ish, wandered around in a fog for an indeterminate time rubbing sleep from eyes. Had some breakfast because I woke up starving for some reason. I'd normally hold off on breakfast aside from some juice or water until after working out, but the stomach wasn't having any of that this morning.

I watched a little news, then popped in 300 and watched it. Then I did my Brain Age training on the DS.

The apartment gym (such as it is) opened at 8, and I headed over around 830. Did a fast workout with just some warm up walking on the treadmill (great for my sore knees, the flexing surface beats the heck out of pavement), a quick workout with light weights to hit all the major muscle groups, and a cool down on the treadmill. I'll do that workout Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with treadmill walks on the rest of the days. I figure the preconditioning phase for the weights should take me to the end of the month, so I won't have any really tiring workouts impacting my writing.

Afterward, shower, chores, lunch, and now a somewhat late start on my writing day, but at least I figured out how to get over the next hump in my story while on the treadmill, so the exercise is already working!

Word Count: 1667 

Since I'm behind coming out of the gate, I decided to work a little on the weekend. It didn't turn out to be much for Saturday, though perhaps tonight I'll be able to get a bit more out.

Word Count: 1570.

Still under the weather.

Word count: 1311

Most of my journal is friends only, as I mainly use it as a means to keep myself honest with my creative projects. I'm going to do my NaNoWriMo log as public posts so a few more friends without LJ can check it, as it's a daunting task, so perhaps with more folks watching me stumble along, I'll be more inclined to keep my nose to the grindstone. It's a bogus theory, but there you have it.

So, for anyone else out there who may be watching, welcome to the public part of my LJ. If any other NaNoWriMo writers are watching, feel free to drop in and say "Hi" -- misery loves company after all.

Word count will follow at the end of the day. The format I'm going to shoot for is to frame my working day within a context, followed by my end of day word count. My work day begins when I see my wife off to work in the morning and ends when she gets home. I'm usually a night owl, but I'm going to avoid working late hours other than jotting down notes if something occurs to me or doing some light research, in an effort to establish a schedule and hopefully develop a better work habit.

I woke up dark and early this morning, at around 5 am, and hit the snooze until 5:25 am. I packed the wife off to work, and went with her to the corner gas station to fill her up before she left, because she was out of gas and I was out of lunch food. I grabbed some junk from the quickie mart to fuel me (4.5 liters of water, a Lunchable, some Pringles and a little pack of Hostess chocolate donuts, in case the OCD crowd wants to know) for the day.

I watched a couple of episodes of Firefly while my brain woke up and my drugs started working on my stuffy head, red allergy eyes and headache. Said drugs have still not kicked in. I've gone through half my water already. For some reason I'm extremely dry mouthed today. Probably that evil cold/flu thing I mentioned. Weather outside was nice and clear, and not nearly as cold as it has been lately.

After Firefly, I did some brain training on the DS with Brain Age. It's a cool little program that has you do different activities to "activate your prefrontal cortex."  While I won't vouch for the science behind it, it's probably not a bad way to jump start a nocturnal brain on a cold morning. My only complaint with the program is that most of the activities involve quickly answering questions using the stylus for handwriting input and the handwriting recognition system isn't suited for rapid input in the least.

That done, I'm doped up and semi alert, and ready to write. I've thought enough about the novel to know where I'm going with the first chapter at least, so I'm optimistic.

WORD COUNT: 607

Hello World.

Welcome to the Live Journal of Brian L. Blalock.

Who am I?

Who are you?

Who cares?

Since this is the internet, I can be anybody I can snowball you into believing I am.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Unless you have hypertension, that is.