Day Five, Or, Is It Too Early For Plot Ninjas?

And I thought Day Four was tough. NaNo Day Five pretty much kicked my patootie. I was still in fall-out mode from the RIF and couldn't seem to wrap my head around my story. It didn't help that it felt like I had to rip every single word out of me and yet, for all that agony, it all sounded so...trite. Bleh!

I know it'll get better. In fact, I've got this day planned out so that I devote more time at the keyboard for writing. Yeah, that was also part of the problem yesterday. I allowed myself to procrastinate far too long and ended up only having a couple of hours to write--and those weren't consecutive. So, I'm starting earlier today and have a better idea of what I want to accomplish. (Getting more sleep last night than I have all week probably helped, too).

Even so, I think I'm breaking out the Plot Ninjas today. Plot Ninjas are a tradition amongst the SoBaNaNos (South Bay Area NaNo members), the group with which I first participated in NaNoWriMo. It started as a joke: Having trouble with your plot? Throw in a Ninja (or a lot of Ninjas, depending on how much trouble you were having). It evolved into the NaNo MLs (Municipal Liaisons for you non-NaNo-ers) handing out these little gel Ninjas as inspiration at group write-ins.

I took the Plot Ninja idea and changed it to be: Having trouble with your story? Let your Plot Ninja destroy all barriers that prevent you from continuing! That is, I'm using it as a personal symbol of the fact that I'm not letting excuses prevent me from writing. Before we moved from the Bay Area, I bought myself a pack of my own Ninjas. I've been waiting for the right time to use them. I think that time is now.

Once again, even though Day Five was tough, I still wrote 510 words. I have to remember that every word adds to the total.

NaNo Day Five Words:  510
Total NaNo Words:  5656