Another week. I am holding on to that line with all my might. I found the tail end of week 3 particularly difficult, but am pleased that I persevered. The greatest challenge I am facing from now till the end of November is the curve ball that life has thrown, with my non-permanent role at work being advertised as permanent as of Thursday, along with many non-permanent roles in the branch of the organisation for which I work. The deadline for applications is December 1, coinciding a little too neatly with the remainder of NaNoWriMo. Just when I thought my main challenge was boredom with my story, having established that time wasn’t a barrier to hitting the daily target.

Faced with the prospect of losing my job, I am still determined to stick it out with my writing and that priority has not shifted- rather, I have just identified a need to accommodate another priority and perhaps be more frugal with my time, e.g. typically, 30 minutes of my morning train commute is spent reading the news online- something I can ditch to focus on NaNoWriMo to free up some afternoon train journey time for applications (when my ♥brain is more amenable to editing my CV and responding to key selection criteria). Besides, there never really is any new news is there? I might actually have a less anxious start to the day by replacing the headlines of catastrophes with creative output and apostrophes (although come to think of it, the less apostrophes the better, in the name of word count).

I will be applying for 6 roles (including for the one I am currently employed in). I see it as a character defining period that will test my resolve, stamina and ability to perhaps take a life changing step away from procrastination, because I will need all the time I can get to submit applications that stand out (against internal and external applicants) while maintaining my writing goal.

Week 4 is set to be the most challenging of my NaNoWriMo journey. Wish me luck, and catch you in the next update where I look forward to having a chat!

 

♥An observation confirmed by a graph I came across during fatigue training at work, illustrating two peaks in alertness during the day, with the first being between 9am – 11am (outside of my morning commute time), followed by a dip that bottoms out at around 2pm (typical time where I reach for a snack to pick me up), and then an upward climb, with recovery of alertness from about 4pm to the second peak around 8pm – 10pm. My journey home is sometime during that upward climb, but unfortunately I have to get to bed during peak alertness to start all over again on time the next day. Don’t quote me on these times.