Just returned from a week's vacation. Spent several peaceful days in Arnold, in the mountains above Angel's Camp, California. Spent an evening and two exciting days in Las Vegas. Doug's parents were with us, their first exposure to megacasinos. We had a great time showing them around.
Spent more time than in either place on the road. There was ten hours driving from here to Angel's Camp and ten hours from there to Las Vegas, more or less.
Made some experiments with writing while someone else drove the car. It's workable when my health is otherwise good. Too little sleep, or poor quality food, and writing in a moving car threatens me with motion sickness.
And Las Vegas is very distracting. So I find myself several days behind on my Nanowrimo goals. For the first time, I need to better the 1750 words per day I set as my original goal in order to finish on time. I feel able to do it.
And that, in itself, is a huge benefit to this project.
Something else worth noting -- the two days I didn't write in Las Vegas, I developed story arcs for my characters Mary and Richard. They now have problems and resolutions within the overall problem of loss of human fertility. Even if none of the other characters develop arcs, this may be enough to give the book a novel like shape. And it means I now know what follows the scenes I had so far. At one point, I had written all the scenes I had ideas for, and had to push to the edge of my hazy preplanning. It's nice to have more vision ahead again, and this may be enough to carry me to 50,000 words.
I don't want to draw the conclusion that days of not-writing are good for story generation. I think that would be simplistic. I think I will instead draw the conclusions that:
A. Days of intensive writing prime my Muse
B. I can have faith that I will continue to come up with story.
I wish you all creativity.
