I have too many good ideas vying for time before I go to bad. That’s especially true this month.

My usual after-supper routine involves finishing my daily log and readying the book for the next day; entering my food journal in the forum at Vic Magary’s site; wracking my brain to think of a blog topic; rejecting several topics; choosing a topic; starting to write the topic; rejecting the topic; playing a game to “free up my mind a bit”; deciding on a new blog topic; writing the blog topic.

Depending on the timing of supper and the time it takes me to finish that routine, I will also wash dishes if She Who Must Be Obeyed hasn’t snuck in and done them already.

What complicates this month is my goal to complete 50,000 words of a novel in National Novel Writing Month. I spent a good portion of today catching up, but I also spent part of my after supper routine finishing the last of the quota. That pushes everything else back, including sleep.

Now, I could plan ahead and do the blog post early but, well, yeah. Probably no. I could also write with more focus but, well, yeah, there are games to be played, too. (Oh, and kids to speak to and feed.)

I did manage to finish the first book of my NaNoWriMo novel and move on to the second, which puts me, by my official formula, at 12,025 words in seven days. That seems impressive, but it means I’m actually 925 words (or five handwritten pages) behind my personal quota.

Out with the old, in with the next.

Tomorrow my goal is to catch up to my personal quota by hammering out 15 handwritten pages. If I were smart, I’d keep going since next week will be a busy week at work but, well, yeah.

I am pleased to say that after 12,025 words the book is finally starting to find a plot. I’ll probably abandon it or forget it, but at least I have it for now. Also, as tends to happen with seat-of-the-pants writing, certain characters are starting to take over the book and that generates new ideas.

Eventually I’ll have to decide to follow the characters or kill them off. But first I have a routine to follow, for better and for worse.