Two weeks, give or take a few days. That’s all we have until National Novel Writing Month is upon us. Two weeks to get my notes all in order. And truthfully, my notes are currently ‘kingdom 1’  ‘ruled by king – who has three children’. It’s not a lot to go on yet. I think the biggest help my friend gave me was to not dwell too hard on names of things, places and people just yet. To work out the world, the laws, the governing bodies first. Work out the landscape some, which thanks to a map maker I have a map! so I at least know the layout of the world, the potential resources for each kingdom.

But, you know. Go me for choosing to create an entirely new fantasy world three weeks before NaNo to start with. Ambition, thy name is Meri and she holds a mighty pen. Don’t think about the fact that I have way too much on my plate going on.

What, might you ask, do I have on my plate?

• Well, for starters there’s work that runs from 8am – 6pm during the week. Now, I work a 9-5 job, but I get into work at 8, and I’m usually working by 8:30. And I don’t usually get dragged away from work until about 5/5:30pm, which puts me at home between 6/7 pending if there’s any last minute shopping that needs to be done before I get home. This takes up a good chunk of my time in general.
• I have a Non-Profit Newsletter to finish revising, and a couple articles for it that I need to poke some people into giving me, because it’s technically due out the 15th (that’s two days folks).
• I have a house that is in desperate need for some cleaning, and lets face it we write better in a clean environment too.
• I took it upon myself to take a business class this semester in the hopes of maybe learning a little about business and the art of learning, though while I am learning nothing so far can help me because it’s mostly focused on globally done business not small business.
• My health has been up and down with my iron deficiancy and my back being a cronic source of pain. Both have been slowly clearing up as I try to balance though. I take too little iron in a week and I’m exhasuted from the moment I get out of bed, but I take too much and it screws with my heart and causes chest pains. And my back, well, I invested in one of those back massagers that you put on a chair, lean back and just fall asleep while it works the stress and knots away with rollers and heat. And I have to say, that has made a world of difference in how I’m sleeping and waking up all on its own. May not be cheap, but it’s doing a damn fine job.

It’s a lot, to be sure. And I’m trying to work through it some and carve out plotting time. Because that plotting time will slowly turn to November’s writing time. And I want to make sure that I have a little of it throughout each and every day.

Not to mention, my mom and I are considering just bucking off for a week near the end of November, beginning of December to just get away from the world after Thanksgiving. Just take some time for ourselves and relax a little so we can de-stress before the new year starts.

But at the end of the day, yeah. I have six kingdoms to work out for my WIP. I have all six families, as well as how they rule their kingdom, I still haven’t settled on if it’s purely human or if there are other races, magic, ect. There’s still a LOT of planning I need to think about, work out, and get back into everything. Get that creative juice flowing. But I have faith in myself. I’ve come this far, and dedicated my time to it. And I am nothing if not stubborn enough to push through, if only because I said I would and could!

On the plus side, I’ve dedicated an entire notebook to planning out this world, from people to rules to kingdoms. And I have no doubt in my mind that it will be full, if not spilling into a second notebook come completion.

How is your NaNo prep going? Are you still in serious planning mode? Are you outlined and set and ready to go for everything come Nov. 1st already?