It’s Halloween. Around my house, this is also known as The Day Before NaNo. Tomorrow, I’ll grind out words. Today, I have to do all the things that come before grinding out the words.
My handy pre-NaNo checklist:
- Cut all finger- and toenails. Consider painting them, then realize I only have glitter nail polish, which is super-distracting while typing.
- Rewrite the outline that I just now realized is dumb.
- Prep the document.
- Tell my kids I’ll see them in a month.
- Sign off Facebook. Alas, not forever.
- Stare out the window for fifteen minutes so I remember what it looks like outside.
- Tie off all other pending projects, either by completing or just finishing the current chapter, so I can focus on the three I’ll be working on for NaNo.
- Wish I could take down the Halloween decorations today instead of taking up precious NaNo time to do that tomorrow.
- Make sure I have a clear path between my beanbag and all of the following (may or may not intersect): my bed, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Front door is optional.
- Remind my kids not to bother me unless the need is dire.
- Have a conversation about the meaning of “dire.”
- Feel smug that I’ve already voted. Mail-in balloting FTW.
- Catch up on TV shows so I can’t procrastinate by watching them during the first week.
- Finish the video game I’m in the middle of. Or at least get to a reasonable stopping point where I might have a chance to remember what to do when I load it up again in December.
- Refresh my memory about basic stuff from Spirit Knights 1-3 so I don’t do anything really stupid while writing #4.
- Stack on my desk a copy of every book I might write a sequel or related short story for. Add Plotto, my Writer Emergency Pack, and a small quantity of emergency snacks.
- Realize I can’t stack anything on my desk until I clean it, so do that first, then pick up the stack I already made and relocate it to my desk.
- Sneer in disgust at my Chicago Manual of Style, then stick it on a shelf where I can’t see it from my beanbag.
- Wash my beanbag. It needs that once a year, right?
- Prep one last make-ahead meal. Tip: cut your cheesecake into quarters and freeze each single-serving piece.
- Panic.
- Pretend to sleep.