Bored

Bored out of my skull today. I don't know why. I've been idly pressing "refresh" on the NaNo forums and Facebook since around 10am. 11 hours ago. I'm feeling weirdly social, but there's no one to talk to. Called Melanie and talked her ear off. She seemed distracted -- maybe upset? But she didn't offer any details, so I guess she didn't want to talk about it. So instead, I blathered for over an hour about ME ME ME. Dreadful habit. A dreadful habit that I'm indulging right now. Someday I'll learn.

Someday I'll also learn to stop making promises I can't keep. So scratch that: No, I'll probably never learn how to share conversations properly. Sorry. You're reading the blog of a selfish, competitive-talker. But I do generally try to be good.

I cleaned the upstairs bathroom today. It's spotless and beautiful and all sorts of other happy words. I removed a whopping total of 17 books from my 9x3 ft bathroom. That's a book every ~2 sqft, or a single stack that comes up to about waist height on me. Bathtub reading is (obviously) a hobby of mine.

I'm all excited about Camp NaNoWriMo. In honor of the silly spirit of NaNo, I'm going to be doing something that is both extreme and ridiculous. For at least the first weekend of NaNo (and probably longer), I'm going to be living in my bathroom.

Yes. You read that properly.

I'm going to try to simulate the camp experience by cramming myself and both puppies into the bathroom during the writing hours. This serves several purposes.

1) My computer cannot connect to the WiFi at home. If I'm at the desk/vanity/whatever by the bathroom sink, I will not have the internet to distract me.
2) No one barges in and pesters you when the bathroom door is closed.
3) I hate to be called "silly" or any variation on that word, but I do enjoy ridiculous endeavors just to lighten up sometimes. I've been in super-serious mode basically since I moved in -- no sense of humor, no sense of adventure. ("And living in a bathroom will change that?" you ask. Hush now. Don't ask questions. You'll break the magic).
4) I like to have a distinctive "this is writing" place, separate from my "this is internet time" places.
5) If I'm not living in my bedroom, I could feasibly get it completely cleaned before the dogs had a chance to make it filthy again. Keeping it clean isn't hard. Getting it clean in the first place is a minor miracle.
6) My parents will be out of town for most of that time = no judgment.

So I'm going to turn my bathroom into a small office, silly as that sounds. If it brings in words, I don't care what I have to do -- I'll do it.

I've been meaning to read The Artist's Way for a while, and I haven't. Can't now -- no money. But I've decided to start doing Morning Pages each morning and Artist Dates once a week. My problem with Artist Dates is that they're supposed to be done alone.

I'm bad at "alone."

I ought to be good at it, really. I've been alone in North Carolina (barring my parents) since last August. But the idea of going somewhere public on my own makes me inexplicably nervous. Can my Artist Dates be "pizza-booze-telly" style, except substituting "popcorn-water-Netflix?" But I guess that's not the point. And I do need to work on confidence in public places.... maybe this will be my excuse?

I sound so decisive, don't I?

Morning pages, though, I think I can do. It's funny. "Write 750 words each morning as soon as you wake up" sounds ridiculously easy. "Then write another 750 words immediately before going to bed" is equally trifling. If both of those were novel writing, I'd be almost at NaNo quota. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to keep up with that. 1,667 sounds so big until you remember it's roughly 30-45 minutes of writing out of a whole 24 hours.

I cleaned the bathroom today. I know I already said that, but it bears repeating. Also, I changed a lightbulb. I'm basically a domestic goddess of broom-wielding prowess.

Still sitting at 30 phases of 300. If I can just get to 75 before I start writing, I'll be okay. (And future-me rereading this post, that's 75 chronological phases, not 75 cumulative. The point is to get past the Act-2 slump, you ninny. Back to your keyboard!)

Two more days to get this beast outlined.