It is the midst of week two for NaNoWriMo. Tomorrow marks the halfway point. I’m slightly behind but not terribly so. I have 22,000 words. That’s nothing to complain about. Sure, it’s a hodgepodge of blogs, articles, scripts and novel-style storylines, but they’re my 22,000 words and I should be proud of it.

Except I’m not. I can’t be. Because it has gotten to that time again. That time when everything sucks.

If you’re creative, you know what I’m talking about. it’s that time, or multiple times in the creative process where suddenly all of your words are like soot in your mouth, where the scope of your project overwhelms you, where you start to wonder why oh why you even started this thing.

My project sucks right now. My main project anyway. The timelines I have written are uncreative and dull. The dialogue isn’t comedic enough. It’s not organized properly. The flow chart I attempted to make made me realize I would need 60 different endings. And there is still so much to do.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are some great nuggets of awesomeness in there. But I don’t really have the clarity of mind nor the correct hours of sleep to be able to see it properly.

Apparently this is a “thing” with Week 2. I was not aware of this.  I had hoped that this time around I was a unique butterfly in my thoughts, a lone voice in a sea of NaNo enthusiasm but once again I am foiled by pesky statistics.

I have stayed up until around 1am every night to work on various things while balancing a social life. My apartment is a shambles. My eyes can barely stay open at work. My wall is now covered in post-its in my vain attempts to make a coherent flow chart.

Errol is not worried. But Errol is never worried. He has not the fear that every other creative has. He simply says “You’re fine” and runs off to play instruments and be a geeky band.

And so I am left to forge on ahead because that’s really all there is left to do at this point. Because the only consolation in all of this that I have is that I can hand Errol my massive, unwieldy, crazy outline for a time travel game and say “DEAL WITH IT, SUCKER!”.

Here’s to Week 3 people. May it bring the clarity usually reserved for the likes of Don Draper.

The only picture for this post. It might as well be Don Draper.