A NANO CONFESSION

Hi everyone - and Happy Friday!

Today, I have a confession to make. A confession which will already be fairly obvious to anyone who's checked my NaNoWriMo profile and seen my current wordcount.

I fell off the Nano wagon. *Sob*

No, I'm not really that upset, to be honest. After the catalogue of woe I've endured the past week I feel lucky just to be alive. Getting stressed out over Nano would be a bit silly.

As you know, I did try to push on despite the Nanovirus (with the pounding head, achy joints and sore throat) that struck me on November the first. In fact I did so well that I was ahead of target and gave myself Saturday off. But on Sunday I started to feel really ill again, and not the kind of illness that you can write through. I draw the line at taking a notebook into the toilet with me. Ew.

Despite feeling like death warmed over until Tuesday evening, I was still prepared to press on with Nano, adding words to my daily target to try and catch up. I was determined to start bright and early on Wednesday morning, motivated by getting to announce my news about The Katana Trilogy (aka Big Secret Project).

Then, as I was about to get into bed on Tuesday night, I crouched down to pat my dog, caught my foot in his bed, slipped, and felt an explosion of burning pain - like a red hot wire being ripped out of my spine and dragged down my leg. I couldn't sleep all night because of the pain in my back, which kept throbbing no matter how I arranged myself. I was on the phone to the doctor first thing the next morning. Those close to me know this is a last resort; I really hate going to the doctors. But I couldn't sit up, and was in pain even when I was walking. I was scared I'd done something really serious.

Turned out I'd done something medium serious - a prolapsed disc, which is when one of the discs of soft, cushioning tissue between the bones of your vertebrae bulge out and press into the nerves of the spine in a not-good sort of way. Not permanent but definitely very painful until it subsides.

Trying to sit upright in a normal position is agony. I'm typing this lying flat with my knees propped up by a pillow so that I can lean my laptop against them, and that's the position I'm more or less stuck in for a while. The only breaks are to eat (standing up) and take my dog for his walks. The pain is starting to ease off a little, although I'm not sure how much of that is actual progress and how much is due to the strong anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxant and painkilling drugs my doctor prescribed (these drugs make me feel a tiny bit drunk aaaaall the time, so please excuse any mistakes in this post based on that and the fact that it's hard to type in a horizontal position).

Given all that, I was forced to accept that I'm going to have to give up on hitting any kind of meaningful Nano target this year. It's a little frustrating. I'm SO keen to work on the second book of the Katana Trilogy. Everytime I think about all the cool stuff I get to write I want to clap like a seal. But I can't risk making my back worse, because that's just going to add to the delays. So for the moment I'm mainly watching American TV programmes on iTunes (I <3 Castle) and napping, and daydreaming about the feel of a pen in my hand and a notebook on my knees (yes, it's sad, I know).

Anyone who's been following this blog for a while will know that this is only the most recent in a serious of hilarious comedy pratfalls that I've been through (dislocating my toe while walking down the stairs was a good one) and might wonder if I have some heavy Karmic debt that I'm paying off or something. I can only wonder that myself, since I haven't managed to get through a year without some form of injury since I was about twelve. But never mind! My motto is that it could always be worse, so make the best of what you have.

With that in mind, I hope everyone has a great weekend - and I'll read you on Monday when, barring mishaps, I'll hopefully be answering some reader questions about planning and world-building :)