Vivienne's Adventures

A lot of us neurodivergent people struggle with the holidays. As a kid, it was my favorite time of year. I had time away from school, I got presents, and I got to see my family and eat lots of yummy food. As I've grown older, the holiday sparkles have faded and grown dimmer.  There are a thousand different reasons for not enjoying the holidays, but it's not all bad. I'm excited to introduce my nephew, who's not quite 2 years old, to our favorite Christmas movies and teach him to make cookies. I want to see him get excited about presents and seeing family and trying new things.  However, the massive amount of Christmas decorations, the expectations of getting and decorating a tree, putting all the lights up and whatnot, and making sure you have gifts for pretty much everyone you know...it's a lot. It's made me feel a bit like the Grinch. Not angry at the holiday itself, but annoyed by all the decor and overt CHRISTMAS everywhere. As someone with anxiety and depre...

I've done Nanowrimo since 2013, and every year it hits me differently. This year was a weird struggle. In the beginning, the story flowed quickly and I got a lot more written than I expected to. But my characters had ideas, so I really had no choice but to follow where they led. Then I hit 50k mid month. But I wasn't done, and neither was the story, so I kept going, curious to see if I could hit 100k in one month. (I didn't, but I did reach 72k!) The second half of the month was harder. On the one hand, I was able to set time aside to get writing done, but it got harder to connect with my characters. Not for any particular reason that I can name, but come January, I'm going to reread what I've written and continue from there. I'm still trying to figure out why it got so difficult, but I think it was mostly just the fact that I had written so much already by the end of the month, and I kept pushing myself to keep going, just get a few more words written. It gets ...

  Happy December!! Hope everyone was able to get lots written last month! I know I definitely did. My plan was to just hit 50k, but when I started writing, I was captured by the characters and they didn't let me go easily. So I ended up writing over 5k the first day. Over 4k the next two days. By day 5, I'd already hit 21k.  I've no idea why in particular my characters were so wordy, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I rode that high as long as I could, but by the end of the month, I was definitely flagging and slowing down. Here's the thing, though. This year has been a rollercoaster. I've also been writing all year, on and off on different stories.  January, I worked on book 1, getting it ready for my editor. February, worked on book 2. After that, I worked on book 3 for a couple months, then, middle of the year or so, I was informed by my characters that book 4 wasn't ideal for the title of book 4, so what if we had a book 4 that came in between?  .....

Now is often when we start to get anxious about Nanowrimo, so starting today, stop working on your preparations and take a mental break. Don't do anything other than take time to do something fun. Enjoy Halloween for those of you who celebrate it. Dress up as something fun, or wacky, go to a coffee shop wearing dragon horns or a unicorn hoodie, whatever makes you smile.  November is still a few days away, so we're taking a break from everything writing related so that come November, we'll be starting Nanowrimo off with lots of energy and excitement! If you can, also try to see if you can join any write-ins happening beforehand so that you can meet some of the people in your area who're also doing Nano.  Whatever you decide to do, make sure it brings a smile to your face. <3 Oh, and follow me on YouTube for daily vlogs during the month of Nanowrimo! (Link below) I'm going to be posting a new video each day at 9am so that you have plenty of time to watch a short vi...

Alright, just a few more days to go! Now is the time to make sure you've got your external motivations ready! (Your rewards, I mean.) If you've never done Nanowrimo before, I suggest getting like ten smallish things that are reserved for each 5k word count. Stickers, your favorite candybar, $5 towards your favorite shop, a fancy new phone case, or something that makes you happy. Just remember to set these aside somewhere and save them for each 5k word count. (So, 5k, 10k, 15k, and so on.) Other external motivators include your friends and family! Tell people you're doing Nanowrimo! Make sure you also connect with people on nanowrimo.org who're in your area, so that you don't ever feel you're alone. Also, reach out to me!! Please, please do! I'm on the social medias and available through email, so please reach out if you need anything.  **This is why I'm blogging and making videos for Nano. I like cheerleading people on!! The link for my YouTube Nanowrimo...

Food! Food and snacks and caffeine are really important. As a writer, I tend to forget to eat (I'm working on that, though), but when I'm writing, if I have a snack nearby, I eat without having to think about it. Win-win for me! So I wanted to talk about snacks for Nanowrimo. Everyone has something different they like to munch on as they write. Some people have a container of mnm's, I like to have a bowl or two of skinnypop popcorn, and some like cheese sticks or cheeseits.  There are loads of snacks to choose from, so I suggest something that isn't primarily sugar. Fruit and veggies are good, as well as things like crackers, popcorn, and nuts. Whatever you choose, make sure it's something you can keep on your desk. (So you know, maybe a bowl of popcorn instead of a massive Costco bag haha.) Another aspect of this is meal prep. If you premake meals, you'll be able to get more writing done, since you won't have to spend as much time making dinner, for example...