Sleep is Motivational

Prompt: What reward would you give yourself after you write 500 words?

Well, to be honest, 500 words is not that much... I mean, really, it's not. That's five orcs!

See, I'm part of an icon family on dA which is centered around Lord of the Rings, and currently our system of measurement is that for every 100 words written, you have killed one orc, which is actually a very motivational system, because we're a family of elves and we all want to win (because we like winning) and are therefore competing against each other.

I try to write around 5,000 words a day. My reward is mostly looking at the Annual Orc Hunt journal page and seeing the demented-looking "jaw-drop" smiley next to my pen-name. Of course, at first glance I could just be construed as the most bloodthirsty member of the icon family, but writing is just so much fun... I can't help myself... the story just seems to write itself.

And, really, I would have a higher word count, but I have lots and lots of homework and such to complete *cough* and therefore don't have as much time as I would have liked. I have a measely 29, 567 words right now, because I haven't had as much time to write as I would have liked. Oh well...

I've seen people well over 50,000 already... it makes me so sad that I can't compete on that level. Maybe next year...

My goal, however, is to get to 100,000 by the end of the month. Therefore, I have to write twice the amount a normal NaNoWriMo participant must strive for. So far, I think I have been keeping up. At my current rate I will finish 50,000 words by next week Tuesday and have twenty-two days to complete the second set of 50,000 while juggling two papers, a short story, my sucky poetry and my college essays. Lovely...

On the other hand, this year I have a whole bunch of friends who are participating as well. Even if they aren't legitimate competition, it's still nice to have support.

I encourage the people who read this to consider attempting NaNoWriMo. It's amazing and fun even if you don't get to 50,000, and it's extremely good practice. Plus, you get to write pretty much anything you want and no one ever has to see how horrible it is.

Of course, I'm biased; I love writing. But still, you should consider it (unless, of course, you're too busy, which makes me sad, because I can't imagine being too busy to write).

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month

Just for those of you who may not know (which I know is a lot of people)

And I will quit my rant for now. I have lots of things to get done before the weekend is over! (And I have been (guiltily) procrastinating... for shame...)

But before I go, I never really did answer how I'm rewarding myself, did I?

You see, once I get to 5,000 words for the day, I get to sleep. Isn't that wonderful? I think that's pretty motivational, don't you? Can't live without it, even if it does feel like a massive waste of time. Too bad it's necessary, huh?

At the end of the month if I reach 100,000 words I will do a happy dance.