Reality check...

I had high hopes for this NaNo thing.

High hopes that I would be able to type away madly on my keyboard and watch my NaNo word count rise to 5000-6000 words each week reaching my down-sized goal of 20-25,000 words by the end of the month.

High hopes that my natural inclination to go back and revise, spell check, and correct punctuation would be overcome by my outpouring of cleverly written prose.

High hopes that my kids would play happily by themselves, the dishes and laundry would magically get done, my son wouldn't spike a fever, my daughter wouldn't get a cold, the kids wouldn't be waking up all hours of the night, and that my chronically sleep deprived brain would function at full capacity at least for these four weeks of novel writing frenzy.

Did someone need a reality check?

Um, yeah...that would be me.

I'll still keep working on my story. NaNo did help to jump start the process. I've actually got the first couple of chapters written (and somewhat revised - I couldn't help myself!). So thank you, NaNo. But I think I'm better off going at this at my own pace - in between taking the kids to the park, pumpkin patch field trips, making hot cocoa with marshmallows, pitching tents in the living room, and reading extra stories at bedtime. (And yes, those infinite loads of laundry.)