NaPlWriMo!

I’ve been really busy this month because I’m once again attempting to do NaPlWriMo, or National Playwriting Month, the playwriterly cousin of NaNoWriMo. I’m working on my play I’ve mentioned here before about the Catholic nun who was excommunicated for approving an abortion at a Catholic hospital.

The NaPlWriMo goal is a completed first draft of a new play that is at least 75 pages long. So far I only have slightly over 10 pages. I did really well week 1 and was ahead of schedule, but week 2 has completely fallen apart. I’ve simultaneously been trying to step up my gym activities, and for some reason it was a lot harder to balance work/writing/gym this week than it was last week. But I had a (very small) breakthrough today. I just took a few minutes in the afternoon and got out my notebook and made a really rough map of my way through the play–detailed enough to give me an idea of what should come next, but basic enough to allow for going off course if the play seems to be naturally heading that way. I feel less lost about everything now.

But after work today I decided I’d let myself take a quick nap before I started up the writing. Annnd somehow when I opened my eyes it was 8:00. And I still felt tired, like I could sleep through the whole night. I missed the NaPlWriMo community’s Google+ hangout because I slept right through it.

I guess that just shows you how much can randomly get in the way when you set out to write a whole new draft in a month. Unforeseen things like falling asleep for three hours, or your trainer not showing up for your gym appointment to get set up for the upper-body lifting machines, can get in your way and throw your whole system off. But then the key becomes not letting that completely screw you up and recovering the next day. I let myself get mired in loss of direction and rest-of-life this week. I need to get myself back on track this weekend.