November is going to be a challenging month. I’m underway with NaNoWriMo and made an excellent start in the first two days getting up to nearly four days worth of writing (6026 words) or 12% of the final goal. But then life got in the way. I always knew the end of this week would be hard because of heading to the lakes for the PPRG conference for three days from tomorrow. But to lose a day of writing yesterday, on day three, was pretty crushing. I’m struggling to get some written tonight, but the alternative is having the lack of progress hanging over me until I can get stuck in for a intensive few hours on Saturday evening.

I have no doubt I can hit the 50,000 word mark. After this weekend I have three weekends where if all else failed I could just write and do nothing else. I thrive on deadlines, and I will do it. I would like this process to be a positive experience, so I need to keep up with my weekly word count goals to stop it becoming an unmanageable burden. I really enjoy the writing. So far the quality is pretty dire but I’m quickly accepting it as a first draft. The words might need some intensive editing, but the story and characters are coming to life.

On top of this other areas of my life have been challenging me too. Back in August if you remember I finally cracked the regular exercise thing. I started making progress on losing the weight I gained from medication and was feeling pretty fabulous in the end. Then September struck and work got crazy (I think I might have blogged about that just a few times!) The exercise went out and comfort eating came back in.

My brain can be a clever thing and the past couple of weeks it has spurred me on to exercise whenever I feel rubbish and is slowly retreating from comfort eating. But I feel like my health, fitness and weight has all gone back to square one and I’m now at the bottom of the hill I’d started to climb. My brain at least now wants to exercise and so it’s getting brownie points and lots of love for being motivated. However I do wish there was a quick and easy way to go back to the size I was back in summer 2008.

I also don’t believe in diets, which sounds crazy for the woman who wants to lose weight, but they don’t work for me. However in the past Paul McKenna has. Based on the theory of learning to listen to your body about when it’s hungry and what it wants to eat I Can Make You Thin really does work if you can be disciplined enough to listen to the CD every day. I know if I kept it up for long enough I really could break the cycle with comfort eating and motivate myself to exercise even more.

So like I said November will be challenging. Writing, exercise and meditation are all positive things that really make me feel tons better. The problem is the motivation and discipline to do them. As per usual though I refuse to give up and the eternal optimism will drive me on. I will get there in the end!