I woke up this morning with a sore lower back that persisted all day long. I don’t know what caused it for sure. We walked yesterday but didn’t do anything overly strenuous. Maybe it was how I slept? I know that sometimes it just feels sore for a day or so, and then goes back to feeling fine, so I’m hoping today was just an off day and that tomorrow it will feel better. The pain meant not being able to walk on breaks or lunch, and I opted out of a post-work walk to give it more healing time. However, I want to get back into some activity tomorrow, so here’s to hoping.
Between the back pain and the normal Monday workload, the day was productive but still stressful and overwhelming. I was glad to call it a day and come home to Jon, who had the day off for MLK day, and the crockpot deliciousness he’d cooked up. Over the course of the night, I managed to put away laundry, pack for housesitting tomorrow night, watch four Coursera lecture videos, and…wait for it…finish the first revision of my Nanowrimo project!
The funny thing about the revision is that it’s been hanging over my head, and when my friend asked about it today, I said I didn’t think it was ever going to get done. At the time, I truly believed that. The last chapter I’d revised prior to tonight made me mad…I hated how it flowed, but I was at a loss on how to fix it. However, I was thinking about my goals tonight and knew I wanted to still get it done, even if it meant waiting until later to fix that chapter. So I sat down, got focused, and finished revision on the last few chapters and the epilogue.
It’s not horrible! It’s got some good things going for it, and it has some stuff that I need to work on. My main worry is that it’s going to be super boring and I’m not going to know how to fix the overall plot. I’m going to take the initial feedback and prepare the first revision for some beta readers, which brings me one step closer to possible publication. Admittedly, this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten on a novel. I’ve written several. I just haven’t revised them. Now that I have this revision under my belt, I’m kind of excited to go back and revise and re-work some of my older projects as well. However, to avoid that feeling of being bogged down in something, I’m reminding myself to take baby steps.
Since I met my January goal, my next goal is to make the initial changes, prepare the second draft as one document, line up my beta readers, and send them the draft. I already have a couple in mind, it’s just a matter of contacting them. I’m aiming to have that all done by the end of February, though since that’s a lot of time, I’ll hopefully have it done sooner.
Now that I feel super accomplished, I’m going to go shower and lay down for some reading and sleeping time. Here’s to hoping the back pain goes away and that tomorrow is super productive.
A.
The Romance Factor 
I have similar problems with my neck. For weeks, I would randomly wake up with a sharp pain in my neck. I think it may be the way I slept the night before it happened, but I started going (back) to the chiropractor and haven’t had it since. I also have a friend who woke up with horrible back pain the other day and she went to the chiro as well, and said it helped her. Maybe give it a whirl?
Yay revisions! Revisions are so difficult. I won NaNo this year but I was a rebel and wrote the end of my novel, when I already had half of it written. So now I am going back to revise the beginning, and I wrote it 3 years ago. It’s so different than the stuff I wrote in November. But I suppose it’s salvageable haha. I think baby steps is the key. Whenever I look at it, I freak out, but I know that I can do it if I just take it line by line.
Back and neck problems are weird. I normally do see a chiropractor, one of the ones who use the thumping gun since I’m uncrackable. I figure if it persists for a few days, I definitely need an adjustment. Today feels much better though.
You wouldn’t think revisions would be difficult, since everything is already written, but the writing process is definitely the easier of the two. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed with the process, but I agree…baby steps all the way!
Congrats on winning NaNo!