November's Over, Everyone.

            IT’S ME AGAIN! I was my usual self this month and was all, “hahah what’s a blog I don’t have one of those nope”. Who’s surprised? Not me!

            I did keep a semi-coherent log of my NaNo adventures, though. You can look at it here. The link will take you to my Tumblr tag for When Summer Ends, which is full of pictures and gifs and quotes that remind me of this story, and some charming late-night excerpts and screenshots I posted from this draft. I am most likely going to regret all of that in a few month’s time but oooohhhh weeeeelllll.

            And now, onto the actual reason for this post.

            You’ve heard of NaNoWriMo, now get ready forrrrrrr….

            NaNoReMo! National Novel Recovery Month? Eh? Ehhhh? It’s catchy and you know it.

            I dunno.

            But yes. Here are my preferred ways of getting back to being an Actual Person in the aftermath of NaNoWriMo. Enjoy.

#1 – Go back to a normal sleep schedule.

You remember what it felt like to get a full night of sleep? When you weren’t staying up till the wee hours of the morning and then getting up with the rest of the world a handful of hours later and pretending you weren’t dead inside? When you didn’t require 5+ cups of coffee, or tea, or your preferred source of caffeine to keep you going throughout the day?

Yes?

Wasn’t it nice?

Go back to it.

NaNoWriMo could be named NaNoSleepMo – National No Sleep Month. When you have almost 1700 words to write a day, sleep becomes a less important concern than getting your daily word goal for the day done, and also procrastination. But now that it’s over, you’re going to want to get back to a normal sleep schedule, where you go to bed at a reasonable time of the night and get up the next morning and don’t feel like a zombie for the next twelve hours or so, until you suddenly become nocturnal and proceed to stay up the entire night writing.

Make yourself go to bed at a time that if you’re asked, you won’t be all, “Haha, well, see, the thing issss,” about it. Getting to sleep before nine at night is like, the nicest thing ever after a month of negative 599993332 hours of sleep every night.

#2 – Go back to life-ing.

            Who needs a life, anyways?

            Well. I do.

            And I mean, you kind of do too. Because while sitting in front of your laptop for 30 days straight, writing like crazy, and making a slow transformation into Gollum is super fun and all…it’s kind of nice, going back to being an actual person.

Wrimos be like

            You have a family! And friends! Hobbies! Responsibilities you shirked during November!

            It’s time to go back to those, my friends. It’s time to close your laptop, take off your headphones, put on actual clothes instead of that really comfortable hoodie and pair of sweatpants, and go be a person.

            I know for me it’s kind of really hard to snap out of the whole “Ew people no get them away” mindset that I get during NaNoWriMo, but even though you can maintain that glorious creative streak while simultaneously Gollum-ing for a month straight, it’s bound to run out. You’re going to have to start being a person again, I’m sorry to have to break the news to you.

            We’ve all been there. I’ve been there. It’s tough. But you just have to do it.

#3 – Get rid of the candy.

            My diet during NaNoWriMo consists of two things: tea, and junk food. English Breakfast Tea is the tea with the highest caffeine level I’ve ever found and it is your best friend. And junk food, oh, junk food.

            I had a basket full of chocolate and candy this past month that was full to the brim and still has leftovers in it. I did last year, too. I have jars full of Skittles and Dove chocolates, and I basically live on those little waffles that you take out of the freezer and pop into the toaster.

            But I mean. November’s over, guys.

            It’s time to move on. Those candy wrappers that are scattered everywhere? The half-eaten boxes of gummy worms and Sour Patch Kids you have on your desk? The bag of M&Ms you have left over?

            Show no mercy. Kick ‘em to the curb. Get rid of the candy.

            Okay, that may be being a bit drastic. But seriously. Cut back on the candy, alright? It tastes so good but it’s not exactly the best thing for you and it’s Christmas time, so you’re bound to be getting your fill of sweet stuff. I have three younger brothers and a variety of younger cousins; when it’s time to get rid of the candy, I’m kind of covered.

            I would tell you to cut back on the tea, too, but I cannot in good conscious tell someone to stop drinking tea. Ever. So I won’t. –gleefully drinks Christmas tea-

#4 – Take a break.

            Writing is freaking exhausting, okay. It wears you out, leaves you feeling brain-dead, takes you for a wild ride, makes you cry, and you still plow on with it. But once you reach your goal – whether that be just writing your words or finishing your draft* - give yourself a break.

            Close the laptop. Put down the pen. Recharge.

            You’ve had a month of nonstop creativity, of insanity and excitement and breakdowns and strokes of genius and mind-numbingness, and now, it’s over. Let yourself recover from the wonderful and terrible experience that is NaNoWriMo.

            I read a lot in the aftermath of NaNoWriMo, because usually when I finish things, I’m in a sort of slump, where my brain is mush and the idea of creating anything at all makes me want to throw something. So I don’t. I read a lot, I catch up on TV shows that I missed during November, I watch movies, listen to music other than my novel playlist, play games, have actual conversations that go beyond “Could you please bring dinner to my room kthxbai”.

            It’s so worth it.

#5 - Regroup.

            Chances are, now that you’ve finished, you’re at a bit of a loss. If you’re me. Or like me.

            Or maybe you’re organized and confident and have your writerly self together. If so, go you!

            But I’m not. I’m usually that person who, as everyone else is starting to Do Things again, decides to forgo this and curl up and sleep for about a thousand years and cry because I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now ugh.

            So I take December to regroup. Do I want to edit that beast of a novel I just wrote? Do I want to start another one? Return to whatever I was working on pre-NaNo? Give up the writing life entirely?

            Hahahaha. That last one. I’m so funny, guys.

            But seriously. December is my get-myself-back-together month. My month where I don’t put any pressure on writing and kind of take a chill approach to it. The month where I attempt to decide what I’m going to do in January, when I’ve had sufficient recovery time.

            Everyone’s different, so maybe you only need a few days before going back to writing, or maybe you don’t need any at all! I know for me, after NaNoWriMo, I kind of need a break to let myself get back to normal and to try and make sense of a jumbled mess of thoughts, and all the things I want to work on.

*I’m in this boat. I am so in this boat. When Summer Ends has maybe 20,000 words left on it but at this point I have no idea. It keeps getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. I have a deadline of December 7^th to be finished with this draft, and I’m spending this week doing just that. So I mean. My NaNo recovery process kind of starts on the 8^th, but whatever. I’m going with it.

     Aaaaaand...that's all! Now, if you'll excuse me...I have a novel to finish.