Care and Feeding of a WriMo

It is officially October! I’m sure some of y’all are prepping for National Novel Writing Month. If you are, a good resource is the Heart Breathings YouTube channel with Sarra Cannon. Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/c/HeartBreathings

She might have a planner problem…but honestly that’s one of the reasons why I like her channel. I have different kinds of planners stashed for the moment I know one of mine will stop working. And of course planners mean stickers. I use any excuse to feed my Miss Moss Gifts sticker addiction.

The trick of putting my night time medication next to my toothbrush worked. Sometimes it’s simple things that make a difference.

Currently I have the 2022 Broadway Cast Recording of the musical Into The Woods on repeat. It’s sooo good. Patina Miller’s voice is like butter, butter I tell you. Sondheim gets better as I get older. When I first saw the Broadway pro shot it was - wow, I didn’t expect this musical to have a body count. Now, it’s - wow, stories are spells and who gets to be the hero depends on who is telling the story.

I have a couple of Christmas stories that will be coming out as part of a Christmas Advent calendar. I’ll be talking more about them as we get closer to Christmas.

Creative Life: Care and Feeding of a WriMo

Folks who sign up to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and write 50,000 words in November are called WriMos. And while I am enjoying reading through the Preptober posts and watching the videos, something I’ve noticed is that folks seem to leave out the mundane when it comes to preparation.

Like, I don’t know, um, what are you eating? So, here are some tips to prepare for NaNoWriMo or any other time you have a big project on the horizon:

1. Make 2 of everything especially if it’s something like soup. Freeze the extra portion for later. Check what is the latest information on how long you can keep something frozen, but typically it’s around 3 months. I put an expiration date on things I freeze so I won’t have to continually look up the date.

2. Freeze individual balls of homemade cookie dough for treats. Defrost on kitchen table. Bake per regular instructions (In my experience, defrosted cookie dough bakes faster. Cookies are done when you can smell them. You can put them on a wire rack to cool, but they’ll still continue to bake. If you wait until you think they’re done done. you’ll wind up with burnt cookies.)

3. Bread, cake, and pizza slices freeze well.

   1. Am I encouraging you to buy one of those lemon cakes from Publix, slice that puppy into individual slices, flash freeze, stick them in your freezer for cake-on-demand during a stressful time in your life? Yes.

4. Plan for being tired.

   1. Oatmeal is better than Cheerios but cereal is an easy backup.

   2. There’s nothing wrong with store-bought, frozen meals.

5. Crock pot meals

   1. Pot roast

   2. One-pot meal

6. Use the prepared food aisle at the grocery.

   1. Those rotisserie chickens are magic.

7. When meal prepping, you don’t have to chop and cook on the same day.

8. Did I mention treats? Treats are important and should be included in NaNoWriMo planning.

9. If you drink special tea or coffee when you write, it’s time to put in that order.