Stalled at the starting line

I wasn't sure I wanted to do NaNoWriMo this year, but I did an outline in case. As November 1 drew closer I started to get a little excited about it, started pulling plot twists through the gray matter like saltwater taffy.

We got through Halloween somehow--5 bags of candy, gone in 55 minutes*, but I didn't care because NaNo started at midnight. Not that midnight has ever been a prime writing time for me. I never stay up for the start of NaNo. I'm doing good to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve.

Thursday morning, I got up, went for my walk, and took a shower. I had a mental list of things to do before I fired up the laptop: wash a load of clothes, thaw meat, make a shopping list and stock up the pantry so maybe someone else can cook dinner when I hit crunch time later in the month. I got as far as the laundry when I felt a familiar stab in the top of my head: migraine.

I really have no right to complain. It's only the third one this year, and I don't have to take heavy duty drugs to deal with them. Herbs and Excedrin take care of the pain, leaving me with a curiously empty feeling cranium. As long as I don't drive, I'm in pretty good shape. I even managed to fire up the laptop on Thursday. I wrote for an hour and got 150 words. There were more, but they were ricocheting in my herb-emptied noggin and I couldn't catch them.

This might be the year when I find out if they do anything for NaNo losers.

*I like all the little ones in costumes, and the older ones don't bother me a lot. Shoot, my teens went trick or treating. What got to me this year was the dad with a baby in a stroller. The baby was cute as a button, but less than a year old. Dad had a little pumpkin bucket hooked to his finger, and when Eric dropped candy into it, Dad looked at the baby and said, "Say thank you! Oh, wait, she can't talk yet!" Dude, if she can't talk, she can't eat candy! Go home!!