37,931 words and my writing buddies

Right on the heels of telling you how hot I am, here's a photo that proves, not only otherwise, but also how little pride I actually have.

That is me deep in Nanowrimo mode, writing the Great Canadian Novel, or at least, MY Great Canadian Novel. Eight more days of writing ahead. 12,069 words. That's 1,509 words every day. Can I do it? How can I not do it after investing so much time and energy?

Am feeling confident right at this moment because I just had a good writing night. Last night, though, I was convinced I didn't have one more word in me. What I wrote was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't developing the plot. And it certainly wasn't well-written. Tonight I decided, to heck with it, and started writing the chapter again from scratch. This time I knew where it was headed; I had the right atmosphere and the words fairly spilled onto the page.

I asked Dave to take this picture, not to show you how chub-ugly my feet are, but to show you my undecadent writing space and my two furball writing buddies.

I've tried writing everywhere else around the house but I've done my best writing on the bed, scrunched into a back-busting ball. I goof around on my blog or facebook on the kitchen table but when I go into the bedroom and shut the door, I'm all business. Sometimes I even use ear plugs. I find it blocks everything out but the sound of my own brain thunk-thunking in overdrive.

The funny thing about this is my two cats, Dodge (the orange one) and Ben. Cats are creatures of habit and they have made a habit out of sitting at my feet while I've been NaNo-ing. As soon as the door closes they push it open and come walking in. They don't bug me. Much. Sometimes they rub their whiskers on my laptop or demand to be petted. For the most part, though, they just lie down like the slugs they are and fall asleep. Sometimes they even snore.

Is this how The Great Canadian Novels are written?

In a messy bedroom with snoring cats?