Hello again, and welcome back to November! It seems like this month keeps happening every year or something…

Boy, the amount of 5,000 or so words really seems to be my ceiling during NaNoWriMo. The glaring issue I always seem to run into is that the moment I fall behind, the first day I don’t reach the number of words I need to in order to keep the pace, I find anything else to do. Like watch Hell on Wheels again? Or check in on my blog and see how long it’s been since my last post!

So inevitably, here I am, writing while procrastinating on NaNoWriMo! Another thing I read about that’s taking place this month is NoSoNovember, which stands for the No Social Media November Challenge. And you know what? A tech detox in general sounded pretty good to me, but especially with the knowledge that NaNoWriMo was on the horizon. Logging onto and scrolling through Facebook, X, and Instagram would’ve distracted me from the writing I was supposed to be doing. Well, even though NaNoWriMo might not be going so well, NoSoNovember sure is. A week without social media so far has been pretty great.

The folks over at NoSo seem to be counting streaming services as social media? Whoops.

Listen, I’m still watching TV by myself as well as with my husband. It helps us both decompress after a long day! I’ve also used YouTube, although mostly for listening to lofi channels while I write.

The important thing, I feel like, is that NoSoNovember has kept me off my phone and my butt during a lot of the day. I’m interacting and playing with the kids as I should be! I’m finding other ways to spend my time (do some of those things still involve my phone? Admittedly, yes).

However, what I think I’m finally starting to learn with both NaNoWrimo and NoSoNovember is that you only have so much time to devote and prioritize in your day. It could still involve a screen: I’m killing it in Duolingo with my Spanish course, while my husband is loving learning hiragana in his Japanese course. There are absolutely still stresses in everyday life — like NaNoWriMo for another 22 days — except I like to think I’ve at least eliminated one of them in social media.

And as intended, writing a blog post always helps my stress levels go down. I’m not going to worry about how many words I end up getting to in NaNoWriMo this year, and I’m not going to worry about sneaking in some Netflix and YouTube during NoSoNovember. I’m taking part in both, I like both, so in whatever capacity I want, I’m going to continue doing both.

Now that I’m done here, I’ll be starting another episode of Hell on Wheels!