Strap yourself in: this is gonna be a long one.

After being hecka sleepy in my film screenings again last night, my plan for the evening was to come home and go straight to bed. However, my NaNo schedule called for 2,000 words and I’d only written about 800 so far.

More than I wanted sleep, I didn’t want to get even further behind than I already was, so I decided to tough it out and try to get in the rest of my 2k. (Like seriously. This falling behind thing has been getting crazy.) So, I burrowed under my covers with my laptop and headphones and opened my Word doc–

–Only to realize that, once again, the story wasn’t working.

Here’s the thing: This is my eighth year doing NaNoWriMo. I know that the way to fast draft a manuscript is to throw quality out the window and just…