I lie in bed with my head propped up, like a meerkat peeking out of its hole, and the laptop precariously balanced on my thighs as I type out this blog post with tired eyes.

Last night I went to bed after writing 1000 unsatisfactory words, with the resolve to wake up early this morning and aim for an ambitious word count of 3-4k words for the day. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.

Plagued with a bad stomach ache and a restless night of sleep, I ended up unable to get out of bed until noon following which I spent a majority of the day working from the comfort of my blanketed fortress with the threat of a fever looming over my body.

Much to my disappointment, this is how I’ve spent all of Day 4 of NaNoWriMo. Even Day 3’s progress wasn’t as I’d hoped it to be, due to work commitments.

In any case, I won’t let the slowdown from my initial momentum dash my hopes of winning NaNo and completing my novel. With 26 days left, I have a whole lot of time to catch up.

Besides, I’ve done NaNo’s before where I started over a week late and still made it! I’m using the memory of those victories to keep myself going for this year’s.

At the end of the day, unless you’re of able body and mind, you won’t be able to write anything even if you have all the passion to do it in the world. So, make your physical and mental health a priority during this month (and always)!

The last thing you want to be is contained to your bed with a stomach bug when you have a beautiful story unfolding in your head, just itching to be written out.