NaNo novel 2016 - Haute Rice

Earlier this year, I joined a writing group comprise of a few of my neighbors. There's been a few projects that's reared itself in multiple iterations, but for various reasons, have been sidelined. All of these projects shared common themes and are inspired by some of the same people/events/memories.

This year, I'll be attempting one of these projects for NaNoWriMo. If you're interested in learning more, check out their website at www.nanowrimo.org. If you're interested in being my writing buddy, look me up! I'm julia0101.

I'm going to do all I can to give myself the best chances to accomplish NaNo this year. I'm taking a few days off of work as vacation days. Longer weekends means more time to stay up and write. I seem to get the most writing done in the super late evening and early morning hours. I'm giving myself rewards for hitting word count milestones. And I've signed up for yoga classes to give myself a scheduled mental break. One of the days when I'll be taking the classes is the morning of my vacation day - making sure I don't end up wasting the time.

The down side is always me not being able to spend a whole lot of time with friends while I do this. This year, it seems like my calendar cleared itself. Two of my closest friends are leaving for a trip to SE Asia. The hubby will be gone the first weekend of NaNo. If I don't have a decent word count after this weekend, I'll only have myself to blame. As usual, I fully expect to have plenty of time to work on the novel over Thanksgiving.

If you want to follow my progress, I'll be posting word counts on FB and Instagram (@jwmyles) and longer updates here. Cheer me on if you want to help. :)

On determination, motivation, and drive - NaNoWriMo 2014

So on Day 18 of NaNoWriMo, I'm finally feeling like I've caught up, at least in regards to the word count. I hit the 30K mark just a couple of hours past midnight on 11/19. Not bad since at one point, I was 4666 words behind. I have two more weekends ahead of me, one of which is a 4-day weekend with no big travel plans this year. It's like gaining 2.5 writing days over previous years (days lost to Thanksgiving travel plans)!

This year, I'd not planned to do Nano. I'm buying a house and my husband and I are packing up our apartment to move. Our original move date was the end of November, meaning NaNo was going to be too much to handle along with packing, cleaning, and unpacking. But then, a good friend of mine decided at the last minute to throw his hat in. And something in me thought, "I can't let him do it on his own." So I decided, on Oct 30, to throw my hat in as well. And in doing so, we convinced two other local friends to do it with us. In 2013, I'd convinced a long distance friend to throw her hat in and she won it. I was glad to see that she was going to attempt it again.

As you can see, I was off to a slow start -

In fact, on Day 5, 2013, I was closer to reaching the goal of the day, but then followed several days of 0 progress, and I just lost momentum after that. I didn't make time every day and life stuff like going to IKEA got in the way. Sometime around day 10, I'd mostly given up. I was struggling with the work and because the 50K was no longer the finish line, I relaxed. I skipped days in writing, or sometimes just wrote 500 words and it was enough. By day 20, I let life take over and sidelined the story.

This year, despite falling behind, I maintained momentum so that catching up with an all-night writing binge was still feasible. My biggest motivation for keeping it up? My friends. I have some writing buddies that were falling behind, like me. I didn't want them to give up, so I couldn't give up. I wanted to set a good example - lead by doing. My second biggest motivation is the fact that I'm 1 for 2. I have a 50% success rate with NaNo and I want to improve it.

The third, and arguably the most important point of motivation is the book itself. Prior to going this particular direction with it, in a semi-pantsing NaNo strategy, I was stuck because I was overthinking it. I'd written some scenes that may or may not get included in this book, but it's going in a direction that feels good and natural. I've come up with potential plot twists that excite me, and I've fallen in love with these characters again.

And this NaNo, I'm determined to finish. I'm going to finish alongside a good friend that I encouraged to participate. I'm going to keep going and finish, even if it's passed Nov 30, because abandoning your work before Nov 30 or 50K sucks. I felt like I'd abandoned the work in 2013, and I'm determined to not do it again, so every day I will write as much as I can to keep the gap from getting too big. Marathon catch-up weekend all nighters will get me the word count I need.

I'm driven to get this done, and to show myself that I can do it a 2nd time.

Disclaimer: The 2013 story, like my 2014 story, was supposed to be a sequel to the book I wrote in 2012. 2013 followed one of 2 characters in Bk1 and I wrote 15K. 2014 follows the other character. I don't plan on using the words written in 2013 towards the 2014 NaNo, but I've not yet decided if I want to merge the two after NaNo 2014 is done. I plan on figuring out what's best for the story later. :) 

Nano 2014

We're nearly done with week one of Nano, and man, what a week.

I initially hadn't planned on participating this year because of the pending home move (and all the details that goes with that), but one of my closest friends decided that he's going to do it... and I couldn't let him go at it with only online support. The community nature coupled with the "official-ness" of the Nov NaNoWriMo seems to foster a lot of the motivation to keep writing the same way having a workout partner helps motivate a person training for a marathon or trying to get into a fitness routine.

So, on Oct 31, I decided to jump on the NaNo wagon... and convinced 2 other writer friends of mine to do it as well. This is the first NaNo where I can turn a small part of my regular social group and make writing the activity that we do. I'm really excited at the support, and I'm looking forward to keeping up with my writing buddies. Since I've won one of the two Nanos I've attempted, I've been able to reflect and see what worked for me... and what didn't work. I'm glad for the opportunity to pass on my experiences and encouragement. I'm a firm believer of taking one's own advice, so I'm doubling my efforts and commitment to Nano this year because so many of my friends are doing it.

Maybe in Dec, we'll help each other edit.

On Creativity and projects

I'm having a hard time focusing on my current fiction project - the 2nd part to my first NaNo novel. Part of it is my need for consistency between books 1 and 2. I have a lot of plot holes in #1 that probably should be filled before I move on with book 2. I also think I need to map my book out because I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly.  In looking at some of the work I've already done for book 2, I've caught myself needing to flesh out background details for some parts and repeating myself as I write about a character as if it's the first time my protagonist (and the reader) encounters her. So yes, there's are some issues I think I need to work out before I plunge forward. 

I'm also spending more time focusing on health and diet. I like cooking, but with the food logging and calorie counting, it's important for me to write down/develop the recipes I use and figure out appropriate portion sizes. 

Then, I had this crazy idea... write a cookbook. Most of the recipes, I'm going to post on my blog. First, I'll develop the recipes and have my friends try them. Then, I'll organize them into a book with some kind of story or intro into each recipe - whether it's a family recipe, an experiment, or a happy accident. Some of the dishes might inspire me in other projects. 

NaNoWriMo 2013

So this year's NaNo attempt is not looking great for me. I've not hit any of my daily goals and have fallen more and more behind each day. The weekends were an opportunity to catch up on word count, but there are are myriad of responsibilities I didn't have the luxury of putting off for the month.

As it stands, knowing some of the commitments I have around the holidays and my work schedule... there's no way I'll hit 50K by the end of Nov 30.

What does this mean?

It means I'll finish this marathon at a pace that won't break me, even if I don't get a finisher medal (or rather NaNo Winner icon).  The most important thing I'm going to get out of this is that I didn't give up and finished the writing.

Using Scrivener, I'm setting a new due date - Dec 15. This allows me to have a daily goal of 1,666 with a couple of  0-word days built in.  I'll be fine if I continue with my current pace/daily average.

I can give a myriad of excuses for why I'm not going to finish in time.

• I have an intense job with a longer commute. It also is a new job which means I can't take a few days off of work to focus on the writing. This is also a job that has required me to stay late or go in early a couple of times, so it's not as flexibly accommodating as my situation last year. 
• Craig and I are finally hosting a party at our place after 2 (nearly 3) years of nothing more than a few friends over for a board game night. This meant a top-to-bottom apartment cleaning that has been long overdue. We even found ourselves getting something new at IKEA to store wedding/xmas/bday gifts that we've received in the last 2 years so that they'd have a proper home. 
• Reiterate bullet #2 in regards to the bedroom and overflowing closets. It's time to purge what I don't need/use and find a space for what I want to keep. 
• It's mid-November and I have no more weekends that I can completely devote to writing. 
• I need to sleep. 

When all is said and done, life happens and sometimes, we just can't get away for 30 days and write with abandon. 

However, I can't find a good excuse to stop writing before I hit the 50K mark of this book. There's no excuse of why I can't prioritize the writing over shopping, TV watching, Facebooking, or Candy Crushing. There's no excuse for not sitting down and writing for at least 2-4 hours every day in the attempt to hit that 50K word goal sooner than later. I know if I don't have a deadline, I'm going to put off the writing one day at a time until it's September again and I'm thinking of preparing for the next NaNo run. 

So I'm going to carve out as much time as possible to write out 50K.  Then, I will evaluate my progress in the book itself, and will set a new series of goals that will push me to finish this book, then go back and revise/flesh out book 1 with a smidgeon of more clarity than I had last year. 

Having a second novel written is a damn good consolation prize for finishing late. 

Countdown to Camp NaNo

I'm excited. In about 3 weeks, I'll be diving into Camp NaNoWriMo - the less ridged off-season version of NaNoWriMo. While I really want to begin work on writing Book 2, I still have to finish and revise Book 1. Since Camp NaNo is flexible, here are my options:

1) Make April's focus to be revising Book 1. The first part of Book 1 is already in the hands of my beta readers and I need to get the remaining part of the book - the ending- to them so they can finish reading and give me a critique. A part of me feels that I need to finish B1 before April so I can move on. If I move on and finish Book 2 before revising Book 1, I'll look at it with fresh eyes.

2) Include the word count in finishing Book 1 in April's word count. (I don't like this option).

3) Leave BK1 unfinished and come back to it after the April goal (focusing on new material) is met.

4) Work on BK1 to finish the story, but then move to a completely unrelated project for the remainder of the month.

Option 1 is what I'm leaning towards. I really don't want a pile of unfinished work that I can't find the motivation to revise. I also have that publication contest that I want Book 1 to be ready for by December.

This year, April's format from NaNo is flexible. They merged it with their Script Frenzy event so participants can either work on a novel or a script. The word count goal is participant's choice - to make it either more manageable or more challenging. I may bump my goal to add to the challenge. Since I plan on participating in July as well, I may leave the new material for that month -- where I won't have to report in to work (yay for summer breaks)!

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on my options... or if I may not be considering an option.

Preparations

I'm participating in Camp NaNo in April.
It's going to be like November - where nothing is more important that putting words to paper. I will write my ass off. I will get book 1 ready for the beta readers. I will write Book 2 in April.

1 Month, 50K Words, 0 Excuses

Soo... Once I included my post Nov 1 notes to the novel, I hit the 50K word mark.  I found that I was just adding more fluff for the sake of words to meet the deadline. I found that I was writing the same scenes twice and I'd skipped parts to move on with the story and have hit upon a really nice ending. I just couldn't bring myself to write 3000 words over the next two days that I fully intended to delete. It seemed like a deliberate waste of hours and effort.

Some of the stuff I was writing in a "telling" mode was the same quality/style as my notes, so I said, fuck it. I wrote those words in Nov for the novel, I'm including those words for validation purposes. I also discovered that their validation/ word count engine over-counts the words if it was a copy-paste from Word. Yay for me!

So now comes the easier part (harder for some) since there's no time-crunch. I'm going to go over the 160 pages to fill out some of the scenes that needs to be shown instead of told (if you need an explanation of Showing vs Telling, let me know and I'll explain). I need to clean up and tighten up the dialog and I need to add more interactions between some characters to not only develop the character, but their relationships with each other. I totally can see this blooming to be 300+ pages of quality fiction. Once I get the complete first (or second) draft done, I'll let people read/critique it. If you want to see it (and have not already mentioned it) let me know. I only plan on letting people who can give me detailed constructive criticism read it (the type of criticism that I'd expect to get in an advanced fiction writing workshop).

But that's for another day. Tonight, I sleep.

The sprint and home stretch

This past week was an uphill struggle. On sand and loose gravel. With a slope so steep, switchbacks were necessary. But last night, albeit a few hours behind schedule, I hit the word count goal for Day 19 and pushed on to write another 1000 words.

I'm 2/3 of the way through the challenge. After tomorrow, that will increase to 3/4 done, in regards to both the time and to the word count.

I'm 1/3 of the way through the novel's story. I just introduced a crucial character to the story. As I hit 35,000 words, I may just have to put in placeholders for middle developing scenes (which are the hardest to finesse) and write out the ending to the story as my latest Nano "pep talk" e-mail advises.

I fully expect this to be the most horrible piece of writing I produced and will be revising it throughout the year - adding scenes, moving scenes, deleting scenes and deepening the development. I'm OK with that. I've (mostly) accepted that December will be my time for revision.

Will I try to keep working on 1667 words a night? Most likely not. It's a grueling pace to do while working full time. However, 800 - 1000 words a night for new material seem to be both attainable and sustainable (especially . I also have a 2-week break from work coming up that I can totally utilize to really finish by plugging up the most obvious of the plot holes and flesh out the transitions between scenes where currently placeholders are.

I'm so close I can almost taste it.

Running out of steam

Today, after work, I will have 8 hours of time jump ahead of my goal. Anything I write during those 8 hours would put me ahead, leaving tomorrow's goal easier to hit.

However, I do feel like I'm running out of steam. But I'm so close to the mid-way benchmark that I can taste it. And I'm so far from the finish line that I'd be really dissappointed if I I hit a wall now.

I really hope to make a lot of progress this Friday night and Saturday afternoon. I'm bummed that I lose the all-night writing opportunity on Saturday due to work on Sunday morning. This is where I think I'll use up any surplus in my word count bank, perhaps even to fall behind by a few hours again.

Thanksgiving weekend will also be hard. As is, I plan on writing well into the night Wed night when we stop at our mid-way point during our travels. I plan on writing all night Thursday night. I hope to sleep the entire car ride back on Saturday so that I can write as much as humanly possible on Sunday. Since it's the last writing weekend, It's the last opportunity to bank excess words. I'd hate it if I were to trip up right before I reach the deadline.

More than words

I met my personal goal of being ahead of the average to get the writing done. From now (3pm) until Midnight, I will be working towards Tuesday's, and perhaps Wednesday's goal of 21,667 and 23,333 words, respectively. At this moment, I'm trying to focus during the day with the same clarity and dedication as in the middle of the night. 

If I'm honest with myself, the material rewards I've said that I'm giving myself have not been a motivating factor at all. Making plans with friends and forcing myself to cancel them if I fail to meet my goal (as what happened in week 1) has been more motivating. If I'm not on track, I can't be social and see friends.  I've also been motivated by the pep talks - motivational e-mails - that I get from the NaNo team, including past NaNo writers who not only achieved their word count goals, but went on to publish. The e-mails that talk about some aspect of the writing process -the procrastination, frustration, road (and writing) blocks, or even negativity from the haters. 

November 15 will mark the halfway point - 25,000 words and I don't have a doubt that I can do it. My progress in the first 2 weeks was consistent and I've dealt with the hurdles. Just last night, I was blocked, so I stepped away, and did 10 minutes of brainstorming for this specific series of scenes. Then, I was back to writing. 

This challenge has become more than the words. It is a test of my will, determination, ability to persevere, and deal with hiccups. It's about changing habits; I now resist the urge to revise before draft 1 is done. I'm OK with skipping a scene where I'm stuck to move on, and I'm OK with a quality that I'm not happy with on the first go-around.  I'm outlining and seeing the big picture before working on the details.

Now, if only I can be so dedicated to my other goals. 

Distractions and hurdles

Distracted by the election, I'm 300 words short of my 10K word goal of the day. I hope to make up for it tomorrow, so my stretch goal for Nov 7 is 1967 words. It's a word count I know I can do Friday night or Saturday night, but I'd feel much better if I can do it tomorrow.

I need to call it at 2:50 am on a work night and get some sleep. I'm confident that I can catch up. It is, after all, only Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Nov 7 marks the official 1-week mark of NaNoWriMo. That's 1/4 of the way there if we're counting weeks. 23% if you want to be accurate about the progress.

I've been fairly on track so far and have been able to maintain, for the most part, the momentum in the writing. I'm making myself write daily and the novel has started to come to life. I've rarely had to look at my notes and when I do, I see that I'm already shifting the scenes around. I'm allowing myself to add more text to elaborate on a scene that happens earlier in the story, but I'm not allowing myself to delete and re-write scenes. I'm also adding scenes that I missed from my notes.

Working with notes in a creative writing project is actually new for me. However, it has done its job really well in keeping me on track and providing me with material to write when I encounter a hurdle and feel stuck. Anyone who is reading this right now and doing NaNo, I would recommend an "outline my story" night if you can't think of what happens next. At the very least, plot out the story arc and know how it ends. (When I was outlining, I knew the beginning and the end before I figured out the middle).

Current Stats: 9700 words.
Nov 7 total word goal: 11666 ( I would need to write 1966 words before Midnight to make this goal).

On Par, Entering Day 5

It looks like I'm staying on track. I fell behind on Friday when I took the night off to go out. I've spent all weekend making up for the 800 words I didn't write on Friday in addition to the 1667 words for each day.

What I learned this weekend: I can write at least 2070 words in a (weekend) day, even in an "uproductive" day.

Confession: I whittled away quite a few hours, both Saturday and Sunday by just puttering around - in real life and on Facebook. It felt very unproductive mainly because I had to force myself to write even if it meant staying up until 5am.

So I'm adding some stretch goals to try to get ahead. I'd rather go out when I'm ahead in my goals. I believe I can truly relax and have fun if I don't have to worry about playing catch-up.

Current word count 6791
Day 4 goal: 6667 words met at 12:30am,  Nov 5.
Day 5 goal: 8333 (official)
Stretch goal: 8500 before Midnight Nov 6

Progress as we enter Day 4

One of the things I'm finding awesome with participating in NaNoWriMo are the words of advice and encouragement from authors. Today, I received an e-mail authored by Kate DiCamillo (author of The Take of Despereaux and other YA novels) offering some words of advice on motivation:

It is a truly excellent to have someone to believe in you and your ability to write.

But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don't believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world.

So as you enter this month of writing, write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you... Let them motivate you.

Your friend in writing,
Kate DiCamillo

As we enter day 4 (at Midnight), I have 4300 words. I'm 700 words from meeting my day 3 goal, but I have do doubt that I will hit it before I sleep tonight (whatever time that will be). My 6667 total word goal for Sunday will be a little more difficult since I do not have the option of writing until 6am. I'm hoping to reach that goal sometime in the afternoon. Keeping the promise I made when I started this challenge, I'm saying "no" to a social gathering that I'd REALLY like to participate in (Dim Sum with some friends). However, my one social event I'd allowed myself for this weekend was 5 hours on Friday night when I went out with Craig and Roz to dinner and to see Wreck-It Ralph. 

Onward to 6667.

Progress - Day 1

Day 1 Goal of 1667 met at 9:02pm tonight.

Pages for 1667 words = 3, almost 4, single spaced

Hours it took to write: 5

Current word count: 2310
Day 2 goal: 3334

I'm highly encouraged by my progress. I'm SO glad I did the prepping with the outline. Even though I already find myself deviating a bit with the details, I'm still sticking to the main points that is supposed to occur in the chapter. When I find myself stopping, I glance over at my notes and think, "Oh right! That needs to happen for it to develop the way I want it to develop. I really need that in chapter [insert chapter number here]." Finding the right words to explain or show the idea is so much easier when the basic idea is already written and plotted.

I'm finding hard to not go back and add things or edit, but I'm moving forward. These first few chapters are all about introducing the main characters. I'm hoping that I'm doing a good job at bringing them to life, with their interactions with each other, speech patterns, and mannerisms. I'm going to call it quits for tonight and try to get a an extra hour of sleep. I'm already 39% done with my day 2 goal.

With tomorrow being Friday, I'll be able to stay up as late as I want to to write. I'm optimistic that I'll be ahead of my daily goal by the end of the day on Saturday. My stretch goal is to be a whole day ahead of my daily goal, allowing me to create a buffer. Even better if that lead is extended. I'd much rather be creating more material early on in the month than trying frantically to catch up as we near the deadline.

In addition to the writing last night and tonight, I spent almost 3 hours on a SW game and 2 hours vegging out in front of the TV. This is also encouraging. It means that if push came to shove, I can carve out the time I need from other recreational time to devote to the writing. 

On chapter 1

Working on chapter 1, I've turned 4 lines of notes into 1150 words. I will have a few hours after work to complete another 517 words to meet my goal today and I hope to power through and get ahead of the goal. I'd rather be ahead of the game than playing catch-up. I'm hoping to keep up this momentum.

And so it begins

I'm 30 minutes away from Midnight (official start) and I really wanted to start writing this afternoon. But it felt like cheating, so I'm restraining myself. I did, however, make more notes and fleshed out my outline a little more. I currently have 19 chapters planned. It doesn't seem like much... but if there's enough material, I may get more chapters out of it.

The amount of support and encouragement I'm already getting for this project is awesome. Some people think it's an impossible task. Others think it's an awesome challenge. And I've heard form other authors embarking on the same challenge. Not only is it nice to know that I'm not doing this alone, it's also nice to actually know some other people who will be going through this with me. Since I'm not confident that my first draft would be readable, I'm not going to share it with anyone until I get a chance to not only finish writing it, but read it once through. I will, however, post excerpts and/or passages that I'm particularly proud of.

Working Title: Phoenix Rising

Final Preparations

I'm 22 hours, 30 minutes away from starting the novel.

So far, in my preparations, I've done:

- Created a dedicated work space to do my work
- Plotted and outlined the story. I know how I want it to begin, develop, and end.
- Outlined each chapter. According to the current online, I have 18 chapters.
- I know what I want the climax of the story to be and how I plan to resolve it.
- Developed the main characters - who they are, where they come from, their motivations and goals.
- Created the major relationships between the main characters and have an idea of how I want to develop those relationships.
- Decided who needs to die as a means of a catalyst for character development and story progression
- Decided on how magic works in my setting
- Created a short history for the setting
- Created political and religious background for the setting

I have 8 pages of copious notes to guide me in the process. I also know that as I'm writing, I'll probably come up with more ideas or change my mind about some of the development. I'm hoping that I'll just power through the need/want to make the changes and just write the original idea. The benefit of having my notes side-by-side with the manuscript on my screens is that I can easily toggle over and make potential revision notes without actually revising.

I've broken down my notes into chapters. It will give me a little more structure to work with so that I'm writing each chapter, and each page, with a specific intent and purpose. I have some chapters that need more development, but at least I know where the holes are. I'm hoping to fill in those holes as I write and perhaps add enough material to create more chapters. OR, I can just deal with some really long chapters.

The Hermit vs the Social Butterfly

So NaNoWriMo hasn't started yet and I can already see some of the hurdles. I was actually being fairly optimistic when I said I was up to the challenge. My weekends for the month of November were fairly free and I had no weekday plans scheduled on my calendar. Then, Craig and I started making plans. All of a sudden, the days that I was hoping to use to "catch up" if I fall behind on my daily writing quota were taken up. Now, I'm thinking, "will I really have enough time to write 50K words in 30 days?"

And here's the dilemma for me. Do I stick to my guns and be a recluse for most of the month of November? Or do I allow myself to go hang out with family and friends? I know one option I have is to take my writing with me... but how much will I really be able to accomplish when I'm surrounded by  people that I want to interact with? I love the gaming with my friends. I love evenings out whether it's a play, movie, large party or small dinner.

So, I'm making a decision... for the month of November, I will be more of a hermit. I'll schedule my time as if I'm still in school and finals are fast approaching. I will push myself the same way that I pushed when I had a paper due for class - utilizing any holidays during the month for the writing, sleeping when I can't write, and writing instead of sleeping on the weekends/holidays. I've never pulled an all-nighter for my writing before, but I have for school work. I think on the days that I can afford to (like the night before Thanksgiving), I can try to write through the night and plan to sleep while traveling. Thankfully, I won't be driving.

This doesn't mean I won't go out at all. It just means not being the last ones to leave a party. It means just having dinner with a friend instead of dinner and a movie (or shopping). It means excusing myself and finding a quiet corner to work while Craig continues to be social at gatherings.

One of the excuses that I've always given myself is that I don't have the time to devote to the writing. I've started projects, but they stay unfinished and under developed. However, I can't use that excuse anymore since I was able to make time for my other projects over the last few years. And for one month, I will not allow myself to use that excuse.

Office Space

Craig and I finally got my work space set up. I got rid of the hutch on my desk that was too small to accomodate my monitor. Now, I have my large monitor set up side-by-side with one of my laptops so I have the dual-screen action going. It's going to help a lot to have my notes on one screen and my manuscript on the other. It also helps to have a really nice ergo keyboard. The added benefit of not having the hutch is to not have the surface area/space to clutter with unneeded junk.

It feels really nice to have a more permanent set-up for a work space. I had a similar set up in the living room that I had to dismantle every time Craig wanted to have the space for his painting. My desk is a spot that I'm excited to use again, all because it's now comfortable to be there. Now, the challenge will be trying to both work in the den at the same time. He usually needs absolute quiet to concentrate on his DM stuff when he's prepping for games. I, on the other hand, focus better when there's some kind of background noise or music playing.