How Do You Make Up For Lost Writing Time?

I can't believe it's nearly November. Seems like I am always in disbelief at the speed of time, anymore, but there it is. Here's the short list update since my last post, in June.

• I am competing in NYC Midnight's Flash Fiction (1000 words or less) contest for the first time. There are more than twice as many contestants in this one than in the Short Story Contest that I have done several times.
  
  Everyone writes for two rounds, and points are tallied to progress towards Rounds 3 & 4. My assignments were:
  
  Round One:
  Genre - Drama
  Setting - Beauty Pageant
  Object - Cash Register
  
  Of course, I kept having to rewrite it with less humor. I was less than enthused with my elements...I wanted to write it funny! So, then what happened?
  
  Round Two:
  Genre - Comedy
  Setting - Superstore
  Object - Parrot
  
  Great, comedy! But, a parrot? My mind was clouded with images of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch. I wrote my first story (1800 words) but it was not funny. My second story (1200 words) was funny, but had no story or plot, to speak of. I sketched out a few other possibilities, and finally wrote one that centered on a thief and a talking parrot (1550 words). I cut it down to 996 words and submitted it in the final hour. Of course, the next night at my writers group, I read it and notices a handful of typos and errors...sigh. Hopefully, I will make it into the third round, anyway.
  
• My Microsoft Surface, which had been finicky about accepting a power charge since at least February, wouldn't charge at all after Round One of the contest, in late July. A month later, I replaced it with a Lenovo Yoga laptop/tablet. I really never use the Tablet function, but I love the lightweight and small size of these convertible things. Another month later, I got my lost files retrieved (OneDrive snafu) via the help of a friend. That was this week...
  
• I am so behind on everything. I feel like I barely get anything done, every time I sit down to do all the things I need to do. (These include budget updating, newsletter writing, meetup upkeep, editing, reading, collating information for working writing projects, writing, editing, submitting, querying, posting on this blog, etc.) Today, I updated my meetup calendar, posted in the Nanowrimo forum, and finished my massage newsletter from July...finally! (But so much I didn't get to, and I'm running out of time, so I decided to do this blog post!) Plus, my day job has been soooo busy that I haven't had many writing sessions set aside. I work, eat, pass out, repeat.

Work, eat, pass out, repeat.

Okay, so my plan is to write a novel this November, as a participant in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the TENTH year. I am undecided on the story, as of yet, but will be going through some brainstorming and notes this week.

That's it for now. Join me at NaNoWriMo! @divinerebel