Urgh.

So, I was freaking out about my novel just a little bit yesterday, and then I got more and more freaked out and depressed at the lack of quality in my writing. I know NaNoWriMo is about quantity over quality, but I seriously had no ideas for plot and no idea how to even keep going in my novel. My character's were flat, I had pages of dialogue pretty much giving a history of a place rather than actually adding anything to the story other than more crap which wasn't needed because it was crap enough already. To top that off, I didn't really have much time to worry about it because I had my History Exam this morning and actually needed to study.

What happened next:
On a study break I went to Seventh Sanctum and ended up in a story prompt section that gave me the prompt : present the legend of the Jack 'O Lantern as a conspiracy.
Not being from America or any other country that seems to know a lot about Jack O' Lanterns, I decided to research the legend (which was surprisingly not that interesting, to me at least) and ended up in an article on Wikipedia about the Origins of Halloween which told me that is had some basis in the Pagan/Wiccan holiday Samhain which is on the same night.
Now the last part I already knew because I've been interested in the Wiccan religion for a while and have been studying it's history and "basics" for about three years now.
That's when I started looking for as much "first hand" experience of this holiday as possible, which lead to me trying to find out the difference between Celtic and Gaelic (Turns out Gaelic is like a sub-culture, for want of a better word, of Celtic) which lead me to the most popular places in the world that Gaelic (the language) is spoken.
Which lead me to research the history of the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia.

Yes, it was a productive afternoon, and while I wasn't studying the history of Australia 1900-1945, I was at least studying history. :P

All in all, it was definitely the most productive internet-tangent I've ever been on because it gave me a pretty amazing idea for a story. The only problem now, is deciding whether to continue with NaNoWriMo and write that story instead (the only problem with this is that I'm afraid I'm going to end up butchering this idea), effectually starting three days late, or to keep planning out this story and write it later.

Anyway, my history exam went pretty smoothly (the only history exam in which I've ever finished answering all the questions, and also the only history exam that actually counts for much) apart from a question including something that wasn't even in the syllabus!!!!!!!!

NaBloWriMo Blog Posts Left: 26
Exams Left: 4
Pages Left To Write: 200 (50 000 words)
Procrastination Count: 3
Freak Out Count: 1
Moments of inspiration/ ingenuity: 1