Writing Children [NaNo Day 1]

So, it's day 1 of NaNoWriMo and as of right now (10:52am) I have no words. I have no plot, either, which is a slight concern. Here's my profile.

I did get an idea that I got a little excited about a few hours ago, but the plot would have to involve a pregnancy and later, predictably, a child. I really don't like writing children. In real life, I love kids and for some reason, kids love me. My nephew never leaves my side when I'm in the same city as him, my friend's four year old is basically my shadow when I go to her house, I've done work experience in a reception class (five/six year olds - I think maybe it's the equivalent to kindergarten?), and for a while I considered going into teaching in primary schools.

Writing children is a whole other thing for me. Personally, I find them annoying as characters in stories. I don't know why, they just always seem to get in the way. They're also very very hard to write correctly. Unless you have a looooot of experience with kids, it's difficult to write them convincingly. It's easy to dumb them down too much or make them too mature, y'know? Suddenly you have a five year old who talks like a ten year old, or on the other end of the spectrum, who behaves like a baby. Also, for somebody who has a kid, that kid occupies most of their time, which also makes it hard to have a kid in a story unless you want the kid to be a huge focus...which I don't. Maybe it's an idea to hold onto, and then if I feel more confident about it later down the line, I'll write it.

That still leaves me with the whole 'no plot' dilemma. I've never been somebody who can pants their way through NaNo. I need to have an at least vague idea of what I want the story to be about. I might cheat and use prompts and just write a series of one-shots or short stories and then add up the collective word count.

Part of me feels like I should write something original, too. I love writing fanfic, it's a fun way for me to hone my writing skills and "escape" off to a universe that I haven't created, but now that I'm doing my Creative Writing degree, I feel like I need to focus more on original stories. I've had a novel idea in the back of my head that I've been playing with for three or four years now (the first chapter is the only chapter that I've written for it, but it's also the piece of writing that got me my place at my university) so maybe it's time to start that, even though it's not fully planned yet. The last thing I want it to be is a great idea that I never do anything with.

I'm too indecisive for my own good.