Can you believe we’re already a week into NaNoWriMo? It’s passing in a bit of a blur so far. This time around I get my best writing in after my daughter goes to bed too. It never ceases to amaze me how much my NaNo experience changes every year.
For those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo is, it’s a challenge to write a novel in the month of November.
Nation
Novel
Writing
Month
If you participate, you are pledging to attempt to write 50,000 words throughout the month. If you break that into all 30 days, it comes out to 1,667 words/day. At its heart, NaNoWriMo is our kick in the pants to get off our behinds and buckle down on writing.
I was thinking about all of this today after reading another author’s blog post about her previous NaNo experience. As I mentioned in my last post, I didn’t decide to participate this year until the first day; thus proving my pantser status. I knew about NaNo long before I ever tried to do it, probably for at least a decade, honestly. However, I wasn’t writing on this scale back then, so didn’t think I could succeed. The draw was there, but the confidence wasn’t, so I skipped it for a long time.
My NaNoWriMo History
I logged my first NaNoWriMo project in 2017. I was in the middle of my second book (what became Learning to Love!), and the ideas for Book 2 of that series started flying while I was still working on the first. It was the end of October so I thought what the heck and signed up.
Honestly, it was a whirlwind. I finished the first book and flew straight into the second without even stopping to think about editing or anything else. I knew I had to get the words down before they disappeared and I lost the story. If you’ve been on the NaNo site this year you know they did a major update and I can’t see most of the old information there anymore; but I wrote over 72,000 words that month, including the entire second book in 9.5 days.
Where this becomes a cautionary tale is also why I insist on having buddies who will help you keep it real. I don’t remember much of those 10 days because my face was staring at my laptop all day every day. My daughter was annoyed with me and it was something I would have to make up with her for it.
Where I utterly lost my mind was trying to write through a concussion. Our car has one of those foot sensors to open and close the tailgate, and in my hurry to load the car after shopping, in the rain, I somehow trigged said sensor, and the hatchback closed. Except it did NOT stop when it hit my head and continued to push down on me. I had to step back to get myself clear of it. At the time we all laughed it off as another instance of my being a klutz (because let’s face it, I am!), and went on with our day.
The reality hit in the middle of the night, except I was in no position to put it together. I woke up needing to hit the bathroom, except, when I got out of bed, I had NO idea where I was or how to get where I was going. It was like I had never been in my bedroom before; I didn’t know where any of the doors were, or even what house I was in. I was so confused all I wanted to do was get back in bed and go back to sleep, so that’s exactly what I did.
The next morning, while talking about it with people, it was like a lightning bolt of realization as all the pieces came together. I wasn’t supposed to use anything with a screen, and these days that doesn’t leave a whole lot of options. Except I was also desperate to finish that story. So I would do little writing bursts with my laptop heavily into night mode turning as much blue light off as possible. It was my writing buddies who managed to get me to look at the bigger picture and make sure I took care of myself. They talked me into a good long break after that book and empathized with my frustrations, making me feel like it was okay to both be upset and alright with the time off.
To The Present
This year is a different story. I have two books published, 2 ready for editing, 3 pieces in progress, and decided to jump into NaNoWriMo with Book 3 of the Wildwood series. I feel like I have a much better grasp on taking care of myself and not forcing writing just to keep up with goals. And, so far, it’s working. I try to make sure I write every day, but I’m not stressing too badly about the word count, and I think the lowered stress is helping me write faster.
Today is the one week mark. Somehow, this year is going better than the last 2 years of NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNos in April and July (for the record, I didn’t complete either of those and while I felt bad, I didn’t let me beat myself up over it either).
Yesterday alone I wrote 6,665 words and it brought my total to over 21,000. Six days in and I’m closing in on halfway through the challenge. I created myself a reward plan and I’m sticking to it. You should see the Gloria Jean’s chiller I had last night!
Today I haven’t written anything more than this post, and that’s ok too, the words will come when they’re ready.
So… The moral of all this, besides giving you an update on how things are going, is to
1) Encourage you to challenge yourself to do something difficult, even if it’s something you’ve failed at before.
2) Make sure you take care of yourself while you’re doing it. You’re much more likely to succeed if you do!
Drop me a note and let me know how NaNo, or whatever your challenge is, is going! Let’s all do something awesome this month!
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