Learning to be OK with not finishing NaNo

If you’re an indie author involved with other indie writers (or NaNoWriMo in November), you’ve probably heard of Camp Nano taking place in April and July. In honor of that, I wrote about what my process was for deciding to participate last year. And that was to make myself be okay with the possibility of failing. Here’s my story of learning to be OK with not finishing NaNo.

The Background

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo every year since I seriously started putting effort into my writing.  Having completed it every year, I didn’t want to break the pattern. If you read my post about my “It’s Complicated” relationship with the challenge, you’ll know that is quite a feat, considering in 2017 I finished NaNo with a concussion.  It wasn’t smart, but fortunately, I was nearly finished and was as careful as possible.  Would I do that again?  No, but I did that year.

Last year, the whole world changed, and we all had to change right along with it.  

I began “remote” schooling my daughter around St. Patrick’s Day 2020, except, if I’m honest, the school was nowhere NEAR ready for the situation, especially with a gifted student.  I am forever grateful to her phenomenal kindergarten teacher, who worked with me to figure out a schedule and assignments.  This pushed publishing the sequels to Entering Wildwood and Learning to Love to the back burner. No matter how much I love writing, my kiddo comes first.  

In August, when school started back up, we initially had the option of going back in person or continuing remote, and we chose remote (eventually everyone went remote).  Something I don’t often discuss is I have some health problems, and every year I get sick within a couple of months of my daughter going back to school.  Taking the chance of her bringing COVID home was not one we could take, for any of us.

However, come early September, I still somehow got it.  To this day we aren’t entirely sure how.  In the time leading up to not feeling well we hadn’t eaten out and I didn’t leave the house without a mask – the few times I ever did leave.  But, once I lose all sense of taste and smell, we knew we had a problem.  Thanking every power-that-might-be, neither hubs nor kiddo got it.  I quarantined in two small areas of our house, and they in the rest.  I got lucky that it wasn’t a severe case, but the ongoing effects have been pretty drastic.

November Means NaNo

When NaNo came around I was still recovering.  To say the exhaustion was extreme is an understatement.  Follow that with, even now months later, my new inability to focus for very long, I knew I was in trouble heading into the challenge.  I nearly skipped it, but I’m really stubborn.  I signed up and immediately marked myself as a “rebel,” admitting it might not have been the best idea.

Which is when the internal dialog got real.

I refused to skip a year, but I also knew the chances of hitting 50,000 words were next to zero.  I could either beat myself up about not hitting word goals or, for the first time ever, admit I likely would not be finishing NaNo and accept it.  And, finally, I accepted it.  I decided it was more important to try, to be a part of the experience than to go crazy trying to finish knowing it would be too much stress.

At the time, Wildwood #3 was half-written. The goal in NaNo is to hit 50,000 words. My plan was the full 50,000. It would put the word count over, but I would cross that bridge if I got to it.

I didn’t, but it was ok.

Why?  Because, for the first time since the pandemic started, I was writing.  Really writing – not just staring at my screen worrying about the world, or laying in bed wondering if I was going to end up in the hospital, or sitting on the couch thinking about writing but not putting any words to the page.  In the end, I wrote just shy of 31,000 words; honestly, more than I thought I would get, and that made me happy.

I had to let go of beating myself up for not writing, of telling myself I should be writing instead of worrying about EVERYTHING else, of giving myself guilt trips for not reaching goals, and it finally – FINALLY – gave me the freedom to actually write.  I had to let go of my expectations of myself.

I had to be ok with not finishing NaNo in order to start.