Today is day 12 of Nanowrimo 2018 and I am significantly behind on my word count and there are many reasons why.
- It is ridiculous to attempt to write an entire novel in 30 days and this is my form of protest.
- Nanowrimo has totally failed to accommodate those of us who suffer with undiagnosed OCD and think that the idea of writing without editing is a form of medieval torture.
- My kids were born and well hello…
- There is some really, really good TV on right now, I mean what will happen to the survivors if they take Rick away and who the hell is that women in the picture with Jack???
- I still have to work. I considered taking part of November off work so I could really dig in but realized that as a wife and mother I should probably reserve some vacation time for my family right?
- Sleep
- People keep talking to me. Most times I am okay with that because generally I really like talking to my friends but then there are my students who constantly have questions about the course that I’m teaching them and well that just throws my entire day off.
- I have zero ideas. Everything has been thought of before, everything has been written of before and I am stupid.
- Other people are intimidating. Have buddies they say, keep each other accountable, it will help. Except I just spent two days watching other people’s word count go up meanwhile mine has been moving at *Miranda Priestly voice* a glacial pace.
- I lack commitment. I mean I have been completely committed to my husband so not completely but I am definitely struggling to stay committed to this challenge.
So my friend Susan told me that failing Nanowrimo the first time is a rite of pass… wait, no… a write of passage (Ha!) and I should just be okay with that. Gee Susan thanks for the boost! But I get it. Should I not reach the 50,000 word limit but instead manage 30,000 or 40,000 words I could still consider that progress. On October 31st I had 0 words and now I have made a significant dent in my novel. So maybe if I can just keep going I could still realize the ultimate goal of writing my first full length novel, even if not by November 30th, definitely before the year is through. So I am forging ahead, which means that Ms. Let’s do this! from November 1st has been replaced with the slightly less annoying Ms. Alright I guess we should keep going? So here’s to lessons in commitment and staying the course. Wishing you a successful nano experience and hoping that you come out of this feeling like a winner regardless of what the numbers say.