Tip of the Day: Try the new Espresso Truffle at Starbucks. It's YUMMY.
It’s that time of year again—NaNoWriMo. Every year when it comes around I think oooh—that looks like fun. So many writers do it and everyone is blogging about how their projects are coming along and look at them all whip books out in just a month. It’s pretty cool. I’m in awe of those of you who can do it. But I just can’t do it. I’d love to, but it feels like an impossible thing for me.
1) I don’t work that way. I can’t just force myself to hammer out X amount of words a day. For me personally, most of them would probably be thrown out if I was forcing them like that. I need time to think about things—like sometimes days thinking about a scene or what should happen next. And THEN I sit down and write it. I may only get 1000-3000 words written a week this way. Definitely not good for NaNo-ing.
2) I can’t find the time every day. I don’t work really well when I’m tired so waiting until the end of the day is useless. I just want to go to sleep. First thing in the morning doesn’t work out for me either because that’s when I exercise and I can’t just ditch that either. All that time in the middle is all the stuff with the kids. So I have to set planned writing dates where my husband is hanging with the kids and I go out to write somewhere. Totally not conducive to Nano-ing.
3) I also always wonder why this takes place in November. Isn’t November a busy month for everybody? What with Thanksgiving and then getting ready for the winter holidays? Maybe Nano should be in February or March?
Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I don’t NaNo and I’m okay. I used to feel guilty about it (like every good writer should be doing this! Why am I not doing this?!) and maybe that is just a mom thing—we always feel guilty about one thing or another. But I’m okay with it now—my system works for me.
Kristina, Miss Soon-to-Pub
6 comments:
Hey Kristina,
I liked your post. I've never even WANTED to write a novel and I've been feeling guilty. =] Great job on creating a plan and making it happen, especially with your busy life. You rock!
Just this morning, I started questioning my sanity of doing this project in November as I struggled last night to get my desired word count (eyes tired from working all day). The exact opposite I was feeling at noon yesterday when Emily and I met for our writing group. Am I c-r-a-z-y? Probably, but I'll plug along to see what happens.
Marion, stick with it!!!! You'll have bad days and you'll have good days. But even if you aren't where you want to be, you'll be closer than you were at the start of November :)
I agree - who picked November? January would be much better, IMHO.
That long Thanksgiving weekend is a great time to catch up on word count. But I couldn't imagine taking on another thing this November. Tina, don't feel guilty about not giving into the peer pressure!
I didn't get the e-mail from you with the link and I can't find your address. Could you send it again? emilyneal@comcast.net.
THANKS!!
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