I’m not going to win NaNoWriMo again this year. I had a very solid start, I thought this would be my year, but then life came along and expected me to do things other than write. I was nodding off at my computer, not hitting my words for the day, and as this state of affairs wore on, the finish line not getting any closer, I knew I had too much to make up to be able to get there.
Now, the wonderful thing about NaNoWriMo, and the reason I keep doing it year after year, after year despite losing almost always, is that even thought I’m going to ‘lose’, I have 28,453 words written as of today. I hope to at least get over 30,000 by the end. My normal monthly word count is probably 1/10th of that. That’s nothing to be upset about.
From pushing myself to write more each day, I’ve learned what a comfortable amount of writing is for me in a sitting, and in a day, and it is much more than I’ve been doing prior to NaNo. I’ll report in in another month, but I have a new system I’m going to try out for myself to make my writing more consistent based on what I’ve discovered about my process and what I think works for me and what does not.
Basically, I think daily, or at least almost every day daily writing does work better for me than letting days and days go by with nothing. I get more excited about my story, it stays in my head, and new ideas pop up when it stays in my head. However, forcing myself to write while exhausted, or drained from a hectic day produces stupid writing that is also tired and dull. So while I need to push myself, I need to stop short of force.
That’s how NaNo went for me.
Karabu Creations 