A Writer's Need

NaNoWriMo is well underway. It has been for twelve days, and the participants should be somewhere around 20,000 words written, if they’re on track. Many aren’t and that’s okay.

I wasn’t going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year because I’ve simply had too much on my plate and I need a break. I switched The Boy from home school back to mainstream high school, then discovered I still have to babysit him, plus he has his learners permit and I have to take him driving. Getting The Girl to choose a college, then change her mind twice was fun. She finally started school and got hit by a car. She’ll recover, but her injuries make attending even some of her classes hard so Hubby and I are helping her out. He drives her and carries her backpack to the classes she absolutely can’t miss, and I’m now playing teacher for The Girl instead of (mostly) The Boy for the classes she’s missing. It’s like a horror novel.

On a related note, I’ve taken up reading horror in my spare time (AKA long bubble baths). I didn’t like it before, but now… If I can survive a teenage boy, what’s a little death and carnage? Bah.

Oh, and we’re moving Hubby’s parents from the large house they’ve lived in for 40 years to a small apartment in a retirement village. Everything we pack has a memory and a story that must be relived at that precise moment before I can put it in a box. This will take forever.

And then NaNo came around again. I seriously have no time. Except, courtesy of stress and time constraints, for the past year I haven’t been writing much. I used to be able to sit down and knock out 1000 words in an hour or so and 5000+/day wasn’t anything worth celebrating. But I haven’t been writing 5000 words/day; most days I don’t write anything. I should have finished my work in progress by the beginning of the year. It’s November and I’m maybe 2/3 of the way through.

I don’t have time for NaNoWriMo. (Sound familiar?) I need to pack my inlaws, help my son with a math assignment, then study for a chemistry test. I need to make him actually read The Crucible because he’s trying to fake his way through the assignments. I also need to help my daughter study for two upcoming tests, clear out the garden and compost the tomato plants that refuse to die, winterize the yard, cover the air-conditioning unit, and get a new battery for the second car. Also take The Boy driving for Driver’s Ed. See? No time. Too many other things I need to do.

No, I’m a writer. What I need to do is write, and I haven’t been. Not blogs either. To a novelist that’s just not the same, and besides, I haven’t even been good about staying up to date there. Too many things are being pushed aside. I’m going slightly mad and I need to pull myself together. How? Write. I’m a writer, the need is pervasive and as essential as breathing to my overall well-being.

Back to NaNoWriMo then. It’s day 12. I have written exactly 0 words in my manuscript so far this month. I counted. (Actually I looked at the last day the file was updated and it said October 28.)  I don’t need to add 50,000 words to this book. It’ll take far less than 50,000 words to finish, but I need to finish it. I’m going to stick with the 50,000 word goal of the challenge anyway because it’s tradition. Once I finish she novel, I can start something else. But to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month means 2635 words/day. So? I used to do that regularly when I competed in NaNo. My personal goal was 2500 words/day and I usually exceeded it, so no sweat, right?

No. There will be a lot of sweating. Probably swearing too. I’m out of practice with less free time than usual and more stress. In short, I’m in about the same mindset as someone doing this for the first time. I was better than this my own first time which makes my position particularly embarrassing and uneasy for me.

The upshot? I’ll participate in NaNoWriMo again this year because I need to get my butt in gear and head back in the game, and this is part of what the challenge is about. For new writers or those who haven’t established regular and successful writing habits yet, NaNo is about making you stop daydreaming, procrastinating, or overthinking your project and just do it. I thought I was done needing NaNo years ago. When I participated it was for fun not the actual challenge of it. I lost my way over the past year and a half and now I need NaNo again to whip me back into shape.

The challenge is ready and waiting, now it’s up to me to rise to the occasion.

NaNo is for Those Who Struggle

We passed November 15^th, so in terms of NaNoWriMo, we’re halfway done. Maybe. If you’re participating and on track with your word count, you’re halfway done. If you’re ahead, great. If you fall into the other category, this is for you.

Word count obsession is a form of OCD and it’s contagious. I fought it for years and Word Count OCD relapse is one thing I don’t like about NaNo. I’ll only ever be eleven months Word Count carefreeless. And I worry a little about my peers, particularly the ones who struggle.

This is about what’s best for you. Maybe it’s a pep talk, maybe it’s a reality check, that’s your decision. If you’re using every trick in the blogs to legally pad your word count, or if you’re farther away from your goal than you like, take a step back and look at what you’re doing.

NaNo is a lot of things. It’s not meant to be easy. Don’t compare yourself to those who already have 50,000 words. Depending on the type of writer you are, there are tricks (mostly involving plotting and organization) that help you write 8-10,000 words/day. You’ll get there. To me, NaNo really isn’t about that. To me, NaNo is for those who struggle. It’s for those who haven’t finished a book yet, or only one and did so only at great personal cost. This is for the beginner, and it’s meant to be challenging.

For those that really and truly benefit from NaNo, it might take more than one or two attempts to finally meet that goal. That’s fine. The secondary goal is to develop habits and learn.

If you’re reading NaNo blogs, you’ve heard already to put your inner-editor away. This is no place for him, he fights with your muse. A lot of people who start to write a book never finish because they keep going back to rewrite that first chapter or two until it’s perfect, and they never get any farther. NaNo is about breaking that habit. That first chapter is not going to be perfect in a first draft, and it shouldn’t be. Actually, it’s common to finish your book and then have to go back and change the first chapter significantly. I’ve had to cut one altogether. If your inner-editor is on vacation, this isn’t a problem.

Sometimes writers never finish a novel because they get stuck. They get their characters to a point and then don’t know where to go next. Writer’s block has as many causes as cures and it’s different for everyone. This is trickier, but also a reason for NaNo. If you’re in a hurry, you don’t overthink it. If you absolutely cannot decide whether your character turns left or right, you should try letting your character decide. Put yourself in their shoes - with their goals, strengths, weaknesses and motivation - and decide what they would do.

If your character has no idea either, flip a coin. With NaNo, you don’t have time to debate it. Make a list of possible next steps and throw a dart at it. If you’re wrong, then: A, you learned something and B, you can fix it.

If you’re so overwhelmed you can’t even think of possible next steps, skip ahead. Books don’t have to be written in order. If you’re stuck in Chapter 2, but you know XX is going to happen at some point, write it. How you got from Chapter 2 to Chapter 6 is something you’ll obviously have to fill in later, but hey, 6 happens. Frequently I find that, looking back, I can see what had to happen in Chapter 3, 4, & 5 in order to get to 6. Or I come back to it when I’ve had more sleep/caffeine.

Sometimes life gets in the way. There may be little you can do on this one, but there are some things. There is a valid reason to track word count other than NaNo. When you sit down to write, make note of where you are, what time of day it is, day of the week. Details. Keep a log for a while and then review your productivity. Many writers have a best time of day to write. They’re either more productive or more creative first thing in the morning when they’re fresh, for example, or late at night when the house is quiet. It’s not uncommon to have a favorite place, and not being there throws you off your game.

When you don’t have a lot of time to write, make sure the time you do have is optimal. The right time, place, conditions, mascots, whatever you need. It takes time to discover this.

Where do you waste time? Find out, fix it. I look up most things on my phone to keep me away from the internet on my computer. Cats on the computer are funny, on a cell phone - not so much. There are blogs, use your resources. After your fingers are tired and you can’t write anymore anyway.

The end-all of NaNo is not 50k in 30 days, no matter what the banners say. More important than winning NaNo is: are you learning anything from it?