NaNoWriMo 2020 is coming to an end, and I figured I would share my experience taking part in the challenge this year.
I decided that my project for this year would be Self, my sequel book to Calypso. I hadn’t written much of the book, having most of it in note-form scattered across various notebooks and docs, and figured the push of NaNo would help me to actually get things written down coherently. I told myself from the beginning that it was okay if I didn’t finish by the end of the month, that my own personal goal wasn’t to have a finished draft but just to make sure I wrote every day (and finishing would just be a wonderful bonus if it did happen).
Naturally, I didn’t finish. Not even close. Currently, I’m at just over 15,000 words.
I figured that no social life would mean tons of spare time to write, plus the added motivation of my word tracker on NaNo’s website, but I really felt like I just had no time or headspace to be creative this month. Working full-time during the day has been more exhausting than ever before (thanks to COVID) and writing my book was the last thing on my mind when I came home each day. It was so much easier to focus on my other WIPs than the one I promised I would focus on this month.
But hey, it’s fine that I’m not going to finish. I told myself from the beginning that it’s fine. It’s hard to accept that I’m not going to get that little bonus feeling of finishing the whole book, but again, that’s okay. My goal was to write, and I wrote.
And that feels good.
There’s always a lot of pressure that comes with NaNoWriMo (I thrive under pressure), so I hoped it would really force me back into the headspace of regular writing. Inktober did it for me, what with having to keep up with the daily challenges (I made it about halfway, folks). I need that constant push, otherwise I just putter around with about twenty different stories, all half-finished and half-thought out. I’m sure many can understand my problem of wanting to write it all, and not having the time or mental capacity to do it.
But speaking of, my Inktober stories from last month are still coming along nicely. I have a couple of stories that were based on the Inktober prompts that I never got to finish within the month itself, but I like my ideas and want to see them through. I’m continuing to work on those as my “cool down” from the book. Besides, despite the scifi-LGBTQ-YA vibe my book series has, I’m all about the horror. I can’t get enough of these spooky stories.
Another little achievable goal for myself: get those stories done by the end of this year.
Wish me luck!