In my case, a little slower than I would like.
NaNoWriMo 2016, has been underway for 11 days now, and I have to say, it’s an interesting experience. People can get involved as much or as little as they like, so you might write a few hundred words this month, or, you might complete the 50,000, join a local group, attend all virtual and real-life Write-Ins, collect all the badges, buy a Halo etc. etc.
I fall somewhere in the middle (my life story that!)
Up to this point, I have written 13,163. Not bad, but at this pace it isn’t going to get me reaching my target before the end of November – and here’s the interesting thing, for me; I have always considered myself a lazy person, I will take the awkward option, make my life more difficult, but I always thought I had little self-motivation. I procrastinate like, well, a procrastinator. All of a sudden though, I remember when I trained in Tae Kwon Do, I have a competitive streak, it’s a very deep running vein and needs prodding to get going. I have found that NaNoWriMo is just the thing to bring out that competitive side.
NaNo isn’t a competition – and if it was, it would be against yourself. But for those of us with even a smidgen of that spirit, it’s just the tonic. This all sounds like I don’t write without someone or something prodding me into action. Not true. I actually do write, at least every other day. When I’m ‘on a roll’ with a story, time flies by and it’s every hour that can be ‘spared’. But I have been struggling with an idea, the bare bones were sketched out, and it went stagnant. NaNo has been the impetus to just get on with it.
A garden needs certain things to grow, light, water, food. The garden that is you, the writer, needs the same. Eat well, get outside in the fresh air and take liquid refreshment. On this point we might differ, tea, coffee, gin, wine…
So, fellow Wrimo’s:
Write -whenever you can. Write – without research. Write – a little every day (50 words will do). Write – whatever comes into your head. Write – because when November is over, you will look at however many words you wrote and be able to say, “I am a writer”.
Cheerio
Flailing Through Life 