This year's NaNoWriMo was easily the most irritating of all of them. Last years was really not very great either. Much like this year, I primarily hit my word counts through Write or Die. It was one of the best decisions I've made, since I can get 2500 words plus in half an hour so I can get things done. Unfortunately, this year, even with that. I barely managed to finish. My usual schedule involved me writing right after getting up (and showering, since cleanliness is next to godliness, and everyone knows that writers want to be gods, even if only for their own worlds), buuut stuff interfered with that. There were days when I'd get up and have to get straight to working on homework or I slept in and had someone coming up to see me so I had to get straight to getting reading and didn't have time. A lot of the time, those days turned into the ones where I wouldn't write at all. I'm notorious for being the sort who plans to do stuff and then will do everything under the sun to not do it. I will become bored as hell in my attempt to procrastinate as much as possible. Actually, that's exactly what led to this post. I have an English essay that I don't feel like working on, so rather than doing it, I've decided to get around to writing this like I said I would. The point is, NaNoWriMo was hard.
Actually, any writing is hard. Getting into the habit of writing is one of the best things anyone can do, but also one of the hardest. Part of writing is that you become so attached to the people in your head when you're in that space that you move to when you write, that it an be hard to get into it and then force the characters out of there. Part of what is needed to be a really good writer is to be able to follow where you think is best and let your characters (well, instincts) guide you, but sometimes you have to kick them in the butt. Whether or not you want to some of them will have to die, or be mean, or painfully homophobic. You have to be able to separate yourself from that, but sometimes it's hard to force yourself to do so. They're like your babies, and you don't want people to see all their faults. Instead, you want to stick them into an oversized crib and hire a nanny to make sure that the other kiddies on the playground don't start gnawing on their head or wiping boogers all over them. Really, the best thing you can do is let it go and just run with it and enjoy the entire process. I'm not at that point yet.
I am at the point, though, that I can say I've written more words in a month than many people who want to write will ever spit out in their entire life. And it's all for one book in this case, not a ton of books that I've started and stopped. I took something, moved past the planning stage (that most people get stuck on for whatever reason and never move past - my chair isn't comfy, my space isn't right, I don't have a name for my FMC's third cousin twice removed who you'll never meet but you'll hear about once in chapter seventeen) and done something. It's not something that the world will ever see in this case, at least I've done something. I have accomplished something that was fun, got a story out of my head, and reminded me that I can write. It's pretty darn awesome all around. Now it's time to move on to my next project - working on the novel that I actually like and starting the rewriting process that I've decided to start on fifty million times. This time, I want to get it done. Before that, though, there's a Christmas story that I offered to write someone. But before I can even work on that, I have an English essay to write.
Pfft. Priorities.
Cheers :)
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