Hello everyone,
The first full week of November is almost at an end, and if you’re like me, you’re over 12 thousand words deep into your story. If not, that’s okay too. Personally, I have had a couple of days (if you count today), where I was unable to come up with a thing to write. On Tuesday, I had a bit of an upset stomach which threw me off my creative course, and today I’ve been a bit tired and couldn’t think of a thing to write. However, you, like I, will have days where either the muse doesn’t visit you for whatever reason, or where you don’t physically feel like you can sit down and concentrate enough to write a single word. If this has happened to you, let me give you a bit of encouragement, you’ll be all right. You’ll eventually push through, whether you win or not.
This is the reason why I started a day early, so that I could make up for the day or so where I would be lagging for physical or creative reasons. If I don’t reach the 50 K word goal, that’s find with me, because I have won NaNoWriMo once, so winning isn’t my main reason for taking on this challenge. For me, this is an opportunity to give myself an excuse to start and flesh out a new story. I’ve started a few new things, yet I haven’t fully fleshed them out, so here’s my reason for seeing this threw in one month. As to the other stories that I’ve started and not finished, I’ll work on those later, but for now, Hidden Gems is the story vying for my utmost attention.
Let this be a word of advice to any new NaNoWriMo writers out there. No matter whether you’ve fail to reach the 50-thousand-word goal in thirty days or not, you’ve still started a new project and now you have the chance to give yourself the permission to flesh out your brand-new creative baby, so to speak. All I can suggest is that you keep pushing through the best you can and don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day of writing, no matter what the reason for not doing the work.
When I wrote my first Nano novel, entitled The Apple Wheel, in 2014, I felt as though I had to hurry up and get the 50 thousand words written before the month was over. Although I surpassed my goal, my story was literally all over the place. I told several stories and jumbled them up into one. At some point I will revise the novel and cut it down to size, so I can publish it as a middle grade mystery. The lesson I took away from winning my first NaNoWriMo challenge four years ago, was to get the words down on my computer screen. However, don’t think you have to win to succeed at this challenge.
I hope you take courage from my update and my story, because even if you fail to reach the overall 50k word goal, you’re still not a failure. You have taken the first step toward either becoming a writer or advancing your writing career. With four books under my belt, I can tell you that the accomplishment of getting your book published is an exciting and rewarding experience in itself, so get those words down and then come back and revise after a much-needed break.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my NaNoWriMo update and pep talk. I need to work on my story, so if you have a lesson you’ve learned in your writing, whether you’ve done NaNoWriMo or not, please share it in the comments below. Until next time, happy writing and God bless.