NaNoWriMo failure

It’s December and NaNo is officially over. For those of you who have read this blog the past month, you’ve seen several posts about NaNo. Well, I thought I would share my NaNo failure story. Yep, my first time posting on this blog and I’m going to talk about my failures.

50,000 in one month – doable? Oh yeah! For me? Nope.

I started off great – 10K in one weekend, the most I’ve ever written in such a short span. I thought, Hey this’ll be a breeze, I can write Larch this month and finish Judgement next month and be ready to query again by the end of January.

By day seven I was right where I should be. By day ten I was behind. That little graph laughed at me every time I clicked on it’s tab. Seriously, I heard it snickering and taunting. By day twenty I was up to 20k, still 10k behind and realized there was no way in Hades I would reach 50k by today. I was going to join the ranks of NaNo failures, plus Larch and Stone wouldn’t shut up in my mind, dreams, shower or car.

Of course I have to be faithful to my characters and finish their story. I have fallen in love with them and their world and finishing their story is something I look forward to. Would I have ever tried a dystopian? A book set in the future? A borderline sci-fi? I must give a resounding no but now I have attempted it, have 30K and a fleshed out plot.

So do I consider myself a NaNo failure? Yes and no. Yes, I didn’t get out the 50k. Too much in my life got in the way: family, homeschooling, beta reading and the oh, five or ten novels I read this month. I guess I could’ve skipped schooling the kids but I do want them to go to college. And I could’ve not read those other books but I enjoyed them.

So the conclusion I have come to is: if 50k was that important to me then I would’ve prioritized it over the frivolous things I did – and no, schooling is not considered frivolous, don’t even go there ;) .

I’m very grateful to NaNoWriMo and will definitely participate again next year, plus I met some great writers in Augusta at our NaNo writing meet-ups. I encourage all writers to try it next year. I had a blast!

Original post published on Old People Writing for Teens by GotYA contributor Jennifer Wood. Original post and reader comments can be viewed here.