I am now on Day Five of the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) program. I thought I would take a few minutes and reflect on how it is going so far and what I am learning from this exercise. I am coming to realize things I hadn’t anticipated and trying to re-assess what needs to happen in the next 25 days.
The day before NaNoWriMo (that acronym doesn’t really flow off the keyboard regardless of how many times I try to type it) began I was filled with enthusiasm thinking about a month where I would be able to focus on writing. I carefully arranged my desk and went as far as creating a music playlist for those blocks of writing I would be doing. I tried to explain to family and friends what I was going to do, and they were excited for my journey and looking forward to the completed project.
Thinking back just five days ago I now realize that I had set myself up for failure. From a personality type I continually face an internal struggle. On the one hand I have a tendency to plan and plan and plan. As an example, at the beginning of the year we as a family talk about where we would like to go on vacation in the upcoming summer. Once a destination is decided upon, I spend every waking hour analyzing the trip and making sure we have accounted for every contingency. By the time the vacation arrives I have planned out every second we are gone. I am constantly evaluating progress and adjusting plans. While the vacations usually go smoothly it feels more like a death march to completing a project plan rather than a restful distraction from our everyday lives.
This leads me to the other half of my internal turmoil. I am a highly creative person who loves taking the raw materials of life and forming something from it. Something I can share with the world that I created. This half is the mortal enemy of planning. Life should be looked at as a set of raw materials that change as we do. What we build depends on our imagination and the circumstances we find our self within.
These two halves have to be managed separately and I am in a constant internal struggle of how the pieces fit together. For NaNoWriMo I decided very late to attempt this which meant that I didn’t have the time to devote to planning like I should. For better or worse I decided to let my creative side lead and just go with the flow. You would think that creating a working book project would be the perfect opportunity to let my creative side run free. So far, it’s not working out nearly as well as expected.
I started off with a working title and the inkling of an idea for a book. I actually had three book ideas and it wasn’t until the clock struck midnight on November 1 that I decided which one to work on. I had no characters identified nor a setting. The storyline was not yet defined but there was an idea (or a spark of an idea anyway).
As I started, I thought it would be best to work chronologically through the story adding a block on top of the blocks I would write before them. It seemed appropriate to begin with an introduction, press forward through the various aspects and end on November 30th with a conclusion.
That first day I wrote the beginning of an introduction. Notice I said beginning. The goal was really to write the whole introduction but that didn’t exactly play out. At the end of the day I had written 1,949 words which surpassed the daily goal of 1,667 words needed to complete the assignment of 50,000 words by month end. The reality is that I wrote and rewrote that introduction five times. That is no exaggeration, I started over five times in the first day. In all honestly I had written close to 4,000 words to get to 1,949 and even then I am not particularly happy with those on the page right now.
Others who have done NaNoWriMo before are great motivators that try to help newbies like myself. The first piece of advice they give is to just write. Don’t stop and think about what you have just written. Don’t edit, just write. This month is about putting words on paper (or screen). You will have plenty of time in December or January to manage what you wrote and make it coherent. I’ve decided that is easier said than done.
Taking that advice, I changed plans a bit to only write and let my creative self go wild. The second day went much better than the first. My word total jumped to 4,228 and I was ahead of writing schedule by almost 1,000 words. My spirits were high, and my confidence was building. It was still a struggle not going back and tweaking what I had written but I assured myself there would be time I just needed to keep up the pace.
Then came day three. I sat down to write six different times that day. Each time I got a few words down only to be interrupted. Whether it was self-imposed or external I got stopped as soon as I got started. Finally, late into the night when everyone was asleep, I sat down and attempted to put words to paper. The end result was 549 words none of which I was proud of. I changed the title of the book three times and still don’t know exactly where this is going. Day three was a complete loss. Seeing that happen so soon after I started was a serious motivation killer.
Suddenly I was questioning whether I should even have attempted this. What was I thinking? I’m not a writer. I’m barely a husband and father what made me think I could do this? I sulked to bed and struggled to sleep questioning whether I should abandon this.
The morning of day four was the first of what I think will be many just like it. I’m on a path. I can see the goal, but I am faced with an obstacle. I can let the obstacle define me or I can overcome it and move on. I chose to move on. The thing with obstacles is that they become distractions depending on how you deal with them.
You’re on a road and a tree has fallen across it making it impassable. You can move the tree and allow yourself to get by or you can stop and deal with the tree. You can cut it up into pieces so that it is never going to block the road again. You can split the pieces to turn the logs into firewood. You can take the firewood and stack it in the garage, so it is ready to burn when winter comes. All of that is valuable work but after you’ve finished that work you are too tired to travel further down the path and decide to start tomorrow when you are fresh.
What is most expedient is to look at the big picture and simply move the log. You can make note to come back after your journey to cut it up and use the firewood but for now you need to just get by and continue hiking.
This was an important realization for me and helped give me another mechanism to deal with unforeseen challenges. I would love to say this will be the only thing that stops me, and the path is clear all the way to the summit, but I know that’s not the case. So, I will keep managing the journey.
Day four was better from a creative perspective. After the setback of day three I needed a win and it came last evening when I sat down and worked through another writing session. It’s still not as simple as throwing words on a page, I did rewrite a lot, but it wasn’t as arduous, and I didn’t stop for too long or retrace too many steps. I looked at it more like a slight course adjustment more than changing paths. At the end of that writing session my total word count was 6,738 more than making up for the shortage from yesterday. Maybe this is doable after all.
So here we are at day five. Counting today I have three days left this week and on my way to a writing habit. While I am still letting my creative side lead, my planning side is chipping in. I have made a list of potential story ideas that can be used as a jumping off point for a writing session. This is at least helping my planning side not hyperventilate whenever my creative side gets in front of a keyboard. I’ve also assured myself that once creative side is done, planning side will get his turn and try to put some structure into these writing sessions to give me a somewhat coherent theme.
This whole process is giving me a new appreciation for what writers do and how the successful ones do it so well. There is still so little I know about writing and I am stumbling more than walking but I am making progress. I am starting to learn which is the most important thing. Even if this month ends up with 50,000 words that are in no way salvageable into a working book, I will have learned and who knows maybe I will have a whole garage full of firewood from obstacles I tackled that can be used along with my manuscript to build a roaring fire and keep me warm this winter.
Now if only I could use this blog post as part of my word count. I would be done for the day.
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