Though I didn’t meet my goal of 15,000 words by the end of this weekend (which has six minutes left to its name), I still feel pretty good about my progress thus far in NaNoWriMo. How is everyone else out there doing?
It’s definitely every bit as stressful as I thought it would be. I put a lot of pressure on myself (probably unnecessarily so) but it’s just my nature that I can’t do anything less than a 100%. I’m also extremely competitive (ask my friends, who are about to compete against me in a two-day scavenger hunt on board our cruise later this week, they will tell you that in my mind there is no such thing as a “friendly” competition). I know I’ve said that I would be okay with only penning 30,000 words because it would still be great progress on a second novel, but the truth is that I can’t settle for anything less than 50,000. Even if it kills me.
This competition is about beating my own greatest opponent–myself. I must prove that I do have some will power hiding somewhere inside of me. I can force myself to make time for my writing. I can avoid the distractions of TV, Twitter, Facebook and the Internet as a whole. I can beat the sophomore slump and write a second novel–one without seasonal parameters so I can promote it year-round. I can do this!
I hope everyone else out there in the NaNo universe is doing well. The first hurdles out of the gate always seem to be the tallest and therefore the hardest to get over, but once you get passed them and the adrenaline really kicks in, you’ll be breaking the tape before you know it.
Actually, I’m not entirely certain that they ever use finish line tape in hurdle races, nor do they use gates. I also don’t know for sure that the beginning of the race is harder than the end because I’ve never actually run a race. But that’s entirely beside the point.
If you’d like to read what I’ve put together so far, head to my little corner of the universe on Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/28915
Hopefully I’ll have a little more to upload before I leave on Thursday.
Good luck and great writing!
Later days,
– Shannon
