I know I should have written this post on the 1st really but hey it’s only the 5th so that’s not so bad right? A little bit indicative to be honest of how the month went. I have another post in the works dealing with the thorny issue of ‘consistency’ so I’m only going to touch on it here.

My goal for NaNo 2022 was to win (obviously) but I ideally wanted 75k/a complete first draft of my novel. Did I get it?

Well no.

I ended the month with 51,891 words, so it was a win in terms of the NaNo 50k and I did indeed make it before the end of the month (Friday 25th actually). Even if I had got the 75k that wouldn’t have been the complete draft as it looks like it will be my longest first draft ever at around 100k.

My dream goal of 10k on Day One wasn’t reached as I got 6,703 which was a semi-ok buffer for the 50k but inadequate for the higher goal which is perhaps why that flopped almost immediately.

I wrote on 18 days out of the month. I did a 15k/3 one weekend to catch-up and then get ahead a little. Hit 40k on the Sunday, and then the 50k the following Friday.

I didn’t take part at all last year. 2020 I was both more consistent and wrote a little more (nearly 67k) but that was fanfic. 2017-2019 didn’t really happen, 2016 was a high word count but a mixed mess. I have to go back to 2015 before I reach the last time I hit the NaNo 50k with an original draft. So from that POV the month was very much a success.

I remain disappointed that I am so far away from finishing the draft and December isn’t going well thus far (but more about that in another post).

The one last thing I said I would do is budget 3 hours to get my words in the morning, so I could do art in the afternoon. That did not happen ever. I never got the words I wanted in the morning, I often procrastinated so much I didn’t really start until after lunch. I tried to do sprints but it’s like there’s a switch in my brain. If it refuses to ‘turn on’ then I couldn’t start the sprint. Even if I did a sprint I then wasted so much time not starting again after the sprint ended. I did not make good use of my time. I did not focus how I would have liked. I despaired sometimes that I would sit there and get next to nothing one day, and then somehow that aforementioned ‘switch’ would be thrown in my brain and I would do 5k the next day. Why can’t I do that on demand? It’s so frustrating. But again more about that in another post.

I am trying to reframe things into positives. I got halfway into the draft – progress was made! But the fact that it wasn’t the level of progress that I wanted, and that the draft feels like the worst draft in the world, weighs heavily on me. I just perpetually disappoint myself.

BUT! I did win NaNo and it was with an original novel. So that is something.

This is the WriYe blog topic for the month of November. I mean let’s face it as a writer November is one of the bigger events on our calendars so it’s a fitting topic. This isn’t about my NaNo exactly. I did a post with my plans, and I did a post talking about how it was going, and I will do another as a retrospective about how it went. This post isn’t any of that – this is about the event itself.

I first took part in 2007. I have a vague memory I might have heard about it before that but it didn’t register, so 2007 when I was 17 was when I got my start. It was a well established event by then and I do still feel a slight envy for people who were around at the beginning (I feel like I’m always late to every party). I don’t believe I have any rambles from that actual time to look back at what I actually thought, but I know what I remember of it now which is the lesson it taught me. I went into that NaNo with a story that had been evolving in my head for years and what I found was I had characters, and they had lives, but there was no actual plot to say ‘hey the story starts here’. I think I got about 20k and then gave up but it was useful due to that lesson learned.

2008 and I managed to scrape 50k with what was technically a complete draft and the lesson from this NaNo was a thrill of typing ‘The End’ really, of having written ‘a novel’. This really is what gave me the taste. Now I have recapped my history with NaNo multiple times and I am not going to go through every single year again.

The point I am trying to make is NaNo = experience. This was my 13th actual attempted November event (I have also done various Camps) and it’s still worth it to me. I remember visiting my Grandma in 2013 I think? And I said I was doing NaNo and it wasn’t going well and her response “haven’t you already done that?” and I was taken aback because my gut reaction said it all.

“NaNo isn’t something that can ever be ‘done’ and finished.”

Me

NaNo is very much a ‘get out what you put in’ and ‘take what you need from it’ type of event. Some years I have learned lessons about writing, getting a feel for what works and what doesn’t through practice. The old ‘learn by doing’ applies because unless we put the butt in chair no progress is going to be made. NaNo is ALL about that butt in chair. Other years I have learned lessons about how much I need to plan, or about project/time management. Some years I don’t necessarily learn anything but writing is a lonely gig, and in November a lot of writers come out of the woodwork. That community spirit is a magic all of it’s own, even if I don’t participate much. I haven’t done anything with my region, I haven’t been on the NaNo forums etc. but simply knowing it’s November helps throw the ‘I should be writing’ switch in my brain. I am terrible for focus and having even a slight external deadline is a good push.

It’s the latter that I got out of it this year. After so many events and so many words written, it could be argued I don’t ‘need’ NaNo anymore. I try and write year-round now, it’s not like NaNo is my ‘once a year sojourn to the land of words’. But I still resist the idea that it is unnecessary. I suppose I could say for me it’s become more of a bonus a lot of the time but that isn’t true for many other people.

What does NaNo say? “30 days of literary abandon” – it gives people a gift, permission to turn one day, into today, and write their story. I believe so much in the power of story. It might be naive but I think that by imagining a better world, we help to actually create one. NaNo has literacy programs, like for Young Writers, and they send materials into schools and I believe in that. Give children the gift of stories, and let their imagination grow.

I guess I could say I believe in the ethos behind NaNo. That’s my main thought on NaNo really, that it’s incredibly important due to the power of story. Allowing people that wouldn’t otherwise have their voice heard, to perhaps start a journey to creating something magical which could win hearts and minds, maybe even change the world. Yeah, I know, that’s perhaps unlikely but there was a quote on Leverage: Redemption. I won’t quote it word for word as it’s from the new episodes and #spoilers, but basically it boiled down to individuals can’t tackle the worlds biggest problems. I can’t fix global warming. But what people can do is help others, who can then help others themselves, and then in ten years a lot of steps down the road, people can look back and see that progress has been made and it started with that little thing they did – that one person they helped. We don’t know what seeds we are planting for the future, because that sort of stuff takes time, but those kids that NaNo opens up a world of ‘literary abandon’ too, those seeds could become something amazing.

I’ve done a couple of ‘NaNo diaries’ over in my WriYe progress thread. I am trying not to spam it too much and it’s Day Eleven, so I figured I could update here. Technically I am still on pace for the 50k. If I don’t write today then that will no longer be true but what I mean is I’m still in the vicinity of that 50k pace.

But it’s not what I wanted, nor what I planned.

I wanted to finish the draft this month and I wanted to do so by the 28th so I could spend the 29th playing Dragonflight on Launch Day. For a 75k/28 pace, I will be 12k behind if I don’t write today. So I am both sort of ‘on target’ and very far behind. That hit me a minute ago as it’s all a matter of perspective. Back in 2007 when I first tried NaNo I would have been thrilled to have been on pace for 50k. Now it’s not enough, I’m not satisfied with it.

Why is it a struggle?

My mental health is not good. It’s got worse over time and I don’t seem to be able to reverse that trend. I had hoped that moving into my own house would be something of a ‘magic bullet’ but while there is lots to love, it hasn’t aided my productivity how I’d hoped. I feel mentally exhausted, I keep crying, I just want to curl up in a corner. Symptoms of overwhelm I guess. I need the onslought to stop, but that includes my own mind. So simply taking myself to a quiet, dark space isn’t a cure – it’s simply more poison.

I was expressing my frustration that this was still a problem now everything in my life is so much better with the house. It was suggested I had perhaps overdone it. The whole moving rollercoaster took pretty much a year. For the month prior to moving I redecorated the entire house which involved long days, every single day. I was drawing on an empty tank and just kept going because I wanted it done, and I wanted to move.

My response was that even if that was true – I’ve lived here nearly two months now, so shouldn’t I be over it? It took a few weeks for the pain in my joints to wear off, but it eventually did, so there has been recovery time. To blame my current state on the past doesn’t seem right but I guess it wasn’t just the past month, or even the past year. My mental health has been steadily getting worse for more than a decade. While the triggers for the chronic stress are no longer present, or have changed, over that time, my brain is still ‘trained’ if you like, to have those ingrained negative thought patterns. I don’t quite know how to fix that.

Why am I making this post? What am I hoping to achieve?

Well it’s not simply to complain. I’m trying so hard to reframe how I see things. I didn’t fail, I had a learning experience etc. So I thought perhaps as I’m struggling to write my current novel I should remind myself of past successes. Now, I’m not good at calling anything a success because the second I reach a goal, I am moving onto the next one. There’s always more to do. But NaNo is a first draft, so let’s just think about completed first drafts – not about how bad they were, or how much work they need, just the fact that they exist. They were complete drafts of stories that I typed ‘The End’ on.

Faithless
Perfidy
Perfidy (Rewrite)
Singularity
Fault Lines
Divided
Justified
Fall of Camelot
Carbon Scars

Obviously that list isn’t complete in terms of work. Perfidy only got drafted beginning to end twice, but I have pieces of at least three other attempts at that draft. I started a redraft of Fault Lines (calling it Shadow Play) but only made it halfway through. I have half a draft of Reckoning (aka book three). I have the start of Blood on the Board I was trying to write as a luddite project this year. Then of course there’s the mountain of fanfics, and a fair few of those were novel-length. They also exist. They are also complete stories.

So at the very least I can say on 9 separate occasions I have written a draft of an original novel that was 50k+ from beginning to end. I have done that. Therefore I can do it again.

Now I may not finish my draft this month how I would like. I may have to finish it off next month instead. I need to understand that’s ok. NaNo is a 50k/30 challenge. Yes I can give myself an additional challenge if I’d like but think about Day One. Par was 1,667, for my 75k/28 it was 2,679. I set myself a daily goal of 3k, and for Day One I said 5k as a buffer, and secretly I wanted 10k. I ended up with 6,703. That was a success by any measure but because I didn’t hit the dream 10k I was disappointed.

It’s quite probable that my misery stems from the fact that I don’t believe I can catch up and that my ‘dream goal’ of 75k by the 28th isn’t possible. So in typical self-sabotage I’m now struggling to do anything. I can’t stop dreaming, I can’t stop wanting more, but I’m hoping that by putting it in black and white here ^^ I can maybe start to get it through my thick skull that progress has been made.