NaNoWriMo 2022

Last August, I quit my job of 10 years to take a sabbatical and figure out what I wanted to do next.  After a few slaps on the wrist deterring me from immediately seeking another “real” job, I realized what I wanted to do most was write.  I had a story in mind already that I’d written a few drabbles of, so I joined the November 2022 NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  The goal is to finish a novel in one month with a minimum word count of 50,000.

I had dabbled in writing, and I enjoyed it enough to spend my then-limited free time doing it, but I’d never finished anything.  The 50,000-word goal for NaNoWriMo is supposed to be doable for someone with a full-time job and kids to take care of, neither of which I had.  Oof, I think they call that effective productivity shaming.  I’m in awe of anyone who completes NaNoWriMo under those conditions.

Here’s what I learned about myself during NaNoWriMo and how it helped push me to finish my first novel.

I Hate Goals, But I Need Them

I’ve had to do goal-setting exercises over and over in school, college, and in jobs.  Worksheets, posters, plans, colorful Post-it notes, and every “fun” visual gimmick you can think of. Goals look great on paper. 

I’ve always hated these exercises so much, almost as much as the one where we designate roles for a pretend project.  Can I be the encourager this time?  We all know the leader is the one who actually does the work, so, rookie mistake if you let yourself get saddled with that one.

I don’t even do New Year’s resolutions.  I think because it feels like I’m congratulating myself before I’ve even done the thing.  It’s a big theatrical production and we’re all winking at each other knowing we’re going to peter out a couple of weeks in and shove the cute sticker chart in a drawer until its absence from our immediate visual range renders our guilt nice and stale.  Then we can toss it into the recycling bin without too much grief and go on with our normal lives.

I don’t need to measure my productivity. I’m far too rugged and independent and self-aware for that nonsense.  If I want to do a thing, I’m just going to do it. I don’t need your silly sticker chart, I’m a competent adult, you see.   I’m sure you see where this is going.

Where the hell are all our stickers, I thought I put them in this drawer, and where’s that silky smooth gel pen with the perfect cerulean ink?  I have charts to make, damn it.

Yes, I do need to measure my productivity and hold myself to strict daily goals.  Having to enter my word count for NaNoWriMo quickly made me realize I couldn’t casually crank out 50,000 words in 30 days. My writing muscles weren’t (still aren’t) strong enough to do 1,600-ish words per day every day without pushing myself.  I had to learn to push past the point where I didn’t feel like it anymore and write outside my comfy-yet-fickle “writing headspace.”  My “really good days” would never have come close to making up the piles of debt I would have accrued on all the other days.  There’s my place, I’ve been rightfully put in it.

Stay Out of Debt

Goal debt demotivates me quickly.   If I get so far behind that the end goal/deadline becomes unreachable, I will absolutely temper my efforts and meander across the finish line rather than run.

I went into this knowing that about myself.  It’s a similar feeling to playing a video game for several hours while neglecting to save and then dying. As my character crumples to the ground, dead from absurdly massive trauma that I was neglecting to instantaneously heal for no good reason at all, I’m doing an internal calculation of how much finishing this game is worth to me.  At a minimum, I’m going to walk away and do something else for a while, and I’ve been known to put games down and not pick them up again.

Okay, I absolutely had to keep myself out of goal debt. 

Writing and tracking word count to meet daily goals was the only thing that worked to keep me out of the critical might-actually-quit zone.  At times, I’ve wanted to set weekly goals to give myself more flexibility, but that tends to land me in goal debt pretty fast – it’s just too tempting to think I’ll make up the deficit from Monday on Tuesday…then Wednesday...now it’s Friday and my daily goal has tripled. 

Another strategy that helped was to get ahead if I knew I’d be busy on certain days (like Thanksgiving day).  In the same way I hoard healing items and ammo in a video game, I’d save extra tidbits that went over my goal for the day, so I could enter them later on a busy or bad day.  I liked to do this instead exceeding the daily goal – it made me feel better to see the daily count met each day than to slightly decrease the remaining daily counts.  Occasionally, I’d write a scene or two ahead of where I was chronologically if I felt particularly inspired for it, to help push past the goal, or to save for a day when I needed a boost.  That’s only a little bit cheating, right?

Don’t actually quit if you get into goal debt.  I’m being somewhat flippant about how petty I get about the gamification.  I did make the deadline, and I’m glad, but that wasn’t the important part – the important part was getting there.  Meandering across the finish line is better than not finishing. 

If you do get behind, make a plan to catch up that you know you can make Future You actually do.  That’s really where the NaNoWriMo challenge helps you grow, by forcing you to figure out effective ways to get yourself to write.

Always Have a Means to Take Notes Because No, You Won’t Remember That Idea Twenty Minutes from Now

No, you can’t just trust yourself to do the thing, you have to babysit Future You like you’re both the twelve-year-old and the parent trapped inside the same body was kind of a running theme for me with NaNoWriMo.  The temptation to think that I’ll remember, catch up, or figure it out later is strong.  My lazy, inner twelve-year-old is ever persistent, wheedling me to slack off. 

I found that when I started writing regularly, I had ideas or wrote in my head more often.  Especially when jogging or driving, because my brain has decided the best time to write is whenever my computer is absolutely inaccessible – thanks for that. I keep a notes file on my phone where I can write down ideas and tidbits now because I finally had to admit that I won’t remember the thing.  Even when I’m completely, 100% sure I’ll remember this paragraph or it’ll be close enough, I am almost never right about that.  I either forget it completely or I can’t get back that perfect phrasing I knew I had earlier. 

Embrace Building Shitty Bridges Sometimes

I like to skip around when I write.  My brain will cook up a scene or two that I really like, I let it bounce around for a while, and when I finally write it out I enjoy every minute of it. I found that sometimes I could write a scene on the fly and really enjoy that too – sometimes it just flowed for me, clear and smooth.  But other times it was like scraping muck out of a bucket, and what came out was honestly, not good at all.  It’s tempting to think, why am I scraping this muck out of a bucket? I don’t even want this stuff!

I agonized over those parts (unfortunately, a big chunk of this was the very beginning of the story).  I finally had to just barrel through it, the same way I go through haunted houses – eyes squinty, feelings locked down, and not pausing to question anything I might see.

Of course, I had to revisit those parts later.  I had to give them several passes of edits and rewrites.  But having something there to start with was helpful.  I was able to give my brain time to chew on those scenes while I worked on other things. 

There were a couple of places where I just skipped over a necessary scene because I couldn’t bring myself to write anything.  Filling those parts in later from scratch was so much harder than fixing the parts I’d hastily and poorly bridged.  Even if we’re talking about a total rewrite of those bridges, I was still ahead because at least I could pick out what didn’t work, and get a direction on what else might work better.

Writing something you’re not at all happy with is a shit feeling.  But it’s just necessary sometimes on a first pass.  At least you made the bridge.  It might be a rickety bridge that you’re afraid to drive over.  It might not even be to scale, a bridge for mice!  That’s okay; it didn’t need to be good, it didn’t even need to have utility, it just needed to be there, like the one you made out of toothpicks and marshmallows in 7th-grade math. 

There’s a Community – You Should Probably Engage With It?

This is one thing I didn’t do at all, that I kind of wish I had.  Many people find it helpful to link up with a community or friends to hold each other accountable in endeavors, but I don’t – attaching social obligations to a thing just makes me dread it.  Completing NaNoWriMo by myself and talking to almost no one about it worked well for me.  I am a consummate introvert.  Also, I’m rugged and independent, remember?

Yes, as with the whole goal-setting thing, it turns out I do need help.  A community really would have helped me in other ways besides encouragement and accountability.  After I finished NaNoWriMo, I decided I wanted to complete the novel and see how far I could take it. I didn’t know anything about self versus traditional publishing or what the next steps should be. I needed to learn how to write a query letter and a synopsis, and I really struggle with “selling” myself or my work in general, so I have a huge learning curve there. I had to get beta readers, and the last time I’d let anyone read my writing, I was a teenager in high school.  I’ve always been fine with receiving feedback on my work, but oof, it’s a fresh new experience when it’s something this personal.  I really must emphasize this: get some feedback while you go along, especially if you haven’t recently gone through that process.

Being more involved in the community aspect of NaNoWriMo could have really helped me.  Especially since it is geared toward new writers.  I’ve recently peeked into some general writing communities but have mixed feelings about them.  I’ve encountered a lot of condescending attitudes toward new writers and snobbery about self-publishing in particular that were disappointing.  The NaNoWriMo community radiates positive, welcoming energy and I now realize how much I needed that.

I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo in 2023, starting with Summer Camp in July.  This time I’m going to engage more, even if I have to drag my introverted self into those discussion forums.

If you are thinking of trying NaNoWriMo, do it. Don’t overthink it.  I had a great experience, even considering the uncomfy marshmallow bridge-building and sobering truths discovered about my ability to self-motivate.  It was life-changing for me to discover how much I enjoy writing, and that I could push myself past easy mode and complete an entire novel from start to finish.  I don’t know where I’m going to end up from here, but I’ll forever be grateful for the experience.