Day 25 NaNo 2024

 

For me, NaNo is finished this year. It's Thanksgiving week and I have shopping and cooking to do, lots of Christmas decorating, too. Cleaning house. I have really enjoyed my experience this year because I did accomplish a lot of things I planned for and yes, hoped for, too. I did keep a notebook, but the realization of trying to write in it, write on WIP, read, study, clean house, take care of myself, have a life, well, you know the drill. I am not able to do all things. and keeping social media and blogging alive is at the bottom of a long list of things I need to do. However, I did want to see what I could do in a month under very normal, everyday circumstances and it looks like I wrote this:Progress: 58% (28,837 out of 50,000 words) in 25 days.

The Rambling minds....here I go.

However, that said, no, I would never be able to sustain such an amount consistently. I would say 20,000 words is closer. Remember, I am editing and revising as I go, not first drafting. 20 pages a week is monumental for me as a writer. And writing 80 pages a month means 20 pages a week, revising, editing, and note taking as I go. Some weeks I might do that and more. But consistently. No way. Not even for 80 pages. Some weeks I am sure to do less. There was a time when I could write almost 100 very good pages a month, but that time is long past and accepting that is critical to be being a successful writer at this time in my life. Even 18,000 words a month seems daunting to me.  I am going to work for less, and settle on 15,000 words a month which is 60 pages a month. That is all I need. 60 pages is 3 very good pages for 5 day working week and I can write a damn good book a year which will please an editor. That is the goal. This was the goal of NaNo this time, to see what I could do intellectually and physically. I had to challenge myself and do this with intent, because people need to have faith in my abilities. Do you know what 3 damn good pages a week means. That 60 pages a month times 12 months. That is every weekend off and probably more. That's 720 pages. Damn. And I don't write 720 page books. I am writing, at most, a 550 page manuscript this time around. What I know is this time next year my manuscript will be in New York City, possibly sitting on some editor's desk. Possibilities are real.

Some serious concerns I made a note of doing NaNo.

Other things I learned and I did this scientifically. There are benefits to tracking your word count or page count. I highly recommend tracking your process, not only writing but your self care and other aspects related. That time counts. Habits are your life. Good habits are worthy of that little gold star on a page and lots of gold stars should be rewarded with something special. This is how human behavior works. Of course, rewards won't work if a person just does anything and everything they want all the time without care and self-reflection. So this is where discipline matters. Self regulation matters. A good reward system is contingent on making rules and sticking to rules. Basically I am not an extrinsic reward seeker. Most highly creative people are not. But a highly gifted person can learn to create an environment where work is important, work is tracked, self-care is tracked, and rewards are given for keeping to both. Finishing one thing is extremely important in this environment. Finishing the goal. And that leads to my final statement.

Make a work statement. The dream work statement with all this in mind. Write with INTENT. Intent is my new special word. I use it a lot in my writing, too. Because intent means something. Unlike goals, New Years Resolutions, and so forth, our intentions are shaped by our experiences, our deepest desires and loves. Intentions give us meaning. They provide focus. Every day I will begin with intention and if I am challenged emotionally or physically, I have a tool box of skills to help me through. Why? Because experience is a brutal teacher if one learns from mistakes. I have learned, some days, the hardest way. So I have skills from experience and time. I no longer do things over and over the same way because it's the way I go. I change.

These are good skills to have in writing. To create a story with intent, to reflect on what you are writing and why, what you want the story to mean, it's promise and premise, its emotional journey. How it will feel to the reader, too. I now believe intention is very necessary and that is why a lot of creatives fail. They are always looking at the end result when the process is what counts. Process is everything.  The right attention and amount of attention a writer gives to process is critical, to what works and doesn't, to how experimenting and failing counts too. That showing up is everything. That the power of those first 30 minutes when you sit down with intent are everything.

I so love writing...and the process. I always choose to learn new things while I write a new book. I set goals for new things. For example, I am pushing myself out of a comfort zone on both Point of View and verb tense. I am learning how to write good vignettes. This was intent. Also, I am learning how to do all this on my own, because predicament has placed me alone in this journey. This has been difficult. But I learned. My social life is now directed to people who don't write or want to talk about writing. It may do. Smiling.