Even Losing is Winning in NaNoWriMo

I’m beginning this reflection at 9:45am on Sunday, April 25th. If I count today, I’ve got six days to write about 14,000 words. But I also work my day job for four of those days, and today, my last day to get a really good amount of words in, might not be a great writing day.

So far this morning I’ve been tempted to throw everything away and start over for the third time on this WIP, doubted it’s even worth it, decided I will never finish another book, rallied myself with a pep talk about how I felt during drafting some days on my last book, and settled at: overwhelmed and procrastinating. Which is why I’m here, writing my reflection on NaNoWriMo before it’s even over.

The worst part is, I’m still doubting myself, but not that I can’t write it, that I’m still not ready to write it. Outlines are key for me, and editing can be a special sort of hell where I feel like Sisyphus rewriting the same 20k words over and over, never getting to the heart of the book, to what I want it to be.

My other biggest struggle is distraction. Here’s a not-entirely-comprehensive list of everything distracting me:

• Multiple story ideas that I want to flesh out and plot for

• Doing the dishes

• Preparing for the teen writing class I’m teaching in June

• Editing another MS

• Wanting to read all the amazing books on my TBR

• Spending time with my spouse

• The weather has turned gorgeous and I started gardening this Spring

• Okay yeah, social media

To be clear, these are all things I should also do! Except maybe social media—I’m working on it. It’s really hard to balance all of this, especially on top of the existential dread of the world in general and feeling overwhelmed by everything. Some days, all I want to do, and all I have the energy to do, is stick my hands in some dirt, take a long shower, watch a lot of TV, and go to bed early.

It’s stressful for me when the best times to write, when I prepare myself to be distraction-free and there’s plenty of time I’m not obligated to anything, have me sitting and staring at my WIP desperately wanting to do anything else. Literally anything. That’s typically when dishes and laundry and sweeping get done.

Comparing my November 2019 NaNo progress and this year’s April Camp NaNoWriMo is a little painful. I haven’t had a writing streak longer than four days this month. I’ve only had three total days that I got in more than a thousand words, and only a single day where I got in over two thousand.

NaNoWriMo Slump

I’m worried all the time that this book won’t be good enough, or it’s not the right book, and there’s nothing there I can salvage. I should just move on to the next project because that has to be better, right?

Pretty sure that’s some Second Book Slump anxiety talking, because I know my first book felt this hard at this stage. And even then, after I’d worked on my outline for over a month, and written the first draft (about 75k I think) in a six week frenzy, I have changed so much since then, multiple times. I’m still changing things! So I have to keep asking myself the same question:

Why does it have to be perfect on the first draft?

Unsurprisingly, I know the answer is “It doesn’t!” but my brain rejects that. I’m sure it stems from being one of those Gifted Kids™ (ugh, I know) who never learned to be bad at things. Either I was excellent at something on the first try and was told so, or I wanted nothing to do with it. I should probably unpack that in therapy at some point, but I can also recognize the pattern and know that a lot of the time, all I need to do is push forward. Most of the time, I can’t even tell what parts I wrote on bad writing days from parts I wrote on super great writing days. Words are words! Twelve words are still twelve words you didn’t have before. Even if you wrote one word a day for the month of April so far, or you wrote 3,000 the first week and didn't touch it again, you still won, because you put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper! And those words are there, waiting for more words to be added.

Sometimes when drafting feels wrong, you might have to step back. I love speed-drafting. I want to start with nothing but my outline, a case of energy drinks or iced coffee, and cafes to write in, and come out on the other side with most of a book in six to eight weeks. Unfortunately, I also have false starts, like I did this most recent November NaNoWriMo. Timing played a role in that case, but I felt good putting it aside, because the time away from that WIP gave me room to reimagine it and lean into the speculative elements more and more as I re-outlined and began redrafting this month. Taking another look at the big picture before I move forward is just like re-reading the ingredients before committing to the next step in a recipe.

My biggest goal with each new novel that I work on is to not only learn my own process better (see my blog on writing process) but to grow as a writer and push myself to do exciting and sometimes difficult things! I want to figure out new techniques and hold myself to a higher standard of craft. It’s possible I was too close to the draft, too, with a well running on empty. Maybe I need to read—fiction or a craft book—before I can jump back in with both feet ready to run.

As the last few days wind down, I’m fairly certain I’m not going to meet my word count. Does that sting a little? Yeah, sure. But I know I’m not hurting my mental health or relationships in the process. Writers don’t have to neglect their loved ones and other obligations to write a book. We can garden and re-watch all of the Marvel movies in chronological order with our spouses (me, I mean me). We can walk our dogs and cuddle our cats while playing Animal Crossing. The words will still be there when you sit back down to write.