Early & Alone #25: NaNoWriNo
I’ve been putting off writing this letter for the last week because that’s what I do. And yet, I somehow managed to write in the neighborhood of 47,000 words in the month of November, thanks to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the initiative to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days, that began back in 1999 with a few friends looking for motivation. Of course, having a week in a house by a wintry beach in Hull helped immensely. But it was having a goal to pursue and a website to track it that really pushed me to write hundreds, sometimes thousands of words, nearly every day in November.
You might be thinking, “um, this is awkward, should we tell her that 47,000 is 3,000 less than 50,000?” and you’re right. According to the official NaNoWriMo guidelines, I failed. I wasn’t even writing a novel! I was gaming the system the whole time, writing nonfiction, then giving up right before the end. Yep, I did the equivalent of running a marathon only to just...stop a mile away from the finish line. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed that I wrote about my Nano efforts for weeks, giving daily word totals and complaining about how hard writing is. And then...silence. What a copout! What a tease! That’s like starting a story and never telling the ending! I’m a jerk.
But here’s the thing--I don’t feel like a failure. There were a few minutes where I really did, but then I thought about it, sat with that feeling, and then promptly got over it.
November 30 fell on a Friday this year. I believe that if it had fallen on a Monday, things would have been different. But I work full-time, and I exercise, and I also try to see people and go outside sometimes, so it turns out that writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a monumental task--even when you devote an entire week to it. (Granted, I also read and went outside and talked to friends, etc. etc. while on my writing retreat.) So, on Thursday night, after slogging through a couple thousand words after work, I copied and pasted everything I’d written so far into one file, then put it into the NaNoWriMo site’s official word verification checker-thingy. There’s a disclaimer on the site about doing this throughout the month to make sure your word processing software is roughly in line with the NaNo’s checker, but of course I didn’t do that. And when I saw that, according to the official count, I’d only written 45,000 words instead of the 46,855 words I’d painstakingly logged every day. That’s almost 2,000 words, gone!
It was almost midnight, and I was tired. I knew if I went to bed, I’d have to write at least 3,200 words the next day to make it to 50,000--and that was only by my count. By the official count, I’d have to somehow write 5,000 words in one day--a day where I’d also be working. I put my head in my hands and briefly felt like crying. Instead, I decided to go to bed and deal with it the next day.
Friday morning, I got up early and went to spin class, then wrote a thousand words, then started work. I figured I’d be able to rustle up a few hundred words during my lunch break, then bang out some more in the evening. But work turned out to be very busy that day, so as I shut down my computer at 6 pm, I realized I didn’t want to write. I wanted to have a beer, eat some pizza, and watch TV with my roommate before heading out to a 90s dance party. And that’s exactly what I did. And I didn’t even feel bad about it. Because even though I hadn’t “won” NaNoWriMo, the words I wrote didn’t disappear. They are still mine to refine and polish and organize into something more coherent over the coming months and years (yes, years...as I said, writing is hard). Perhaps more importantly, I proved to myself that I CAN make writing a priority in my busy daily life, and when I do, I’m capable of some pretty great things. So even though November is over, I’m still going to keep writing. I won’t track my word counts as zealously or even write every day, but having a project to turn to definitely helps me find the motivation to keep going. I have big hopes for 2019!
What I’m Reading: Finally reading Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, and it is every bit as luminous as everyone says it is.
What I’m Watching: The HBO adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel My Brilliant Friend. The casting is perfect and it’s doing such a great job of capturing the darkness and drama of the novel.
What I’m Listening To: According to my 2018 Wrapped from Spotify, my top song of the year was Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” which makes total sense because it is essentially the perfect song. My most-listened to artist was Neko Case, which also makes sense, because, again, perfection.
What I’m Wearing: It’s winter, which means dry skin, which means hand lotion! I’m giving a shoutout to the Caudilie Creme Gourmande Mains et Ongles (hand and nail cream) because it’s light and moisturizing and smells AMAZING.
What I’m Eating: Last weekend I pulled out my crockpot (again, winter), and made this chicken and white bean chili which was so easy and SO GOOD.