Nov 02 2009
NaNoWriMeet: Nike slogan for the win
There’s not usually a lot of pep talk that needs to happen at this stage of the NaNoWriMo process. The second day, most people are still jazzed and on their initial creative high. For all of those folk, my advice today would be: enjoy it! Really have fun with it. Remember what it feels like. Contrary to popular myth, what makes a “real writer” isn’t the highs of creativity when the muse is with you and you are a demigod among words. Because those moments are all too rare, for demideity’s sake remember to notice them, enjoy them, revel in them while you’re living it.
For those few of you who might already be goal-struggling, or feeling the first niggling doubts creep in even if you made your goals so far, this next bit of advice you might remember seeing on this blog before but it bears repeating: for this stage of the process, it doesn’t matter if it’s good, it matters that you do it.
To successfully navigate the NaNoWriMo landmines inherent in the system, you have to be willing to acknowledge the limitations of that system and work with them so you don’t build up huge levels of discouragement. And realistically, if you are trying to put 50K words on the page in a month, you’re necessarily going to need to put less energy on the honing and revising stage of the game during that time. There will be plenty of time for the last part after November, when you’re staring at a pile of 50,000 words and wondering again exactly how you turn them into a finished story. For now, remember and repeat “just do it” or a less commercially-laden equivalent slogan as needed, to convey the concept to your hindbrain the truth that the only way out of this (with 50K words) is through.