Last night, for the first time, I stumbled in my march towards finishing my NaNoWriMo project. I had to drive up to Los Angeles and back yesterday and I had to leave the house at 6:00 am to get there in time for a breakfast meeting. I didn’t get home until 8:00 pm, and I was totally wiped. Even though I had used the 6 hours of silent drive time to brainstorm and play out scenes in my head, I never made it to the keyboard. I was asleep by 9:00, having written 0 words for the day.
Fortunately, I woke up refreshed at 5:00 this morning. I drove into work and banged out my daily word goal by 8:30. I plan to tap out another couple of thousand words tonight to make up for yesterday. And even if I don’t I’m still ahead of schedule.
It’s somewhat amusing to see the various reactions people take to NaNoWriMo. Some people (like myself) get excited by it and see it as an opportunity to do something fun. Others just say “WTF?” and wonder why we’re so obsessed with word counts instead of taking as much time as we need to write something good. Others think we’re fools for not just typing the word “SPAM” 50,000 times and “winning” the easy way. What these people fail to realize is that NaNoWriMo is what you make it. There’s no “winning” since there’s no tangible reward and the rules are so lax. It’s just self-gratification and a sense of accomplishment in doing something difficult. Others also get a lot of satisfaction out of comisserating and celebrating alongside their fellow NaNo Novelists. I’m having fun, and may end up with something that’s worth polishing up. Either way, I’ll be better off than I was before.
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