What I learned about myself during NaNoWriMo

Last night saw the wrap-up of NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, the goals of which are to write a novel in 30 days (at least 50,000 words), and write content for said novel every day for one month. It was the first time I participated, the first time I shared my writing progress with anyone at all. ​

​I am what you would call the poster child for introverted authors everywhere, toiling away in private, keeping my head down to work on my oeuvres — you get the idea. So joining not one but two online NaNoWriMo accountability groups was out of character for me. But I did it anyway, partly to see if being held accountable for writing every day would change my habits for the better.
    Are you curious about my success? While I didn’t achieve the goal of completing my novel’s manuscript, heck, I didn’t even crack the 50K word goal, I did learn a lot about myself during the process:

• My creativity doesn't have a timed off-switch — I used to think I couldn't write after 2:00 pm, but now I can write at any time of day.
• I have to listen to my body. If it physically hurts to neglect one manuscript (non-fiction) in favour of another manuscript (fiction), switch to the non-fiction.
• I love the freedom of writing fiction. When you're stuck, you can make something up. Plot twist!
• Don't force the process. Sometimes, the words flow from my brain to the screen via my fingertips, and that’s my cue to keep going. But when I'm forcing every sentence, flipping to the thesaurus every few words, it's time to take a break and go for a walk.

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    While my intention at the beginning of the month had been to write my novel, Selfried and the Secret, I was actually juggling four books:

• Planning and promoting the launch of my third non-fiction book.
• Substantive edits for my fourth non-fiction book.
• Collaboration for my fifth non-fiction book, researching the title/subtitle and possible cover images, and respecting the time demands of my collaborator.
• The manuscript for my first novel, which was up 14,000 words by the end of the second week.

    I very quickly realized that my novel manuscript might not be finished in 30 days. So I decided to focus on the secondary goal of trying to write every day in November. Unfortunately, though, I also didn’t end up writing every single day. You see, we had a family emergency mid-month that took me away from my computer. As I wrote on one of the NaNoWriMo groups, life gets in the way of even the best of intentions.
    That first day I was forced to write a zero on my word count tally, well, that hurt. I felt like I was letting the group down, that I was letting myself down. Until I read posts from my fellow writers, some of whom were experiencing similar challenges with daily writing, for a variety of reasons. And I remembered why I wanted to focus on writing and publishing my works: for me and my audience. So I let myself off the hook. I was doing fine, and I needed to get back to writing for the right reasons.
    When I experienced a second day of entering zero in my word count tally, I realized I wouldn’t be able to crack 50,000 words. I made the decision to adjust my monthly goal down from 50,000 to 40,000 words. And I did it! By mid-afternoon on November 30th, my word count ticked past 40K. The bulk of my words this month went to my first novel in progress, currently resting at 28,000 words, patiently awaiting my return. It also included three blog posts, key updates — to the tune of 6,500 words — to the manuscript for my fourth non-fiction book, and a decent chunk of a fifth non-fiction book, which came to me as a result of our family emergency earlier in the month.
    It’s now December and I’m going to continue trying to write and create every day, but I’m also going to cut myself some slack if it doesn’t happen. Did the month-long challenge change my habit? Yes and no. It helped me be more comfortable with writing at different times of the day. But as I’ve noted before that even on the days I’m not writing, the wheels in my brain never stop turning. I’m pondering, reflecting, editing in my head. So whether or not these words make it on to paper or a screen, they’re still alive, waiting to be shared with the world.
    All in good time, all in good time.