Monday, November 28, 2016

Celebration!!: A NaNoWriMo Failure Story

Friends, it's November 28th. That means it's two days away from the NaNoWriMo finish line/deadline/day the sparkling guillotine drops. So, if I'm looking at my dashboard correctly I have two whole days to finish a measly 30,000 words.

It's not going to happen. I mean, it's just not. Maybe if I was holed up in a cabin in the mountains with no work to do, meetings to attend, and three-year-olds to mom - but that's not my current situation (sounds amazing though).



So what am I going to do? I mean what is there to DO?!



Imma celebrate baby!!!!

This month I wrote 20,000 words! And I like them! I have taken a step into a new realm of writing and created an entirely new world from scratch. It's got me pining for writing moments and dreaming about my characters and researching how air ships work. I've also got most of my plot sketched out due to all my NaNo pre-work.

All this in a month where I had to travel out of state weekly to do my day job. And host Thanksgiving in a new house. And emotionally deal with the current political climate in America. AND the whole pregnancy and momming a three-year-old thing.

GIRL, I WON! I'm more excited about writing than I have been in a long time, and it's thanks to this technically giant failure of a NaNoWriMo.

So, here's my advice to you:
If you got yourself some words, you won.
If you got interested in writing a novel for the first time, you won.
If you started a book that ultimately made you sick and are now certain that it's a novel that you never ever want to go back to - hey, at least you know that now!

On this November 28th, I suggest you cut yourself a big slice of slack pie and chow down. Revel in your accomplishments, whatever they are. I'll be over here celebrating my giant word-shortcoming and also feverishly writing new words for the WIP that I fell in love with during this turbulent, weird, super-productive November.

Cheers!

5 comments:

Shari Green said...

Being excited about writing is such a big WIN!! Love this! Also, I vote for a writing retreat at that cabin... ;)

Erin Petti said...

Wouldn't that be a DREAM??

WendyMcLeodMacKnight said...

Love this Erin! Words on paper are always worth celebrating!

Mirka Breen said...

Twenty-thousand winning words are better than fifty-thousand just ok words... You won, indeed.

Patricia Bailey said...

Ha! I feel you Erin. I just wrote a very similar blog post myself. Yay for words. Any words.