NaNoWriMo and lack of progress

Yes, it’s time for that blog post that every­one in NaNoW­riMo makes, but here goes.  Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. I think I’d roughly be meet­ing my quota if I’d quit throw­ing my begin­nings away.  I’m giv­ing it to the end of this week to get going, and if it doesn’t, then I’m going to return next year.  Last week I was sick, and the next two weeks are chock full of hol­i­days and com­pany.  If I can’t really get to rock­ing by the end of this week, I think I’ll just be freak­ing myself out.

The whole point of this is to put exces­sive amounts of pres­sure on myself to set a goal, and fin­ish it.  I know that some writ­ers have pub­lished works from this project. Water for Ele­phants was a fun quick read, and ended up being a best-seller.  I didn’t intend to pub­lish any­thing.  I just wanted to kick my butt into high gear and get crack­ing with the creativity.

I’ve not thrown in the towel com­pletely yet.  The bad start has me waver­ing at this point, and I’m not fig­ur­ing out how to get very far in just yet.  If I want to write the novel I want to read, I need to be in a much hap­pier mind frame. If I want to write the novel I want to write, Stein­beck would be proud at the bleak­ness and neg­a­tiv­ity.  And I really don’t always want to be bleak, it’s just what comes out.  I’m hav­ing a hard time strik­ing a bal­ance, and a mood that will carry from one day to the next.  Now, if a whole novel of just sex counts, then I’m pretty sure I can write way more than my allot­ted 2000 words.  That always cheers me up con­sid­er­ably, and accounts for a lot of the trashed prose.  But, I did intend to have a loose plot in there some­where, so that’s not really going to sat­isfy me.

I’m glad I haven’t fal­tered on writ­ing here, yet. I always sit down, not sure what I’m going to write.  Some­thing is con­stantly com­ing out, even if I’m not wild about the blog post.  I think maybe this part of the project is more use­ful than the frus­tra­tion of deal­ing with a novel.  Just read­ing my daily post and see­ing how my emo­tions are swing­ing like a pen­du­lum is prov­ing to be a use­ful gauge.  I can step back and see exactly how uneven I am.  It helps me to be kind to myself, and more real­is­tic.  While I absolutely believe I will achieve the things I truly want, and set out to accom­plish, I’m try­ing to remem­ber that I don’t have to try to do every­thing at once.