NaNo Day 1 Overload

Posted by Jennifer Baylor at The Writing Cocoon.  
Filed under "NaNoWriMo" 

I think I may have overdone it today. I didn't even get to my Day 1 goal of five-thousand words, but I still feel spent. All of this anticipation and anxiety and planning for this day, and I'm at the end of it feeling a bit rough and wrung out.

Writing is hard work.

I thought I was better prepared for NaNoWriMo this year ("And, I am" says the voice in my head), but the beginning of this novel is just not coming to me. This shouldn't be a surprise as TLCS's (WIP #1) beginning didn't come together until after I'd written the whole damned thing. Still, despite having a story idea that I love, with characters I'm excited to get to know, I just feel very blah about the whole thing right now.

Is it the NaNoWriMo blues? Is there such a thing?

I'm having this sort of déjà vu feeling. I keep flashing on my university graduation and my wedding day, two days that were a long time in the making and then over-and-done in a flash. It's unsettling to the system when you've planned and plotted over weeks and months for One tiny day, then -poof- the day has past you by.

I don't know, I guess I'm just feeling melancholy today. I see my characters so vividly in my head, feel their hopes and fears, then I write it all out on paper and it seems so...trite, flat, monochrome. I want to hit delete and make the below-average words disappear.

Don't worry, I won't actually delete a single word. I can't - I've got a word count goal to hit.  And, NaNoWriMo is all about word count, which is the first hurdle to good writing. I've been down this road before; I know I can produce the word count.

Good writing is the next layer, it's about weaving hundreds of threads together to make a whole, and I'm still mastering the techniques. I have to keep telling myself that the technique will come with time and writing/word count.

Despite my bad attitude tonight, I can already see that my writing is better this year. I have learned things - techniques and skills - and they are influencing my writing. Maybe it still isn't great or even good writing, but there's progress.

On that note, time to step away from the keyboard and get some sleep. Good night, my fellow Writers and WriMo's!