Each November, I participate in NaNoWriMo. I do this because I love to write, not to mention that I thoroughly enjoy the challenge.
As someone who’s never been into sports, this is my version of running a marathon. Over the past nine years, I’ve written while sick, lost countless hours of sleep, even pushed through in times of crisis to hit that word count. Why do I do it? I think it’s for the guarantee. No matter what happens during those other 11 months, I can always count on November to catch up on my writing.
This year, I’m looking forward to it even more than usual. A long illness last winter followed by severe writer’s block in the spring… by summer, I’d given up on writing, so discouraged that I couldn’t even bring myself to try.
But then September rolled around. October settled in, and I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I started on Monday, struggling through (and repeatedly rewriting) the single paragraph that caused my writer’s block all those months ago.
On Tuesday, it was slightly easier. Several more paragraphs, and I felt myself moving forward, even if the pace was rather slow. Wednesday? I just completed an entire scene (around 1600 words) and… well, I can’t even describe how I feel right now. It’s a sensation that has eluded me since last November, the sheer bliss of losing myself completely. That incredible moment when the struggle stops and the words just flow… there’s no way to articulate how much I’ve missed that feeling.
It’s only been three days, but compared to what I’ve been able to do for the rest of this year (virtually nothing)? It feels like a major accomplishment. Getting back to my fiction feels so damn good… all I want is keep the momentum going, finish my works in progress, and knock NaNoWriMo right out of the fucking park.
Hey, I’ve done it (and won it) for the last nine years. Why not make it a decade-long streak? 🙂
