When Life Eats Your Word Count

When it comes to National Novel Writing Month, I am an overachiever. But, despite my best efforts, I can’t write all the time. Throughout November, I have to take care of the basic necessities, such as sleeping, bathing, and making coffee. Sometimes it’s possible to multitask and write at the same time, like while eating, but most of the time, there will be periods of hours or even days when life gets in the way of writing. And that has to be okay.

This month, I’ve encountered multiple obstacles that have interfered with my word count goal (505,505 words, in case you were wondering). As is always the case with NaNoWriMo, I wanted to have a really solid first week. I wanted to knock that word count dead. And even though I’ve already more than reached the actual 50,000 target word count on the website, I’m not pacing well for my own goal.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had to pack and clean and sort in preparation for moving, and that has involved a lot of time-and-energy-consuming work. It has also been emotionally stressful for me, as choosing what goes with me and what stays behind for now taps into some of my negative emotions from leaving Africa. (I’ve talked a little about this before.) And while writing can be a great way to blow off steam, it also requires brain power and endurance, and sometimes those two things just don’t come in abundance. Which means my word count is going to suffer.

So, what I’m saying is, you never know what’s going to get in the way of your progress in November (or whenever you choose to write your book, although I’m mainly referring to NaNoWriMo participants here). You’re not a failure if life grabs you and spins you around and keeps you so dizzy you can hardly pound out half of what you would like to.

Let yourself pick up the pace slowly. Ease yourself into this. You have a whole month.

Let me put it this way. I participated in Cross Country for multiple years when I was younger, and one important, invaluable thing I learned about long distance foot races was that I couldn’t afford to start out sprinting. In order to be able to run the whole race, I had to pace myself until I got within sight of the finish line. Then I could pull out all the stops and run at my top speed. Now, this isn’t a perfect analogy, since many NaNoWriMo overachievers will start off with a bang, but don’t feel bad if that doesn’t happen for you. It’s important to let yourself adjust so you don’t get burnt out. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re not as far along right now as you’d like to be.

Don’t break your sanity, or your health, because you want to reach a certain number. I will tell you right up front that my word count is very important to me, and I would rather do most anything than admit I can’t always keep up with some of the more aggressive overachievers. But it’s important for me to accept my limits. Where I’m at is where I’m at (deep, I know), and getting frustrated with that is not going to change anything. It won’t help me write more words. It won’t help me have more ideas. What it will do is distract me from my ultimate goal, and that is completing the rough draft of a novel (or, in my case, at least five novels).

In the end, even if my word count falls short, and even if I have to finish drafting one or more of my stories in December, that’s still okay. I will have written. That is the main point of NaNoWriMo. Sure, you must reach a certain word count in order to win officially, or, if you’re like me, a certain even higher goal which you must reach in order to feel like you have won. But the goal is just there to keep you moving and putting words on the page. So please, try to remember to take pride in what you do accomplish, and please don’t let an overly competitive spirit prevent you from having a good time.

Let yourself take breaks from your writing when you need to. Wash the dishes. Short sheet someone’s bed. Visit the NaNo forums and commiserate or celebrate with other writers. If you can, please promise to have a good time, and I will promise to do the same.

 

Let’s chat, little coffee beans. How are you doing this fine November? What does your word count look like? Are you doing well, better than you had expected, or worse? If I could, I would jump through the screen and give you a giant mug of coffee to help you along, but I guess I’ll just have to give you this virtual pat on the back instead. Happy writing!