Fake NaNo, in retrospect
I spent the entire last half of the month being Behind On Word Count for Fake NaNo, which started out being a pleasantly challenging spur to productivity and then gradually became this Thing hanging over me, so that on a day when I went to bed having knocked off the fifth of five (FIVE!) novel chapters in a month I went to bed feeling glum because I was Failing at Fake NaNo.
The problem with making deadlines for myself that seem real enough to be motivating is that they are also real enough to make me feel unproductively Bad About Myself when I blow them.
So I've been working on mentally reframing the whole Fake NaNo experience, which I figure I am allowed to do since I was already making up my own rules for it anyway. [Insert elaborate analogy to that one college class I didn't fail because the professor allowed me to make up my own final project here.] [Follow with meta-comment on the appropriateness of a class on metaphors that I almost failed because I didn't understand metaphor analysis becoming, itself, a metaphor for a lot of things in my life.] I didn't fail Fake NaNo! I got a B in Fake NaNo. I wrote 42,303 words, which (with a little rounding) is 85% of my target word count. I also totally nailed my goals to write a chapter per week, finish a short story, and turn rejections around into new submissions. So that's a B, which is a passing grade. Ergo while I did not win or ace Fake NaNo, I totally passed.
Other totally not earth-shattering insights from Fake NaNo:
a) Holy crap, writing 50,000 words in a month is really hard. And while I've done it before, I'm pretty sure that those were both times in my life where I did nothing but go to work or to school and then come home and write and I couldn't think or talk about anything but the one overwhelmingly occupying thing I was writing. So.... maybe it's okay to not write 50,000 words in a month in exchange for a more or less functional social life. And better social capacities in general.
b) That said, my word count spreadsheet was really pleasing, as was having a word count goal. I think if I reduce the goal to something manageable and hold on firmly to the "getting a B is okay, even if an A++ is obviously better" philosophy of word count goals, I can have the motivation without the smothering glumness.
c) I WROTE FIVE NOVEL CHAPTERS IN A MONTH AND I THINK I ONLY HAVE LIKE THREE MORE TO GO AND THEN THE NOVEL WILL BE DONE. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. BLESS YOU, FAKE NANO.
Sooo, those are the goals for this month: write 25,000 words, total, of various stuff, without spending Christmas or New Year's Eve feeling anxious if I am Falling Behind On Word Count Due To Holiday Festivities. FINISH THE NOVEL. Show that short story I finished to someone. Keep turning rejections around when they get home. Keep chugging along.
Here we go, December.
The problem with making deadlines for myself that seem real enough to be motivating is that they are also real enough to make me feel unproductively Bad About Myself when I blow them.
So I've been working on mentally reframing the whole Fake NaNo experience, which I figure I am allowed to do since I was already making up my own rules for it anyway. [Insert elaborate analogy to that one college class I didn't fail because the professor allowed me to make up my own final project here.] [Follow with meta-comment on the appropriateness of a class on metaphors that I almost failed because I didn't understand metaphor analysis becoming, itself, a metaphor for a lot of things in my life.] I didn't fail Fake NaNo! I got a B in Fake NaNo. I wrote 42,303 words, which (with a little rounding) is 85% of my target word count. I also totally nailed my goals to write a chapter per week, finish a short story, and turn rejections around into new submissions. So that's a B, which is a passing grade. Ergo while I did not win or ace Fake NaNo, I totally passed.
Other totally not earth-shattering insights from Fake NaNo:
a) Holy crap, writing 50,000 words in a month is really hard. And while I've done it before, I'm pretty sure that those were both times in my life where I did nothing but go to work or to school and then come home and write and I couldn't think or talk about anything but the one overwhelmingly occupying thing I was writing. So.... maybe it's okay to not write 50,000 words in a month in exchange for a more or less functional social life. And better social capacities in general.
b) That said, my word count spreadsheet was really pleasing, as was having a word count goal. I think if I reduce the goal to something manageable and hold on firmly to the "getting a B is okay, even if an A++ is obviously better" philosophy of word count goals, I can have the motivation without the smothering glumness.
c) I WROTE FIVE NOVEL CHAPTERS IN A MONTH AND I THINK I ONLY HAVE LIKE THREE MORE TO GO AND THEN THE NOVEL WILL BE DONE. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. BLESS YOU, FAKE NANO.
Sooo, those are the goals for this month: write 25,000 words, total, of various stuff, without spending Christmas or New Year's Eve feeling anxious if I am Falling Behind On Word Count Due To Holiday Festivities. FINISH THE NOVEL. Show that short story I finished to someone. Keep turning rejections around when they get home. Keep chugging along.
Here we go, December.