Camp NaNoWriMo Update

There is no way I’m going to reach my goal.

There I said it. It’s true. It is rare that I don’t accomplish the goals that I set out to reach. I end up beating myself up a lot and feeling like a failure. I’m not published. I have no one looking over my shoulder. I don’t even have a writing buddy checking in to see if I’ve progressed. I’m completely alone on this journey as of now and that means I’m the only one who can hold myself accountable. Thankfully, I am pretty harsh with myself so anything I truly set out to accomplish I do, to avoid that sinking pit of despair that likes to sneak up on me.

I’m just not going to reach my 85k goal. My plan was to write every day I went to work. The goal was between 2700 and 3000 words a day. Considering that if I’m really focused I can write 2400 words in an hour and unfocused still get around 1500, it is not an unreasonable goal. I get up an hour early. When I would usually edit my booktube videos, write blog posts, play video games, or watch TV, I write instead. It’s simple. It works.

Sometimes life likes to throw you a curveball. On the second of the month, that curve came. While I wanted to break down then and there, I kept pushing forward. I stuck to the plan. I loved the piece, but already I could sense it taking a lean that made this story much darker than I initially intended. The story was going to be light and fun and filled with possiblity. While the possibility is still there, even some of the fun, the light has faded. This is solely because what is going on in my life. It’s coloring my work.

I needed to take the executive decision to take a step back. I’m not going to stop writing it. That can only potentially lead to an uncompleted project. I just need to take away the pressure. I need to be able to evaluate my choices. Not only that, but I’m going to take the time to edit the story as I write this time. Rather than writing the draft and going back as I intended, I’m going to edit now and fix things as I go. It will be cleaner. It will be tighter, but it will also help me from getting too dark as I work through my issues.

So, I just wanted to give you a little update. Even though life is trying to make things hard for me, I’m not giving up. One day soon, I’ll make it through a day without crying and the light will come back to my work.