I refuse to tell myself I can't do this.
Novelmber isn't going as planned--but that doesn't mean it isn't going at all.
So as you know, I promised, loudly, that I was going to write 50K words this month—with a goal of 1667 a day.
I know that 1667 goal well. That’s how you DO NaNoWriMo, kids. That’s how you bust it out and I’ve done it before and I can do it again. Or so I planned.
And I’m sure I can do it again. I probably WILL do it again. Someday.
But I renamed this, right? It’s not NaNoWriMo. It’s Novelmber. The real goal: finish a draft, a revisable draft, this month.
I may not have written 6x1667 words yet, but I’ve made meaningful progress every single day. Some days I’ve hit that word count. Some days I’ve dictated 600 INCREDIBLY crappy words while sitting at the fast charging station waiting for the car to charge to make an impromptu emergency-ish road trip.
(How crappy? SO CRAPPY. You know what? I’ll put those crappy words, all of them, below the paywall so you can see. If you’re not paid a) you should be, there’s no where else where you’ll find 4 incredibly accomplished professionals dropping this much information that will help you play bigger in your writer career and b) super ridiculous deal this month only—actually maybe this week only, I should pull this down—half of the usual annual and c) listen, I’m sorry, I can’t put these words just out there. When I say awful I mean nonsense. BUT I CAN EDIT THEM.)
The point is, it would be super easy for me to tell myself a story at this point. I’m barely moving forward at all! I will never get to 50K words/the end of this draft or at least not this month, omg, I have guests coming and 2 more short trips at least and the kids, my mom, I’m hosting Thanksgiving, we’re having a party, I’m traveling right now and the government is maybe shutting down 10% of flights and maybe not and I am not home and cue me running in circles with my head in my hands shrieking.
It would be so easy to tell myself there’s not even any point in trying.
But I’m not doing it. I’m not. It’s November 6 as I write this, the month is far from over and I can do this—or at a minimum, I can get a lot closer.
You can too, I swear. No matter what you’re working on or where you are with it, if you put in the time, the needle will move.
Or, you could not. That’s the choice. That’s always the choice. The reason most books don’t get published is most books don’t get written. It’s true whether you’ve written 5 books already or 30 or none. It’s just true. You do the work when you can and as hard as you can—or the work doesn’t get done.
There’s only us and the words, kids. But we can do this.
OK! Next week’s write-alongs will come along later, promise, hope to see you there. Get your draft done, or get wherever you want to this month. Support the pod, send in those first pages, get revved for a Blueprint in January (I’ll be doing my blueprint for revision, but you can Blueprint however and whatever you want.)
Terrible words below the paywall!! Meanwhile—tell me what you’re doing out there and if you’re dancing along lalala… or just dancing anyway.
