I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, this is my second attempt. The first time I tried to do it was last year. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t make it past 5,844 words and I stopped writing on day 13, mostly because I wasn’t motivated, nor did I have any sort of accountability.

This year I’ve told a lot of my friends what I’ve been doing – though I haven’t divulged the plot, just a basic overview – and I think that was pretty helpful motivation for me. I feel like someone might ask and I’d feel disappointed in myself if I can’t tell them that I tried my best. Right now I’m 10 days in and have written 13,635 words. I’m pretty proud of myself, and to be honest, if I quit right now I’ll still be proud of myself – but that’s not my goal, my goal is to write until I can’t anymore.

One thing that has been fun for me has been a daily Bitstrip that talks about my feelings towards my novel and shares my word count. I think Bitstrip is cool – wish they had more writerly strips, but I make do! Doing this daily helps me to be creative in a different way.

I find that taking my mind off novel writing and doing something fun and creative is helpful. I also find that I do my best bit of writing before bed and as soon as I wake up in the morning. Usually that’s all I need to bump up my word count for the day. Sometimes I do write on my commute, but mostly I play The Sims, where I make up a completely different story. (heh).

This weekend someone asked me about my progress and I was explaining how I’m a bit anxious with the way the story was going, but that writing it brings me a lot of joy, and I was surprised at how absolutely correct that phrase was. As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized that there was more truth in it than I originally meant. It’s not just NaNoWriMo that has brought me joy, but journaling and blogging as well. Writing things down, reading them, pondering them, I really love and enjoy it. This realization really energizes me and make me want to write more! Watch out November, I might just finish a novel before you end!

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