We’re headed into the last full week of NaNoWriMo 2020 and I feel like I’m dragging myself across the finish line here. I’ve had this weird sense of impending failure all month, in spite of the fact that I’ve never once fallen behind where I should be. I, in fact, only missed my NaNo daily target once, but I was already ahead so it didn’t matter.
So why has this NaNo felt so hard?
For one thing, I think that NaNo always feels difficult. Like, I forget how much work it is because this fog of nostalgia and excitement overtakes my brain and all I can think about are the good parts of NaNo—the Twitter words sprints, the forums, the sense of accomplishment when it’s over.
And the progress charts! The beautiful, wonderful progress charts!
Yes, I’m a nerd, what of it?
But I forget how much work it is. I’ve said it before, but I’ve actually found this month much more difficult than the two previous months of Milwordy, mostly because of my self-imposed commitment to a single project that, in all honestly, lost my interest rather quickly. It has felt like I’ve been trudging through rapidly drying concrete. If this were just another regular Milwordy month, I would simply switch projects and be done with it.
But I’ve come this far—too late to turn back now. I have to finish this project, but I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t looking forward to December 1st. I’ve got a couple of projects that I’ve just been aching to work on, but haven’t had much time for due to NaNo.
I hope that your NaNo is going better than mine, that you’re still having fun with it and are still passionate about the project you’re working on. If you’re struggling to maintain that level of enthusiasm though, I want you to remind yourself that we’re nearly done. That the sense of accomplishment at the end will totally have been worth the journey through metaphorical wet concrete, and that the book that you’re working on right now is probably not as bad as it may seem to you now. And even if it is, that doesn’t mean that it can never be fixed. But you have to finish it before you can fix it.
Keep going. Don’t give up. We’re almost there!
Bonus Writing Prompt: Your main character wants to give up their goal. How do they find the strength to keep going?
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-Robin
