-How I defied my inner demons-
On November 1st, I set out for my newest adventure as a writer. For years I had dreamed of participating in NaNoWriMo, but it never worked out due to other responsibilities. But this year, my schedule for November was clear – finally! So with a rough outline in my head, I put pen to paper and began to write. Soon, however, doubt settled in.
Can I do this? Am I really able to write a WHOLE BOOK in just a month? Of course I’d written a book before, but that had been a long process. Months of research followed by months of planning, writing, and ultimately revising. The prospect of going through most of this process within just a month seemed daunting. And then another question settled in my mind like a parasite: What if I can’t write another book? What if I’m really an impostor, a fraud? What if I’m not really a writer? Maybe I had placed all my cards on this dream of being a writer, only to realize that I’d never make it.
So on November 15th, halfway through NaNoWriMo18, I stopped writing. I just couldn’t continue. The thought of returning to my project was too much to handle and I turned the other way. The remainder of the month I spent licking the wounds of my bruised ego. One sentence ran through my head on constant repeat: I HAD FAILED. I had failed NaNoWriMo. I had failed writing another book. I had failed building up a writing habit. I had failed as a writer. I had failed as a human being. That was the only thing I could think of, until a friend of mine opened my eyes. It was true, I had not completed NaNoWriMo. “But you wrote 22.000 words in 15 days,” my friend said. “And even if you choose not to continue with this particular novel, you still did something! In the very least, you can consider it as practice.” Huh. I sat back in my chair. Others had told me similar things and somehow deep down I had always known that you could not fail NaNoWriMo. But this particular friend had highlighted all the things that I had accomplished and slowly the doubtful demon trying to tear me down from the inside started to subside.
Yesterday, for the first time since November 15th, I sat back down to write. I did not continue my NaNoWriMo18 project (at least not now), but I tried to write something different. And I wrote this blog post as well. I’m not going to lie, it was hard to get back to writing, but it felt like the first sip of water after a long drought. So maybe NaNoWriMo just isn’t for me or maybe I try again next year and write even more than 50.000 words in a month. Or maybe I really needed to “fail” this year to realize that every single word I write is an achievement. Every written word can be the start of something new – or maybe it doesn’t amount to anything. Whichever it is, every second spend following my dream is an accomplishment in itself.
So, to wrap this up, whether you finished NaNoWriMo or not, even if you wrote only a couple of words, YOU ACHIEVED SOMETHING! Be proud of what you did rather than mourn all that you could’ve done. Every single word you write is worth it!
