The Way is Forward

Right now you may have realized that what you are doing this month is hard. It also brings with it the realization that you CAN do this. There are moments when everything feels right and the words flow onto the page. Then there are days that you can hardly muster more than a few paragraphs. This is where the road starts to get bumpy. This is where you should keep your foot pressed firmly on the accelerator.

I don’t care who you are or how many NaNoWriMo’s you have been through, 50,000 words is a heck of a lot of writing. Yet every year thousands of new writers manage to cross the finish line. It is amazing what we can achieve when we put our effort into it. Right now you may be ahead of your target and think that you can easily coast towards the finish line. Or maybe you have yet to hit a daily target goal and you are thinking that your story just isn’t worth it. To both of you, I say slam the pedal to the floor. Don’t give up. Don’t slack off. The only way to get across the finish line is through writing each and every day. Every little bit you can get down counts as progress.

There are probably more than a few of you who are behind and are working on the same chapter over and over again. The characters don’t seem right or the setting feels off. Maybe there’s a scene and the dialog isn’t flowing the way you want it to. It is every writers’ urge to go back and make it perfect before moving onto the next chapter. I want to do it every time I participate in NaNoWriMo and do you know what I learned over the years of doing this? Don’t look back. WriMo isn’t about getting your manuscript perfect, it is about getting your manuscript written. If you dwell in the past for too long you will only get diminishing returns on your word count. I have had to learn over the years to jot down a note (this should be longer, more explanatory), throw in a comment [fixthis] and keep moving forward. It seems counter-intuitive, I know. We want each chapter to be as good as possible before moving on. This is a mistake, at least in my opinion, and only in the context of NaNoWriMo. I have been working on my last WriMo book for years, editing, shaping, molding and gutting scenes that don’t work. Your finished product will resemble the effort you put in during WriMo but it will not be the same as what you are writing today.

Think of a carpenter. A carpenter does not just saw into a log and out pops one of those bear statues (you know exactly what I am talking about, don’t lie). No, a woodworker first cuts out the rough shape of the thing. Then over the next few days or weeks she meticulously chisels and sands and shapes that rough cut into a bear statue. NaNoWriMo is about getting the rough shape finished, so you can come back later and shape and polish it to a fine story. So even though the temptation is constantly there, keep going forward!