A NaNoWriMo Pep-Talk

We’ve just come past the end of week 2, half-way through NaNoWriMo…

If you’re on track or ahead, I applaud you! Keep writing!

Are you behind?

I know the feeling. I am too.

Are you starting to entertain some doubts, to question why you got into this writing endeavor in the first place, if it’s even worth it to continue?

You are not alone. We all have these doubts, especially in the middle of the month.

But if you’re looking for an answer, I have it for you:

It IS worth it.

Standing here at the end of the second week, the way to the top of this writing mountain may look very far away. It may look very inviting to just quietly step aside off the path and stop noveling. To return to the ordinariness of regular life, without the stressful added exertion of writing a novel in a month.

But don’t listen to the doubt! It. is. worth it.

I’ll tell you a secret. The other day, the doubts were crowding in on me. I was worried the words I’d written so far were slop; I had hit a slump and hadn’t been able to write and was falling behind. I was so tempted to just stop.

And you know what? I started asking why I was doing this. WHY was I committing to writing 50,000 words of this story of mine during November? And I dug deep inside and I found why.

It was because I love this story.

I had lost my love for it in the stress of busyness lately, in my goal to hit that 1667 word goal each day. I pulled out my love of the story, polished it, and it’s sitting at the front of my mind, reminding me why I’m going to try to write it. And with that love in hand, I know that I can find my way to the end of these 50,000 words, and further to revising the story into something readable.

So don’t give up on your story. Don’t stop writing it.

Yes, it may be a mess of a story, but it will be a STORY. It will be on pages. And it will be waiting there in all its glorious and wonderful messy first-draftness of completion, waiting to be shaped into the amazing novel to be found within. Before you can chip away at the block to form a statue, you first have to have the block itself. And if the block that you have is writer’s block… chip away at it! 🙂

You can do this. Whether you write 1667 words a day or only 10, keep going. Write that story. Rediscover why you loved it enough to start on this adventure. And if you can’t find the love of the story, then find a new love, a new reason to continue it, and put THAT in the story. Fill it with something you care about, something important.

If you find that love, I promise that you will find the will to continue. Because your story matters, and only you can write it.

Behind though we may be, let’s press on, together — and may the words be ever in your favor.