Last year, I concluded that participating in NaNoWriMo would be impossible. I had only recently begun working, everything was new, and getting used to days dictated by work, family and household responsibilities had seemed too much. I was very certain that in a year I will get used to my new rhythm and be ready to participate. Ha!
Enter November 2023. 11 years since my first NaNoWriMo, which I completed every other year. NaNoWriMo has helped me to commit and complete. The intense month of writing had led me to other months of re-reading, editing, proofreading, formatting… Lock-down and NaNoWriMo are the two things that helped me on my way to not only be but also call myself aloud A Writer. Lock-down because I could write without interruptions of visits, travelling, children’s parties, and errands… NaNoWriMo because it is a good challenge.
Last year, I hoped to write a blog post a day and complete that. Impossible. Also, I hoped to get better at networking and promotions. No, didn’t happen either.
The funny thing is, I wasn’t that busy last November. It was just the adjustment from a homemaker and writer to a self-employed parent and writer. I am lucky, my work grew, I gained regular clients and I got busier. I am busy now. I don’t wait around, my diary is filled with appointments. And my other responsibilities and chores didn’t go away either, quite the opposite. So this November, I am in an even worse position to start the novel-writing month. Throughout the year, I didn’t master my fear of networking, marketing, and actually putting myself out there. I had a good excuse. This November, it will be my project. I will not do a daily word count. Instead, I will show up.
When I finished my first novel, I developed a routine of morning writing. I am a morning person anyway and I figured that waking up a bit earlier gives me an opportunity to work undisturbed, get writing done, and move on to my daily tasks with a good feeling of having achieved something before getting out of my pyjama.
I have great respect for people who will sit with their creative work late at night and plough until they really must go to sleep. I can’t do that. If nothing else, motherhood ended my evening activities. Evening classes, movies, dinners out, nothing is attractive enough to beat a cosy lying down in bed. As well as the early morning, in the early evening, when everyone is fed, dishes are done, and the child has been washed and read with, there is a small window where I can do something for myself – read a book, watch a movie or a TV series, anything. It took time to train my husband out of the expectation that I would watch what he wants and when he wants. He arrives at this stage much later than me. And because I like early starts, I have to go to sleep earlier, too. By nine o’clock, I want to be in the dark, with my eyes closed, thank you very much.
I can’t bring myself to switch on the computer and work at that time of the day. Evenings are tiring and I crave quiet.
Two years ago, I changed my routine and shifted my practice to early morning. Instead of writing first, I do my yoga and meditation first. Again, great. Whatever I do first in the morning is the winner. Because my practice had to be fitted into my day, I was worried that I would make it into a chore, or strip it to very bare necessity. Some days, I could only sit, breathe, and meditate for twenty minutes and felt that because I had had a long walk and had been active in the garden or around the house, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have more practice. I didn’t focus so well.
Moving my practice – the thing that is the very essence of me – to the prime spot of the first thing of the day was something that helped me when I began working. No matter what else happens in my day, I know that I have already practised. But it shifted the writing time to later. And sometimes, writing for the sake of writing – the NaNoWriMo style of writing – stays undone. I still edit, proofread, finish, and produce books. Book number four is on its way very soon. But new ideas are only glimpses in my head and scribbles in my notebooks. Their time will come. If I have learnt something in life it is that slow and steady is the way to go. We can want everything now, but it doesn’t mean that everything now is good or achievable or better.
So let me just get on with things. And you do your things with grace. All the best if you are chasing the word count this year.
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