NaNoWriMo 2022 Recap

Well, as I wrote over one month ago, that time of year had arrived, and it has since passed. November is done, lost in the dusty mirror of yesterday and so, as I look ahead, it is also worthwhile to look back on the month and how I fared during NaNoWriMo.

To recap: the goal was to get the second draft of my novel done, another approximately fifty thousand words, hit the goal, and then be happy with a job well done. Simple enough, one would hope.

How wrong I was. Between moving into a new apartment the second week of November, to travelling back to the Bay Area for the holidays, to travelling back to Toronto afterwards, time slipped away. It was a hectic month, as November always tends to be, and it passed me by in a whirl.

Words went unwritten and unedited, inspiration and drive were low, and all in all, the project literally flatlined.

It doesn’t take any sort of detailed analysis to see what went wrong here. A lack of consistency–which can be attributed to many things from consistent time to consistent place to getting words in in the last half hour of some days–was the real downfall here. Compare that to my graph from the previous year, and although I have some valleys and peaks, this month was already looking a lot rougher right out of the gate.

All of that is to say, I didn’t hit the goal. I didn’t even get particularly close, despite the fact that a much larger cohort of friends was attempting it this year and our organisation to getting writing events on zoom happening was much better, alas, I fell short.

That’s not to say that this was a write off though! A lot of the writing that I did was good. I felt that the revisions I’ve made last month will hopefully stand the test of time and an older, wiser me. It was also a sequence that I was desperately desiring to get through, one that does not seem exciting in the slightest to rewrite.

It also further reinforced the idea that consistency, not inspiration, is the key to getting creative projects done. Create a schedule and hold yourself to it no matter what (as I failed to do here) and you will prevail.

I have plans for further revision, and I have high hopes for the latter half of this month, once I go on break for the winter shutdown that my company has, and free time is like a prairie wide open in front of me, ripe with possibility.

But, of course, the book will not revise itself, break or no break, and so I will have to double down, take out time from family and from fun, and get down to it.

So, look forward to that. Look forward to the day that I rest my words upon this blog proudly proclaiming to anyone that will listen that I have finished the second draft. Wait for the day, and (hopefully) it will come. Until then, I hope that everyone had a great NaNoWriMo month, and on to Christmas and the holidays!

Hopefully, by that time, I will have a solid writing schedule down (heavens know I have the time). So, until then.