My Love/Hate Relationship With NaNoWriMo

 

I love everything about Nanowrimo. I love the community, the authortube videos, the motivation boost it inspires in aspiring writers. What I don't like is the fact that I always sign up for nano and never win because I fall behind, get discouraged, and inevitably give up. I know someone out there is going to say that the problem is with me, not nanowrimo itself, and that's fair. However, now every November I've learned to just stay away from the new projects page and just enjoy the social media content that goes with it. Sadly, while nanowrimo can be a great motivator for some, it's become a toxic affirmation of me failures and I really don’t need to keep putting myself through that.

 

Thankfully, nanowrimo has a way more approachable sibling, camp nanowrimo, which lets you set your own writing related goal. You can set your own writing, editing, or drafting goal instead of the set 50,000 words in 30 days. This makes it easier to set more realistic and attainable goals (at least for me).

 

This camp I'm committing to writing every single day for at least 30 minutes. It may not seem like a lot to some but I'm a burst writer (I write a lot in the span of a few days, burn out, and don't write for weeks) and  my goal is to build up a habit of consistent writing.

 

Remember camp nanowrimo is not a competition. It's about helping YOU achieve YOUR goals. ANY PROGRESS IS STILL PROGRESS, no matter how small. I'm hoping this camp will help me built up confidence and consistency - the kind of writer that can sit down and commit to write every day - no matter who many words I may write.

 

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Are you participating in camp nanowrimo? What's your writing goal? Let me know and have a lovely Friday!

 

A Small But Significant Accomplishment!

 I finished a writing notebook! I had to share this small but significant accomplishment with someone! I have so many notebooks (TOO many) and I've always had a hard time filling them up because I didn't want to ruin them with my crummy writing. Completing a notebook undoes that kind of negative thinking so much. Not only am I using up something I love that I've been hoarding, but I've also kept writing despite the negative critic in me. It's taken me a while to finish this notebook (a little less than a year because I switch between handwriting and typing my work) but it's an accomplishment, small but significant, and I hope to fill up many more in the future. 

I'm currently doing a reread of Show Your Work by Austin Kleon and it's prompted me to make this post. This book may be small but it's a treasure and is teaching me that small steps to a bigger goal are indeed important and significant and that showing your work and sharing with others makes a solitary activity, like writing, seem less lonely. I will probably do a recommendation after I'm through with this reread but I really cannot recommend this book enough! 

Do you write? If so, what are you working on? Wishing you all the best!