Recovery

word count: 50,285
page count: 85

Oh my gosh, that's a true statement all right! Yup, I managed to succeed in this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. I apologize for those of you who were wondering where the heck I disappeared off to once November drew to a close. As some of you know, it's already a bit stressful trying to write a novel's first draft during the busiest month of the college semester. Sooo, once November ended, I picked up the pace to keep up with my studies.

But here's the story:

Over the entire month of November, I ended each day questioning myself, "Why are you doing this, anyway? The book won't be done, anyway, plus you have so many other things that deserve your attention. What's the point?" I'm glad I didn't give in, even though there were days where the words didn't come and I wasn't focused on the plot or characters at all. But on the last day of November, I found myself sliding across the finishing line! For those reasonably skeptical folks out there, you're probably like, "So how do they even know that you wrote all those words anyway?" Well, they have a word counter thing and to validate your manuscript, you copy & paste your work and their word count is apparently different from the word count used in Microsoft Word, because they thought I was 100 words or so behind! That didn't stop me, so on the last day, I wrote almost 300 extra words so that I could satisfy the word count. And it felt great! My brainchild and I survived!

 So what's next you ask? Well, even though I won the challenge, I probably won't use any of the "winnings"—that being all the various resources where I can self-publish my novel in e-book format. I don't want to give out a first draft of ANYTHING I write, and the novel itself still isn't done, believe it or not. I have this great relationship between two characters that spans over a few years and I want to make it seem real rather than a "So we just met, wanna get together?" type of thing.

 It's not the end of the world; I won in many ways, because I have a new novel which I didn't have a month ago, and I pretty much proved to myself that any excuses I make up about not having enough time to read or write for pleasure are just bogus. So I hope to be able to still right every day—maybe not the same intensity—but I'll get somewhere with this project and my other project that has taken me years to get about 300 pages fleshed out.

 If anything, take my advice when I say: if you have a goal or a hobby, if it's that important to you, than it deserves your time and efforts. I always think "Oh, I'll have time to write over the summer or during the holidays" but I don't get as much done as I hoped I would and I always think that I'm too busy or stressed to write during school. Everyone has their own way of prioritizing their lives and how they use their precious time, but if you have a goal, it's important enough. That means not always listening to others who think that you should spend more time with studies or work or something. It's not like I didn't go to classes or finish my school work for the sake of this novel—ugh, my parents would kill me—but I made sure I had two solid hours each day to write and I found ways to get everything done. It just happens; you get smarter about your planning and prioritizing and everything falls into place.

 So if you're a writer and time doesn't seem to be on your side—try to make it work, anyway. You really get better at it every day, and taking time to think about your project and what you want to say is really beneficial.

 So write on, people, write on.