How I won Nanowrimo this year

We’re a week into December now, and most of us have put Nanowrimo aside for the year. And I have as well. I’m thrilled to be able to say that I did win this year.

Especially because last year I didn’t win. And I have to be honest, that kind of messed with me.

It really messed with me.

See, I always win Nano. I mean, I’ve been doing Nanowrimo or Nanoedmo every year since I started this blog. But last year, in addition to losing Nano, I turned 36. This year, I turned 37. And ever since last November, there’s been a little voice in the back of my mind, suggesting that I might be getting past my prime.

I might be slowing down.

All this to say, my confidence took a hit. And I’ve spent the past year trying to get that confidence back. Now that I won Nano, I’m feeling a lot better.

Winning Nanowrimo was a challenge. It required me to work in a way that I’d never done before. I disregarded all of my usual advice. Here’s what I did instead.

I just focused on hitting par every day.

In the past, I’ve tried to write more than 1,667 words at the start of November. And because of that, I got ahead of schedule.

And then I got cocky. And frankly, a little worn out. So I skipped a day or two. And that’s when I’d lose momentum.

This year, I focused on hitting par every day. Actually, I tried to hit 1,700 every day. This was manageable and sustainable. At least for a month. So I wasn’t feeling as burned out by writing 4,000 words in a day, and then expecting my brain to function creatively the next day.

I didn’t participate in a lot of online groups.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did join a new writing group. But I wasn’t all that active. I’d jump on to commiserate or celebrate with other writers only after I’d reached my word count for the day.

Before, I was jumping into my groups and getting discouraged by all the people who were not getting their word counts in. Worse, I was irritated by anyone who was getting their words in. Were they better than me? Were they younger? Was I just lazy? No, it’s not that one, laziness doesn’t exist.

Was I just old?

Of course, it wasn’t any of those things. It was just that I was struggling. My struggle didn’t have anything to do with my fellow writers. And rather than letting them inspire me, I let their success condemn me.

This year, I wasn’t competing with anyone but me. It was just me and my word count, come hell or high water.

I didn’t attend write-ins

Write-ins are fun if you’ve got the time for them. They’re a great place to meet other writers and network.

And meeting other writers is a wonderful thing.

I’ve attended write-ins, study halls, and group work hours in the past. But I don’t do a lot of writing at them. At least not as much as if I were to just take the same amount of time to just write as I was taking to get to the event, do all the meet and greet events, and get settled into the location.

Plus, I used to have a little touch of social anxiety. Now, after Covid shutdowns working from home and generally not interacting with anyone for more than three minutes at a time, I have a lot of social anxiety. So when I try to write around other people, I’m focusing on all the wrong things. Are people looking at me? Does my shirt smell like cat pee? Is my lipstick smudged? Do I look like an introspective writer, working away at her project? Or do I look like a hunchbacked old woman trying to fit in with a bunch of kids?

None of this is helping me get words on the page. So I skipped the live events.

I didn’t write out in public, except for on the last day.

This point is similar to the last one. The year before I was making time to write in coffee shops, diners, and libraries. And yes, that is sometimes wonderful. But when I’m in crunch time, that is not the time to be writing in public. Writing at the library or my favorite coffee shop is for days when I’m lacking motivation or need a treat. It’s not the place to be if I need to get a significant amount of words on the page.

I did write at a coffee shop on the last day of November. And it was fantastic.

If you didn’t win, you’re no less of a writer and you can still do hard things

Now I told you all this not to make you feel bad if you didn’t win Nanowrimo this year. I told you all this to inspire you to win next time. Or, not. Maybe this will just inspire you to not be down on yourself if you didn’t make it. Because there are a lot of reasons to not succeed at something we want to do, no matter how much we want to do it.

I think it’s only now as I write this that I’m realizing something important. Last November was not a good mental health time for me. And despite the stereotype of the tortured writer, a bad place emotionally isn’t a good place to write from. It’s not a place to do anything but to heal. I needed to heal so that I could do hard things again.

Just because we fail at one hard thing doesn’t mean we can’t do other hard things. Just because we don’t achieve what we want, doesn’t mean we will never achieve it again.

Sometimes we just need to rethink our approach.

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