Writing Overdose

Writing, normally, is something that I have at least a moderate urge to do every single day. Whether it’s just sending a witty tweet out into the ether or sitting down and writing a long piece, most of the time, I have some drive to move my hands across a keyboard in a way that produces intelligible words. However, after completing NaNoWriMo with only hours to spare, I was completely and utterly drained, devoid of all will to produce any content whatsoever.

Most of this probably comes down to the way in which I completed NaNoWriMo. Despite my earlier post asserting myself to staying on track even though I was behind, I found myself increasingly distracted and busy during November. A substitution job that I thought would only last a couple of weeks turned out to last the entire month – there were hours of potential writing sessions, gone. I even managed to pick up extra work, which further whittled into my writing time. I also found various excuses on each day itself, justifying why I didn’t have to write that day. “I’ll just catch up on the weekend!”; “I can’t complete a chapter, so I might as well not write at all!”; “Oh no, I overslept!”; these were among the more justifiable of the ‘reasons’ I found to write little or not at all on multiple days.

As a result of this procrastination, I was left with the dubious task of writing over 30 000 words in the last five days of November. If I had kept pace with the recommended daily writing goals of NaNoWriMo, I would only have to write 1667 words per day. Instead, I needed over 6000 words per day to reach the finish line. And yet, somehow, I was determined to make it. I sat down, every day, churning out chapters for at least five hours every day. I finished the construction of my world, worked through the disasters and resolutions, and completed the story, all in less than a week. I pasted my text onto the submission form to confirm my victory and completion of 50 000 words. I was just over 600 words short. Somewhere in the 30 days of updating my word counts, I messed up big time. I added in some more detailed descriptions and additional dialog, and resubmitted. I hit 50 000 words exactly. I was done.

That’s what my word count graph ended up looking like once the dust had settled. I was incredibly proud of myself, particularly for pulling up my socks and getting the words out in the end. I also resolved to never fall behind like that when I do NaNoWriMo again next year. You hear that, Future Jodi? That doesn’t happen again!

Once the feeling of pride faded, I was left feeling completely devoid of will to write. I wanted to write a follow-up blog boasting about my victory, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Now, after days of playing HearthStone, Dota, and generally just resting my writing brain, I’m back and ready to share my experiences with you all again. With a trip home, a new year, and my own wedding coming up soon, I’m sure that there will be tons to share!

Keep Pushin’ On

Writing 50 000 words in a month is no easy task after all. When I announced that I was going to do NaNoWriMo 2016, I was remarkably confident. 1667 words per day? Easy! And it was. The first few days went by with me exceeding the necessary word counts on a regular basis. I was doing great!

Until I wasn’t. The first signs of a downturn came on the first Friday. I had planned the week so that I wrote enough extra words in the four days to make up for the fact that I wouldn’t be writing at all on teh weekend (it was an Ultimate weekend, so no writing for me then!). However, I just wasn’t feeling writing at all on that Friday. No matter how long I stared at my computer screen or tried to scrape words out of nowhere, they just weren’t coming. So I said I would make it up on the Sunday evening when I got home and had a relaxing day instead. I’d deserved it, I thought. I had worked more than I needed to during the week, and I would be okay.

When Sunday came around, it is probably obvious to everyone that I definitely didn’t do any writing. I was wrecked from the weekend and just wanted to chill. So I did.

This pattern of saying that future Jodi will make up word counts has been an alarming trend of my NaNoWriMo 2016 so far. I did the same thing this past weekend, sacrificing what was going to be a word make up day to hang out in Seoul. Now, I sit almost 10 000 words behind where I need to be, with nearly half the month gone. I am essentially one quarter of the way through my words, but I’ve spent nearly half of my time to get there.  Eep.

But all is not lost. While I may not have the entire month anymore, I still have more than half of it. I have more than 12 000 words now than I had two weeks ago. Thinking of how far I’ve come helps me get motivated for the mountain that I still have to climb. What has also helped is people randomly asking me ‘How is the book coming?’ or saying that they can’t wait to read my book. I have often given up on goals in the past because there was little riding on them apart from my own personal pride and enjoyment. This is bigger than that. By putting it out there that I am doing this, people are waiting for my end result.

Currently, this end result is a long way from finished and even longer from being any good. And yet, with every day that  chip away at the word count, it gets closer to becoming a reality. The road ahead may be harder than it needs to be, and that added difficulty comes entirely from my own poor decisions. It may be uphill, but I am looking forward to puttering along that path, seeing where my story goes, and coming out the other side with a first draft I can hopefully craft into something worth sharing. Now, back to writing!

One Week to #NanoWriMo2016

November as a month is one that normally means two things: my brother’s birthday and my father’s birthday. Apart from these two significant events, it is a wholly unremarkable month. There are no Korean holidays. It is not the beginning or end of any season, but it does mean the end of the ROK-U Ultimate season (sniff). November 2016 is set to be drastically different, all due to one simple hashtag – #NaNoWriMo2016.

For those who are wondering if I my mind has finally succumbed to the numerous pulls on my sanity and I have begun spouting gibberish, fear not. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, is a movement that began in 1999. Its goal and purpose is simple – every year, aspiring novelists all around the world take up the challenge to complete an entire 50,000 word first draft of a novel during the month of November. It is a concept that caught my attention a couple of years ago, and was always one of those things that I said: “I should do that next year!” but never got around to. Until this year.

This year, I decided that the stars have sufficiently aligned in order to give me the highest possible chance of success. So, a week ago, I committed on Twitter to conquering the monemental task of 50,000 words in 30 days. Since then, I have been immersing myself in as many videos and articles about writing and NaNoWriMo as I possibly can. Yesterday, I sketched out the basic storyline and did character outlines for five characters. I am giving myself as few ways out as possible.

I do all of these things because I know myself. I have seen the story so many times. I begin with an earnest, heart-felt committal to better myself in some way. This could be achieving legend in Hearthstone, becoming a gaming streamer, or making myself into an eSports journalist. And yet, when things get a little tough, when I reach that first hurdle, I will turn around and say, “Well, I guess that wasn’t for me after all.” I’ll quit. And I’ll generally feel fine with myself for a little while afterwards, until the next hot idea burns its way into my head.

Not this time though. I have had the honour of a loving fiancee working hard full-time while I mess around in part-time work with the excuse that I am following my dreams. For the month of November, that will actually be perfectly accurate. Even if nothing comes of the novel – it can sit on my computer in first draft forever – but when I sit on the 31st of November with at least 50,000 shiny, new, creative, probably moderately unreadable words forming what I hope to be a coherent story, I will have proven that I can actually do the things I set out to do. I will show myself that I am more than just a lazy ass who plays games all day and sometimes writes about them and life and stuff. And with a few months left of part-time work before I have to re-evaluate my priorities for next year, that motivation could be what I need to take the next step and complete those goals I’ve failed to do up until now.

November will be a long, hard month. Although I only have to write about 1667 words per day to stay on track (about 3 times my usual blog post on here), I know that having to do so every day will be a challenge unlike any I’ve faced this year. There will be times when I want to kill my characters. There will be times when I don’t want to kill my characters but I’ll have to. There will be times when my cat will walk across the keyboard and delete my last half hour’s work and I’ll want to punt him across the room. And yet, I know that if I push through the hardships, I will have created a story that I’m proud to share (after many edits, of course). More importantly, I will have given myself something I have doubted up until now – the knowledge that I have the drive wthin me to complete my lofty goals after all. So bring on #NaNoWriMo2016. I’m ready. I think.