Creative Calm Connected: NaNoWriMo Update 1

The bad news is that I missed two out of the last seven days in my writing challenge, but I have kept my promise and have not missed two days in a row. I missed Friday because I had to work, take the kids swimming etc etc, and just could not fit any writing in. I missed Sunday because I had a REALLY big night on Saturday at my 20 year school reunion (watch out for a post on that coming soon!) and was not in a fit state on Sunday to do much at all.

Rather than beat myself up about missing those days I am celebrating the positives. I have started writing my first book! How cool is that. I am totally excited about it and am enjoying the process. I had a very busy week last week and still managed to write on most days. My word count as of this morning (I haven’t written today yet) is 4,630. I still have a long way to go but I am off to a good start.

The first day was the hardest. I felt like a bit of a fraud and took a while to get going. Every time I’ve written since then has been a bit easier, and I have enjoyed just letting the words flow. I am not editing as I go, trying instead just to get the story out. After the month is over, I will reread and see if I think it is worth editing or sharing with anyone. But for now I am just focussing on the process and proud of myself for giving it a go.

I am not yet ready to share what the book is about, for now it is just for me. I am happy to share that I have taken an experience that happened to me in real life and used that as the inspiration for a starting point for this story. I am totally making up the rest as I go. It was great to have that inspiration to start me off, and I am loving seeing where my imagination will take me from there.

I have found it fairly easy to hit the target of around 15-1600 words each writing session, if I do my writing while my daughter has her midday nap. It is nice to have a good chunk of time to get the flow going. The days I didn’t hit my word count were days where I tried to write around other jobs, and it didn’t work as well for me. Writing while my daughter is in bed gives me total peace and quiet, without interruptions to concentrate and let my imagination run wild. The only downside to that is I usually use that time to get things done (make appointments, write blog posts, fold and put away washing, do my creative projects like crochet or sewing etc). So for the next little while there will be less of that. I think what I might do though is allow myself one day a week where I still give myself that time to do other creative things and try and make up the words on another day. We will have to see how it goes. And allocating that quiet nap time to writing will still allow us to carry on with life as normal and minimal disruption. I did consider getting up an hour earlier each day to write, but it takes a while for my brain to wake up properly, so I think I’ll continue with midday writing for now.

I am trying not to be too strict about it, because I want to enjoy this process. I don’t think that being creative should be a chore, it should be something you enjoy. It may take me longer than the month of November to get to the 50,000 word target, but I’m in no hurry. I’m just so glad that I stumbled across NaNoWriMo and have given it a go.