The NaNoWriMo Monster

(Drawing courtesy of SpaceStationNathan)

NaNoWriMo begins in a couple of weeks, and I'm scared to death.

I wrote last year.  I wrote over 15,000 words.  But...

I got in the way.

I began to look at it as more of an obligation than a gift.  And I don't do well with obligations.  As The Girl said, when I tried to get her to help me clean the house this week, "I don't like to be told what to do."

So when it got hard, I saw it as something that was trying to tell me what to do.  Because of that, I quit.

I didn't make the time for it, like it was the most important thing I wanted to do, but I avoided it because it seemed like something I had to do.

One of you made a very astute comment when I was going through this.  You said something like, "You are having so much trouble because you WANT TO want to write."  Truer words were never spoken.  So I stopped.  Not because of the commenter, though! But because it brought to light what I was actually feeling! I owe the commenter a lot of gratitude for letting me see what I was blinded to at the time.

The thing is, once I saw what I was doing, I stopped writing.  Completely.

Oh, I missed it terribly.  But every time I put a finger on the keyboard, my mind froze into a block of ice and I couldn't squeeze any words out of it to save my soul. That went on for months.  I couldn't write anything for the church group, blog posts, and I even had trouble with my name sometimes.  (just kidding)

Thank God that's over...at least for now.

I have a new story outline for this year, but here's the deal...I do NOT want to get caught in the same trap again.  I want to write because I want to write - not because I have a deadline of so many words by such-and-such a time.  I want to enjoy it!  I don't want to be bogged down with a deadline.

So I have decided that MY NaNoWriMo will be a little different this time.  Instead of concentrating on the word count, I'll concentrate on the quality. Instead of trying to win, I'll try to enjoy. Instead of being stressed out by the process, I'll enjoy the blessing of the ability.

And we'll see where it all goes.