For those of you who have never heard of it, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It is a time when writers all try to use the motivation and energy of the month to hit 50,000 words and finish writing that book they have always dreamed about. It's a lot of fun, but it also beyond stressful. Here are some feelings on different things about NaNoWriMo, ranging from thoughts about writing to feelings about your characters.
1. The Confidence of November 1.
It's finally here, November 1st. You start writing, and the words are just flowing out.You are excited and feel like you will hit 50K in no time. This feeling continues for varying lengths of time from the first few days to the first week.
2. The Slump.
The ideas are all still there, but you look at your word count and go, "I'm still ahead. I can afford to write a little less today." This continues for several days until...
3. Oh crap, I am behind.
Those days where you wrote less caught up with you, and now you are fighting to get your inspiration back up and catch up again. You frantically write and hopefully catch back up to your goal.
4. I really hate this character.
You have that character you are writing that you absolutely hate. Sometimes, you really want nothing more than to kill them off, even when they are crucial to your story. To satisfy those urges, I have been tacking on alternate endings where they die. It gets your word count up and keeps an important character from dying in the middle of your story.
5. Oh, I love this character, but I am hurting them so much.
Then, you have the character that is your baby. You love them so dearly but keep making terrible things happen to them. Sometimes you just want to stop and give them a happily ever after. Again, I satisfy these urges by writing alternate scenes that don't go in the actual draft to help show that character some love.
6. This writing is absolute crap.
You start wondering why you are writing at all. You glare at your novel and complain about how horrible it is, and one would ever enjoy reading it. You start comparing yourself to all your favorite authors when you remember..
7. This is a rough draft it doesn't have to be good.
Those authors' books you were looking at? They have gone through multiple revisions. The author has been through and fixed their mistakes,and then handed it over to a professional to be edited. What you are writing doesn't have to be good. Your rough draft is for creating the world and getting your ideas on paper. Fix it later.
8. This is actually really fun.
You are back in your groove and writing as much as you can. You have put aside your doubt and are just enjoying the feeling of writing down the ideas you have had running around in your head for far too long.
9. I DID IT!!!
Not everyone gets this feeling because not everyone hits their goal, but try to feel this anyways. Whether you hit 50k, were a few words short, or didn't even get close, be happy. You actually sat down and worked on writing your ideas down. Try again next year or finish your novel any time you want.
10. I can't wait until next year.
After everything you went through writing, once you are done you start getting excited and being ready for this cycle to begin again next year.
There you have it, the cycle of NaNoWriMo. Pretty much every writer who participates feels this way at some point through the month, and despite the negative feelings, we love every second of it. It is an adrenaline filled exciting experience. If you are a writer and have never tried it, you should try it with us next year.
