I'm Telling You-- Nothing Like Flying High!

I joked with a friend last night that if I was really dedicated, I could still make it to 50K by the middle of the month. I really didn't intend to actually sit down for the 10+ hours it would take to do it, but my cold-addled brain was the overworked cheerleader I suspected it might be.

50,309 words down by 11:16 PM. You're damn right I did it.

I'm absolutely chuffed about it, clicking my gods-damned heels and fist-pumping carefully because the sloped ceiling is really not room enough to do it without breaking some knuckles.

Still, I'm thinking about my other writer friends, the ones way ahead of me (yup, there are plenty of those) and the ones way behind. Again with the word count... When I said you can ignore it, it doesn't mean to remove it as a motivational tool. It could convince you to stop, it could convince you to keep going, but it could still be strangling the benefits of developing good habits too.

People burn out. Sometimes this kind of thing might have people so paralyzed that they don't even touch a keyboard until the next NaNo sneaks up and sends them into a state of cold panic. Okay, that may or may not be accurate, but writers come in all kinds.

I'm sticking by the assertion that passion needs discipline. With the good days come the bad. They don't balance out and sometimes there's so many of one that the other seems to have abandoned you completely.

I think my momentum does largely come from the setback. Not so much because I wanted to catch that midway ambition as much as I just COULDN'T write for days and I wanted it so, so badly. It wasn't a mental hurdle. I could even stab the right keys when I was poking for them while lying down with a tablet. Voice dictation probably wouldn't even register my voice as human if I tried. All throughout it, I daydreamed (because sleep was not happening much). I passed out and didn't dream and my mind craved the loss by giving me technicolor thoughts.

Yet I wasn't terrified they'd slip through my fingers. I don't regret the things that slip by. What ends up in my stories is what is meant to be there. If it's meant to come back, it will sprout up elsewhere. I'm so full of these damn things and I don't squander any time lamenting what I haven't done, won't be able to do or am not doing. 

I'm doing. Are you doing? Then get to it. Again or for the first time. Float ya boat.