NaNoWriMo Doesn't Have a Difficulty Level

I'd like to sincerely apologize if, at any time, I made what I do seem easy. In the spirit of sharing Kryptonite, here's the reality. Other than being a queen of symptoms and few working treatments (the physical and mental concerns will always be playing a role), there are a lot of factors that come in between me and superhuman awesomeness. So many factors can make one story harder than another, no matter where you are as a writer. Maybe you changed genres or you're aiming for a novel when you usually write short stories. Maybe you're finally ready to work on something you hope to publish.

People will perceive that you're more experienced or successful based on preconceived notions of what you've done so far, but writing is one place where we're all not that much different. We want to shout it from the rooftops when we're doing well, but any momentum is something we may exaggerate because we know we could hit a block of some sort or life will just make it impossible to get to those ideas we're itching to nail down.

Like most people, I battle with tons of ideas with no sure-fire way of communicating them and struggle to find my strengths and weaknesses. I also believe in setting clear boundaries, which means I don't trust total strangers with my unpublished work, always building cautious friendships and talking about personal issues with a measure of earnesty and reservation. For every milestone, there's another unknown looming and at no point did what it behind us make it that much easier to take the next step or repeat something we've done before.

As much as my blog is about introspection at times, I'm terrible at keeping in the first person tense when writing because my mental headspace keeps panning outside of the character and ends up in third. No one wins baseball going from first to third. I have some odd preferences in writing as well. I try not to start paragraphs using the same first word of the one before it. I have a tendency to use the British 'grey' and 'glamour' while every other word follows American English. It's not something I do to stand out, but one of those things I've done as long as I could remember. My English teachers always wanted the double space after every sentence. That took a lot of work to kill that habit (and I still use Find to locate any, just to be sure). Given, these are small things and nothing that would shatter the story. However, you may have noticed, I'm an impulsive thinker. I do often have to put my story back on track when I start chasing shiny objects that don't need to be there. I spend a lot of time editing because there can be a lot to clean up.

Showing a few of my obstacles shouldn't give you grounds to compare. Oh fuck, if it's hard for her and she's done this much, then what hope do the rest of us have? (I've heard this a few times directly and it's mortifying to be regarded too loftily.) If you want to know the truth...

Exactly as much as everyone else. Call it being unable to take a compliment but you can call me amazing and I'll find some way to make myself seem ordinary. Even though I might know I'm amazing, it's a hollow victory if I give the impression it's au-naturale and you either have it or you don't. I had a lot of things working for me, but just as much working against me. Just like you. There are insecurities and egos-- the perceived good and bad can flip around, but you know what? Taking note of the way things slip away from you are nothing to be paralyzed about. Those are the key to your unique insight, where people will start to find you relatable.

I struggled a lot the first time I did NaNo but not because of the word count. I tried to write a book that an agent might look at. I looked at it the wrong way and even though I was satisfied enough to release it, I wish I had stretched it out more, let those characters shine more. Its sequel UnSung was where I resolved to ditch word count concerns and just write the story as broad as I needed the characters to be. It took eight months to draft because I needed to plot, plan and unify the details. Since I originally planned UnNamed as a standalone, I didn't bother styling it to continue. UnSung was born of what I wanted UnNamed to be. UnHeard will continue on the same way. If I thought for  one moment that the next book in a series would be worse than the one before because of forcing it, I wouldn't write it until I felt it could be better. Yet UnSung will wait to be completed because I wanted to see if leaving it open might benefit it as I continue. My first series was one I wouldn't release until they were done. It gave me so much room to go back and change things. While I didn't want to do the UnQuadrilogy the same way, I think that between UnSung and UnHeard, mutual contemplation might benefit them both. So I set UnSung aside to throw in a new approach for NaNo.

The first time I neglected the free-writing part. Don't edit as you go, don't stop to plan, just wing it and learn to clean up the mess later. I was curious if I could not only wing it on a complex fantasy but do it on a third book when the second was still in edit. Not only is it freeing, I don't feel tethered to notes or plans that I can always work in later if I like the original plan better.

I'm going to cut into the fat here-- I used attitude and mentality to create the hurdles of difficulty. If headbutting the challenge was working against me, I could change tact. It's not the same as quitting or admitting defeat. Writing isn't factory work. It requires very volatile things that demand only flexibility. The only failure is killing your drive by slaughtering your talent. You do not enjoy your favorite things because you think you should. It doesn't matter if writing falls under work or play, you are ultimately in control. Even if your characters run amuck, you get to grab the reins of the story and the edit and the vision. It's not censoring them or watering them down; it's bringing them to harmony with the elements.

(This is especially true when I've written something too quickly because of a great mood and momentum. You think it's untouchable but it's actually where you really want to dig in.)

Every character doesn't need to be wise or quirky or fucked-up or deep. Loving them too much will squeeze them flat. It's probably hard to face your own mortality, especially when you superimpose yourself on to a character. But...

Read the 3 Faces of Eve. Do yourself a favor and read an account of a woman who had to kill aspects of herself to assimilate them. Killing your poster child can be a sign of metamorphosis, not self-loathing. If your writing suffers from overloved characters, understand that killing them, either literally or figuratively, is about growth. I didn't die when my mom did. When I die, I won't be around to care that I did. Even the Death card in a tarot deck is about change, the end of something and the birth of another. It doesn't matter if you tend to be hypersensitive and empathetic (guilty of both, believe it or not), if your characters are really independent entities meant to show off their humanity, making them superhuman does both you and them a disservice. No one expects you to extol the virtue of your beliefs through every character.

Whether life or change or NaNoWriMo is difficult is up to how you learn to adjust it. Even in the throes of a panic attack, I once stopped it by thinking "you gonna cry, Barbie?". Hyperventilation turned to laughter and I like to believe I forced a chemical I lacked to release and counter it. No, depression doesn't disappear with happy thoughts. While I know how to trick a lot of moods now, some are still dangerous and stubborn. I have a mental medicine cabinet that must be tried every time, but until I do try everything I can think of, I can't give up. Don't say you can't until you've tried all of the things you can.

You don't get to always decide when to be happy, when to write, how much to work. Americans have been groomed to think we should do things anyway, even if that path is a long walk off a short pier. No. Just no. There are choices and consequences. Don't let people shame you into being who aren't you. You know you'll be the one to deal with it so weigh it as only you can. Tell the Captain Obviouses to fuck off.

I'm gonna be a tireless cheerleader this month. As much as possible. I know what it's like to be low. Doesn't matter if anyone reciprocates it on my low days. I always find a way to crawl out and fight. What matters to me is people finding the joy of writing. People often get lost in that when demanding something from it that isn't guaranteed no matter how much you suffer. It's never a more important time in history for people to learn to reconnect with purpose and one another.

It's easy. It's hard. It's up to you. Whatever you do, do it with an open mind.