I'm a Loser, Baby

When it comes to NaNoWriMo, at least. At the rest of life, I'm #winning like Charlie Sheen, just without the tabloid shenanigans and drug-aided psychoses.

I didn't get to 50,000 words this year. This marked the eighth year I've done NaNo. I've won four times (most recently, 2012). I suppose I should be happy with a .500 batting average.

On some level, I am. I realize that the stated goal of NaNo might be penning 50K words in 30 days. The real goal, however, is up to each person who attempts it. Some people just want to see if they have the discipline to sit down everyday (or almost everyday) for a month and bang out a bunch of words. Others might want to finish a novel for the first time, or use NaNo as a springboard to finish something they had started and put aside. Some writers may be even more ambitious and set a goal of 100K words, or more.

If you set a goal and hit it, you're a winner. It doesn't matter what the word-count bar on the site tells you.

If you set a goal and didn't hit it, then you need to come away with some lessons learned. Was your goal too ambitious? Do you need to improve your time management and find more time to write? Do you try to edit as you type and slow yourself down? These questions (and many more) are all things you can ask yourself if you didn't reach your writing goal. The next time you try to write a book, set a realistic goal and apply those lessons learned. See if your experience is different.

My boss told me that you have to write your goals down. Otherwise, they're just ideas in your head. I agree with him. I'll go one step further: you have to set deadlines for yourself. Want to finish that book you started on November 1? Give yourself a deadline. Maybe January 31 is realistic. Write it down. Set periodic reminders on your Google calendar (or online calendar or choice). Check your progress. Most importantly, stick to it.

This year, I learned a few things about my own goal setting and time management. What did you learn?

Good Problems?

The baseball playoffs are over for the Orioles, so I get to reclaim the evenings I spent in front of the TV. It was a great run, watching the team duke it out for AL East title, then lose a tough series to the Yankees. While I’m sure I’ll still put on some playoff games here and there, I’m getting a swath of time back.

November is around the corner. I’ll be putting that time to good use.

I’m still editing a previous work (baseball distracted me) and I need to figure out what I’m going to do for NaNoWriMo once November is here. I have a few ideas to kick around and flesh out. It’s always good to have choices, right?

Right?

Here’s the problem: I can (and almost always do) read multiple books at a time without a problem. I’m positive I can’t do that with writing. One of these ideas has to emerge as the best. Do I continue with the same character in the mystery series I favor? Do I go back to my world-traveling secret agent and chronicle his third grand adventure? Do I develop the YA idea that I had and try a genre I’ve never written and have only infrequently read? (Does the Harry Potter series count as YA?)

November looms, and a decision looms. But this is a good problem to have. Right?

(For the record, I think it is a good problem to have. And if the Orioles were still playing and complicating my writing schedule, that would be a good problem, too.)

Happy writing.

The End of November

November is over, and another National Novel Writing Month is in the rearview mirror.

If you participated, I hope you won, by whatever standards you're using to determine that. If your novel isn't finished, don't let the end of November mean the end of your progress. Everyone's schedule gets more crowded this time of year, but use the time you have to finish what you started in November.

I'll share my own story of NaNo amidst a crowded November. On November 11th, I married the love of my life in a fabulous ceremony in Baltimore. We spent the weeks leading up to the wedding planning, preparing, purchasing, and pulling our hair out (these are The Four P's of wedding planning, in case you didn't know). Admittedly, she did more than I did because she had a clear vision for the ceremony. Even so, my free time got seriously curbed in October and November. I used NaNo to try and finish my current work in progress (the fourth in my series of mystery novels) with a goal of 30,000 words. My secondary goal was not to get the hairy eyeball from my then-fiancee too often.

The hairy eyeball goal ended up as a mixed bag, but I hit the other one, finishing November at just over 30K words. Some more work early this month allowed me to finish the novel. Now I'll set it aside for a few weeks, work on some edits, then go back and slash it apart.

I'm not writing this to brag about what I was able to accomplish in November (OK, maybe a little), but to show you that you CAN hit your writing goals even when the rest of your life is crowded. Just make them realistic and work every day. Writing is the important thing. A number is nice, but a realistic goal is better.

NaNoWriMo is over. Your writing and editing shouldn't be. Mine isn't.

As NaNoWriMo Dawns...

Novemvber is National Novel Writing Month. Their website will tell you as much, and I suspect most readers of this blog already know what's in store for them next month. You may already be hip-deep in research, plotting, outlining, or even a holy-crap-what-am-I-going-to-write bender.

This will be my seventh year of doing NaNo. I've "won" the past three years, with word counts around 52k, 68k, and 51k. Winning three years in a row isn't an impressive streak in the grand scheme of things, but it's one I'd like to keep intact. There's just one thing that might keep me from it.

I'm getting married.

And going on a honeymoon.

I guess that was two things.

While I love writing, I love my soon-to-be wife even more. I'm still going to write when I can--which will probably include a lot of lunch breaks at work--but I don't know if 50k is in the cards for me this month. I'm going to try my best, and maybe risk a glare from the wife here and there, but my winning streak may stop at three.

And you know what? I'm OK with that.

We all want to win NaNo. We all want to submit a verified word count over 50k, turn our bars purple, and get a "Winner" label. But the real point of NaNo is to spur creativity, to drive you forward in your quest to complete a serious creative endeavor. It's supposed to teach people that they CAN write a book by just plugging away every day for a month (or more). The spirit of NaNo is in the creativity, the community with your fellow writers who are sparking the creative fires just like you are. I'm still going to be a part of that. I just might not hit 50,000 words by the end of the month.

If you're doing NaNo, good luck. I hope you hit your goals, whatever they may be. And at the end of the writing and editing processes (you ARE going to edit the book you write, aren't you?), I hope you have a novel you're proud of. Regardless of what Charlie Sheen might have said, that is winning.

Happy writing.