Sometimes life doesn’t hand you lemons, it takes your lemons and throws them in the bin.
Once upon a time I thought I could complete NaNoWriMo despite being away for 2 weeks in November, on a holiday I have been waiting for officially for 2 years, but unofficially waiting for for about 10.
It turns out some plans are meant to go off without a hitch - thank god the plane didn’t crash - and some are meant to wither and die whilst you’re laid up with the worst cold you’ve had in a long time.
Suffice to say, I did not complete NaNoWriMo this year, which is the first time I haven’t really taken part in about 12 years. It feels strange, as someone who picks up habits and rituals and internalises them for as long as possible, dropping a ball doesn’t feel the best… but it also feels freeing. Like, finally I can PICK when I want to do NaNo instead of doing it so I can keep my streak!
A huge part of why I kind of let this happen, why I didn’t fight hard to write when I was on holiday, and ignored my laptop when I was watching Gilmore Girls with a raging fever and achy skin, is because my story this year was DIFFERENT.
If you know anything about me, I write young adult and some middle grade as a rule. It’s my break from reality, and I always said I’d never leave those genres behind but this year I had an idea for a mystery kind of book and I decided to frame it as [adult] fiction. Even as I began writing it I knew I was falling flat. I don’t read general fiction and my brain doesn’t know how to see through that lens at all! So even as I was writing I was trying to think of a way to make it more… me.
The outcome was that I wanted to stop before I got too far so that when I do write this story the re-write is easier.
It’s a fun lesson to learn, after writing for so many years.
Every now and then you fall off the horse, you totally forget how to do what you’ve been doing for a good chunk of your life, and you have to carry on.
Whilst this wasn’t supposed to be a blog post offering any sage wisdom or advice, it has segued, as these things always do.
So what now? Well, I congratulate anyone who managed to write a book this time around and I dust myself off and see if I can figure out how to save a book!
This should be fun!
- Sam
