Today Camp NaNoWriMo began. This is the second one I’ve done, and I decided to continue writing Rhiannon’s story, which I began last July during my first Camp NaNoWriMo. Camp is a little less stressful than November’s “proper” event, where the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. For Camp you can choose your own word count or goal, be it writing or editing or whatever…
This month I’ve committed to a thousand words a day, since work is a little crazy right now, and I’m still working on the Trilogy edits (will they never end???), and I didn’t want to put too much pressure on myself…
So today I was happy to hit 1005 words, especially given how frustrating and time-lacking today was. And it was awesome to (re)start writing Rhiannon’s story. Last July, my first Camp NaNoWriMo, I wrote 35,000 words of my first Into the Mists Chronicle, which started off as Rhiannon’s story, but somehow during that month became intertwined with Beth’s story… I hadn’t looked at it since then though. And funnily enough, even though I’d planned to re-read it all yesterday to see where I’m up to and what has happened and should happen, as usual I ended up being flat out all day, so I still haven’t revisited it. But I’m kinda liking that anyway, and maybe I won’t re-read it until halfway through, or even at the end – I’m curious to see what I will weave together without any memory of the last session…
I really love how once you start writing, it begins to flow, and suddenly the story starts to emerge. I had no idea what I would write today, yet once I had a pen in my hand and a black sheet of paper before me, and starting scribbling out words, more words came. That’s why I truly believe you can’t wait for inspiration to hit you, or motivation to fill you – you need to sit down and start writing, and then the inspiration will come. Maybe not immediately, but the more you write, the more you’ll want to write, and the more you’ll get caught up in the story, and discover the ways to get from point A to point B, and all the fascinating twists and turns and detours along the way. I also don’t believe that motivation exists, I think it’s a lie we tell ourselves – and an excuse to allow ourselves not to write our story, or create our project, or start a fitness journey, or make our dream come true. If it does exist, it’s totally fleeting, and not reliable at all. Instead you need to rely on dedication and commitment, on discipline and plain old hard work. Very rarely do I want to write, but I make myself do it because I have a goal I want to reach. I never really have time to do it either – I just have to make time…
I found this Harper Lee quote amusingly relevant for my total lack of preparation for NaNo: “Courage is when you know you’re licked before you even begin, but you begin anyway and see it through, no matter what.” It would be easy to say this month will be too hard, and I’m too busy at work, and too behind, but where’s the fun – or the reward – in that? 🙂
I had to take the car over to my aunt and uncle before work, which meant I lost my train-to-work writing time, but I at least scribbled down sentences at traffic lights (and was amused to be annoyed that peak hour traffic wasn’t too bad!)…
And when I finally managed to leave the magazine office, I got to write on the bus home, so the thousand words was manageable…
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