At 11:00pm on November 30, 2021, I snuck in my last words just as the deadline was nearing. Now, I did not finish this novel. I still have a few chapters left. But I did write 50,041 words in the month of November, which is huge for me!
Last year was the first year I won NaNo, after trying it for several years without success. But, last year I wrote almost all the words in the last few days.
Check out this crazy graph from 2020.
One of my goals for this NaNoWriMo was to be more consistent. To be honest, I felt like I had failed, because on November 29th, I was still 10,000 words from reaching my goal, and my graph was very up and down. I was frustrated that I didn’t sit down to write every day, and generally not feeling great about how it went, even though I knew I could make it to the 50,000 goal.
2021 Stats
But actually, if you compare the two graphs, I was way more consistent this year than I was last year. So, definitely progress!
Zenaida stood over the woman. She knew she was not long for this world now. She coughed blood, and her eyes looked like they might start bleeding any minute. Zenaida could feel it. She could feel the silence setting in. She could feel Them coming. She would stay with the woman as long as she could. Zenaida knew there was no one else.
She pulled her mask down lower over her face, letting the top of the beak rest against the bridge of her nose, as if it made her safer to feel it pushed down hard against her. The sick woman whimpered.
The red poll came first. Zenaida watched it land on the window sill. She had insisted the shutters stay open, even as the family protested. You need to let the darkness out, Zenaida had told them. Instead, they just fled.
The silence began to descend around them.
Another red poll. Then two chickadees. The kind that showed up in winter, Zenaida knew, and it was balmy summer. She let them keep coming. A blue jay landed on the table and didn’t even look at the food. Several camp robbers fluttered around the jay like little brothers, and the jay just preened itself silently.
The bigger ones crowded in. Herons and ravens. Even a crane. Zenaida watched it step gingerly into the window, purposefully, and look her in the eye.
When she broke its gaze to look back down, the patient was gone. Not dead. But actually gone. No wonder the family had fled.
So, if you do the math, I am behind. By Day 26 of NaNoWriMo, according to the official NaNo site, one should have 43,342 words. I am just now reaching 30,000. But 30,000 words in one month is something to celebrate, and I am being grateful to myself that I am getting words on the page, that this novel is moving ahead, and chanting “Progress, not perfection” to myself every step of the way.
I know I can be an overachiever and that I can be really hard on myself, so I am finding these “even if you are behind” rewards an excellent way to remind myself that moving forward is a win, even if I am not moving forward as quickly as I expected.
Again, I sent the family to the store to pick the plants for me, because last time, it really made me happy to feel supported with the small surprises they brought home. It has the added benefit of making sure that everyone likes the plants that are decorating our house.
Here is my 30,000 word reward:
It’s a galaxy false aralia.
And, it totally motivated me. I got over 5,000 words today! This is by far the best day I’ve had so far in terms of words on the page.
I love that these plants are congregating, creating a little forest that is reminding me that the novel is coming along and that I am showing up.
I have a lot of showing up to do to catch up at this point, but I am determined!
Are you still in it? Are you progressing? Any advice about keeping yourself on track?
I have heard the advice that writers shouldn’t date writers. This is not advice I followed. In fact, I married one.
My SO is also a writer. He’s already got a few books out in the wild. You might think this helps us understand each other, and in some ways it does. But in other ways, we are very, very different and often inscrutable to each other. Writers are notorious for being introverted and persnickety. We are no exception. How do you make it work when both people in the relationship are writers?
SO and I are very different writers. For one thing, he has never done NaNoWriMo. But this year was different. I talked him into participating in NaNo! Sort of…
Some people write with fountain pens and composition books and some writers need robots to tell them to write. (Shout out to WriterBot!)
How to Do NaNoWriMo with Your SO
I love tracking my word counts and setting goals and in some ways can be very methodical about my spreadsheets. I track what times of day I write best, schedule when I will take breaks, and give myself daily quotas in terms of what I want to achieve in my writing that day.
This is not how my SO writes. He doesn’t count or track or anything like that. So for him, “doing NaNo together” just meant that he started a new novel at the beginning of November and has been making extra effort to find the time to work on it this month. It’s actually been quite successful.
I write almost exclusively on the computer. My sentences never come out in the order I want them, and the ability to copy paste and move things around as I am writing is important to me. SO writes ON PAPER! On paper! Like it is 1952! With a fountain pen, no less! When I try to write on paper, it’s a hot mess that not even I can decipher.
When SO writes on paper, he writes IN ORDER! Like, the writing comes to him in chronological order. This seems like magic to me. My writing comes in fits, small snippets of scenes or lines or images that I don’t even know where they go in the book, but I do know they are not in order. I mean, this man sits down and begins by writing the beginning, and then he writes what’s next and then what comes after that. And, he does all this on paper with a pen and does not erase or scratch out anything. Like, what kind of sorcery is this, sir?!
He’s also a solo writer. His writing is very much a solitary activity, and in general he is not as much of a joiner as I am. I often tease him about being the man alone at the isolated cabin writing by candlelight, which was the case when I met him. He would write me messages (sometimes send me letters ON PAPER, I mean, not to beat the dead horse, but whaaat?) about feeding the woodstove between scenes and writing without electricity and this is just mind-boggling to me.
I find it very motivating to write with people. I love the community of NaNoWriMo. I force my friends to write with me to hold me accountable. I do writing sprints with sprinting groups and generally that outside accountability is big motivation to me.
So, when SO says he’s doing NaNo this year, for him that doesn’t mean joining the Alaska NaNo Discord and tracking his word counts on the NaNo site. Instead, it just means sitting down with his fountain pen and his paper as much as he can in November.
My plant, which was my 10,000 word reward, being used like a folder in elementary school, making sure he doesn’t copy my answers.
How to Date a Writer
But even with all these differences we make it work.
Writing is like a third person in our relationship, our polyamorous unicorn whom we both adore, but who we each make out with in very different ways. The mutual love of writing brings us together, and helps us understand each other.
The key to not letting it get in the way is just that we each know that the other cannot survive without writing. We try to make sure the other gets their words in in the same way that we make sure the other eats and sleeps.
So, all month we have been sitting down across the table from each other. I set up my candle and my plants all over the place and he tries to scooch them onto my half of the table without me noticing and we each get words out in our very different ways. I make my spreadsheets and count my words and write through my nonchronological poetic fog and he fills his fountain pen and writes the scene that comes next in a composition book.
And it’s made us closer.
Do you all have people in your life who just get it? Are there people out there who understand your need for making art?
Here are the days’ stats for the last few days:
Progress:
Day 22 Word Count: 0
Day 23 Word Count: 0
Day 24 Word Count: 0
Day 25 Word Count: 0
Total Word Count: 28010
Where I Planned to Be: 40000
1667 words per day: 41675
I had planned on taking the 24th and 25th off because of Thanksgiving, but this week went sideways. Hoping I am going to be able to catch up some this weekend!
Again, I wrote less days than I intended. Maybe 4 days a week is my process? But, I also had much bigger word counts per day than I planned. They were not enough to catch me up, but they are definitely moving me closer.
This is the place. I have been feeling the memories of trees all over the forest, but this is the tree that I want for this child.
I set to work peeling the bark. I have only done this in early summer and the tree feels like it has tightened itself against winter.
“I choose you to watch over this child, to help me find my way back to this sapling. I choose you to be the dark signpost amidst white trees and white snow that will guide me any time I want to make my way back. To show me the way when I want to come back to my little seedling and give her thanks.”
I keep talking to the tree while I work the bark slowly off.
I slit down the trunk with a knife and then carve around the sides. I push the knife gently under the paper leather of the bark and peel slowly around the tree until the bark lets loose in one large sheet.
It is only when it releases that I realize that I am bleeding again. That my fingers are frozen, numb, and so are my cheeks. My tears have frozen in small lakes under my eyes.
The sheet of bark curls in on itself, aching for the curve and structure of the tree. I place the swaddle in the embrace of the bark, letting the natural shape coil like a hug.
I wish there was more I could give this sapling, this life. But this was where our physical journey together ended. I chant over it before burying it as well as I can in the snow.
The ground is too hard, frozen solid, so a little nest in the snow is the best I can do. All I can do is hope that something beautiful will grow from the destruction.
Note:
This is a snippet from the novel I am working on for NaNoWriMo. I hope you enjoy it. I’m documenting my journey each day.
The truth of the matter is that I am very behind. You might have seen in yesterday’s post that I was nearly 12000 words behind where I had hoped to be by this time, and about 10,000 words behind the NaNoWriMo projected word count of 30,006 words for yesterday.
I am even more behind today because again, I have not written.
THE IMPORTANCE OF REWARDING YOURSELF
If I am being honest, the overachiever in me does not feel like I should get a reward when I am this far behind. But this is probably also the reason that giving yourself rewards is important. I have written more than 20,000 words this month. This makes it one of the best months of the year for me so far in terms of volume of writing, and there are still 10 days left to write more.
This is something to celebrate. I’ve been more consistent than usual this month. I’ve made the novel I am working on a priority in a way that I don’t often do.
So, here she is: my 20,000 word reward, plant #2 this month, my reminder that progress is progress even if it is slow: a lemon button fern!
THE IMPORTANCE OF CHEERLEADERS
This girl is a little scraggly and in need of some TLC, but she sure is making me happy. I did not have time today to go out and get myself my reward, so I sent my significant other and daughter out to pick one for me.
I do love ferns and this one is a cutie, so they definitely did a good job.
Now the fern’s sitting on my desk and she is this lovely reminder that I have people supporting me and that I am moving forward, still.
I highly recommend getting your support system involved in helping you get through NaNoWriMo!
How are you all doing out there? Have you found ways to let the people in your life support you? What kinds of community and reminders are helping you get through?
