Hello poor souls that don´t know another thing than write in the month of November. I am here to give you sweet release of the stress ball in your stomach.
No, i am not coming to give you "5 TIPS TO SURVIVE NANOWRIMO" or "HOW TO WRITE FASTER". I am here to tell you it is fine to go slow and it is fine if Nano is not for you. Because it can be in one year and then the other is just a big NO.
I have been a writer for a little more than one year. I started right around the corner of November 2018 and it felt good to be able to challenge myself as a newly pages filler on that specific time. Nanowrimo 2018 was a very precious thing for me because it made me believe that I could actually write. something I have been meaning to do for a long long time.
But it made me feel the worst after it.
When November 2018 was over I felt invincible and as the months went by and my pages remained blank I felt that victory drained out of me drop by drop and I faced the biggest writer´s block or creative block or just pure mental block of my life. I was empty of creative juice because I had burned out. And I am in a creative degree. And I felt like a complete failure.
So this year I obviously...wanted to give another try! Because I cannot learn from my mistakes, can I?
Initially I was going to outline a new novel and write the 50,000 words as a draft zero. But by 26th October I was still hanging to dry and no outline was ever made. Ideas, yes but nothing concrete and one thing I learnt from last year is that I am a plotter.
Well fuck so what now?
Thankfully I got an idea that made me think I could finish Nano this year.
SPOILERS: I obviously didn't. Oh old me I am such a giver upper.
This spectacular idea was to use a tarot card to pull my imagination. Everyday I would pull a card and I would write a story about that card with the day words. Pretty easy. An imagination exercise. I even got a friend of mine pull out her writing skills and participate with me.
So I went out and bought one in a fancy Wicca store. And the cards are amazing. There are in the picture in case you want to check this fact.
First day
It was hard man. I wasn't even in the mood to write and every-time I checked the word count my heart was pulled a little. I got an Air card that was quite beautiful and I ended up writing a very cool little story. And hurray, I finished the day word count. Less like 100 words.
Lesson learned: I write slow.
Second day
I was getting into the flow of writing and I got up and got to it pretty fast. Off course I made up for the lack of words in the previous day and I wrote a story about a villain that is only a villain because she was forced into to it by humanity: (HEY! DO YOU WANT TO READ THIS STORY? COMMENT BELLOW!).
Lesson learned:I can write very melodic stories. And I am dark teller. My stories are mostly about death or consequences.
THIRD DAY
And this is where it went to shit. I pulled out a card that made me remember my childhood and so I wrote a letter to myself and my family which ended up on being a shitty piece of writing and a lot of wet tears on my cheeks. And I hated it. Surprisingly was the fastest story that I wrote.
Lesson learned:I cannot write on my own past or emotions. I can delve in to them as I write something else but not directly about them. I don´t like it.
Fourth day
This was a very good day if I might say. I ended up not writing until the very end of the day. And I never do this because I am a morning person. Normally I am dead at like 5p.m. And only food can bring me to get up off the sofa. This day I wrote the best story I ever did. EVER. and I am still polishing it to present it in competitions, so I can´t publish it here.
Lesson learned: I can actually write well at night AND I like to write a bit of mysteries.
FINAL DAY
This was the day I figured it out. That I am not fit to pull out big word counts just because. So I gave up. And it felt good. It felt like letting go of expectations. Of what other people are thinking I should be as a writer. This is an excerpt of something I wrote that day:
I don't want to be a rant writer that just writes because she has to. No. I wanna do art. I want to think about it and lay down the words that I know will make someone have some sort of emotion. And that is all I am gonna write because this is shit and it pains me to write. I hate this text. and the feeling that it is bringing me. So no. I am not this. I don´t want to be.
Lesson learn: