Thursday, December 1, 2016

What to do When You Lose NaNoWriMo

Today, to celebrate the fact that it is December 1st and NaNoWriMo is officially over, I made my cat hate me.

Sort of. I took her to the vet and she got poked and prodded and all the usual things that we do to our pets to make sure they are healthy but they don't understand.

Don't worry, minus being a tad bit chunky and needing her teeth cleaned, Hathor is in perfect health. (Although, apparently her name is super difficult to get right because no one at the vet's office said her name correctly.)

After that, I went to go see a movie and was given a high five for being there alone. Like seriously, the person selling tickets was like "are you meeting someone or something?" and when I said no, he was like "right on" and gave me a high five (the time I went apparently was so slow that the customer service person inside is also the ticket seller so there was no weird aerobics for him to give me said high five). I guess it is a sign of me being comfortable enough in my single-ness and the fact that I have bizarre days off that no one else really does to be able to go see a movie alone. Anyway, it ended up being awesome because I was the only person in the theater watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Which was a fantastic movie.

Anywho, my post today is a simple one because I did not win at NaNoWriMo this year.


To the casual NaNoWriMo-er, it seems very straight forward with what winning means: You've successfully written 50K words in one month in at least somewhat of a story structure. When you've won then you have the putty, the sketch of a story to work with and mold down into a more polished piece. 

But when you don't hit that, does that mean you've lost? 

I don't like looking at it that way. As long as you've written something, you've won. At least in my eyes. 

Maybe you got halfway through and ran out of steam. Maybe something unforeseen happened and you couldn't write. Maybe you just weren't able to hit that goal every single day and as you watched the words needed per day number rise steadily it just became overwhelming. Maybe you didn't really care too much, so you wrote for one day and then completely forgot about it.

Whatever your reasoning, you didn't fail. You didn't lose. Do you have one more word than you did at the beginning of the month? 

That one word, that single word no matter how small and insignificant it might seem is very important. 

You did something. 

You began.

That is the first step in writing anything. 

And that is a success in my book.

Just because you didn't get it done this last month, doesn't mean you can't do it. 

Don't give up.

For all of you out there who didn't make the 50K words, this is my challenge to you (and me): Continue writing, continue aiming for that finish line of the end of your story. 

Don't give up.

So, this month my aim is to finish what I started this last month. 

Is there anyone out there willing to join me? 


Until Next Time, 
Shelby Hild

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