I started the month of November with lofty expectations. It was the start of NaNoWriMo, I had my project all lined up, I was signed up to participate in Kick Offs and virtual Write-Ins, I’d even had the amazing opportunity to guest blog for NaNoWriMo Prep. All was going according to plan. Of course, if there is one thing I’ve learned as a would-be writer, it’s that life seldom goes according to plan.
As I continue to try and do this whole self-publishing thing right (learning formatting, different platforms, different tools for design, marketing…the list goes on and on), I have set a reminder for myself to check in on my social media and keep things updated. Considering it’s over halfway through the month and this is my first blog post, I think we can safely say I’m still missing a few steps.
However, what really got me this year was not procreating, or finding ways to try and shy away from actually writing. What got me this year was the actual act of writing. I became downright hostile towards anything that interrupted my writing. On the one hand, this is a positive in that it made me set time aside for writing every day. On the other…it made me not want to interact with anyone other than my characters (and corgi). I even got to the point that I turned hostile to my story, and that was when I had to take a step back and figure out where I was going wrong.
After three days of little to show for my total word count, I finally had multiple breakthroughs. I realized my frustration with my WIP was that I had drafted the story in novella form for ONC with Wattpad earlier this year, but in changing to a full story format, my story had changed, and so had a few of the characters. They now had more to do and to say, and their opinions couldn’t be lost. The second realization I came to was that I had become so hostile because it had become ingrained in me to be hostile. For the majority of my adult life, I’ve worked in retail-related industries (mainly with a certain shipping company with an affinity for brown). I HAD to be protective of my writing if I wanted to finish my stories. But seeing that I had stepped away from said company to take care of my mental health, I didn’t have anyone to fight with but myself.
After these rays of sunshine burst through my dark bubble, I was suddenly back on track. I wrote close to 15,000 words in three days. I made the 50,000 on Day 13. I was on a roll. And now I’m satisfied enough with my time on my little writing island that I can venture back out into the world. I’m still going to hide from anyone who rings my doorbell, and I’m still going to make the time to write. I might have hit 50,000 but this story is far longer than that even in draft 1.5 form. But now I can engage again with the world. I can look outside my world. I can venture off my island. And, most importantly, I can still write.
Given the detours of the last few weeks, I do promise to be back on track by the end of the week in regards to sharing more insights into self-publishing. Formatting will be a big topic, if I can remember all the hoops I have to keep jumping through LOL.
Until next time…
L.E.
Ramblings of a Would-Be Writer 