I don't know what I'm doing.
There are times when I feel like a little girl all dressed up in her mom's dress with a huge necklace down to her knees, clomping around in shoes 10 sizes too big with lipstick smeared across her face.
Here I am, a 30 year old woman in her 13th year of marriage with four children, and I still feel like a child.
I look around me at all the people who seem so confident and competent and seem to have everything together, and I wonder if they feel as lost as I do.
This feeling is especially prevalent when it comes to my writing. I read so many books that leave me in awe, and then I look at my own writing and wonder who I'm kidding.
I want to write something meaningful, profound, inspiring, uplifting, or at least helpful or worthwhile in some way. I have this high-follutin dream (By the way, is high-follutin even a word? Am I misspelling it so badly that the spell checker can't even recognize it?) Anyway, I have this high-follutin dream of writing the next "great American novel", something that readers for generations will read and love. But I wonder if that's even within the realm of possibility for me. I'd say it's not, but there's this tiny voice inside me that says anything is possible.
So, that's me. In a nutshell, I feel like Jerry Seinfeld trying to pass himself off as President Hinckley. Sooner or later, everyone will see I'm a fraud.
#20 - Falling Behind
I haven't written a single word on any writing project since November 30th.
I've thought about sitting down to write often. I had a goal to try and finish my first draft of my book by the end of December.
The problem is, I'm in one of those "off" moods. The farther I got into December, the more convinced I was that everything I've ever written is worthless. I don't know why I get in these moods.
The thing that's finally broken me out of it a little bit is that I got a new story idea that I'm pretty excited about. The problem is, I absolutely refuse to start another new project until I've finished the two projects I'm in the middle of right now. It's bad enough I let myself start a new book when I was already over 80,000 words into the first one, but to start another new one would be too much.
I also realized that the more I work on these books that I don't necessarily like right now, the more practice I'll get writing and actually finishing novels, and the more practice I get, the better my next book will be.
So, I pulled out my NaNoWriMo book this afternoon, dusted it off a little bit, and actually wrote a few words. I'm excited to be back in the writing mode and I'm going to try really hard to stay here.
Another motivation I have for finishing this book is that I just paid $20 for a session to meet with an editor at a national publishing house and I want to have this book ready to show him in March. It's time to put my nose back to the grindstone.
I've thought about sitting down to write often. I had a goal to try and finish my first draft of my book by the end of December.
The problem is, I'm in one of those "off" moods. The farther I got into December, the more convinced I was that everything I've ever written is worthless. I don't know why I get in these moods.
The thing that's finally broken me out of it a little bit is that I got a new story idea that I'm pretty excited about. The problem is, I absolutely refuse to start another new project until I've finished the two projects I'm in the middle of right now. It's bad enough I let myself start a new book when I was already over 80,000 words into the first one, but to start another new one would be too much.
I also realized that the more I work on these books that I don't necessarily like right now, the more practice I'll get writing and actually finishing novels, and the more practice I get, the better my next book will be.
So, I pulled out my NaNoWriMo book this afternoon, dusted it off a little bit, and actually wrote a few words. I'm excited to be back in the writing mode and I'm going to try really hard to stay here.
Another motivation I have for finishing this book is that I just paid $20 for a session to meet with an editor at a national publishing house and I want to have this book ready to show him in March. It's time to put my nose back to the grindstone.
#19 - I'm a NaNo Winner!
I did it!
With less than a half hour to spare, I reached my 50,000 word goal. It feels really good to set a goal and actually achieve it. It also feels good to take a little break from writing without feeling guilty. :)
With less than a half hour to spare, I reached my 50,000 word goal. It feels really good to set a goal and actually achieve it. It also feels good to take a little break from writing without feeling guilty. :)
#18 - Bad Days
Some days are better than others.
I've found that there's no part of my life that I get right on a daily basis. Some days, I sit down with my kids when they get home from school, go through their backpacks, get them started on their homework, read with them, and get my daughter to practice piano. Some days, I only get through some of it. Other days, I forget to do it at all.
It's that way with housecleaning, with my moods, with my scripture reading, etc.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's that way with my writing as well. Some days I far exceed my daily goals and other days I fall way short or don't get to it at all. As the month has progressed, I've had to raise my daily goal twice because I've fallen short more often than I've come out ahead - first I went from 2000 words a day to 2500 words a day, and for the last week, I've set a new goal of 2680 words per day.
The good news is, I'm on the homestretch and the finish line is in sight. I only have 3 days left, but I also have only 7430 words left to write to make it to my goal.
On the one hand, it would be easy to say it doesn't really matter if I hit that goal. Writing 48000 or 45000 or 49000 words in a month would be a great accomplishment anyway. But on the other hand, I set a goal and I can't quit striving to reach it when it's within striking distance.
So all the housework is going to have to suffer and I might slip on homework a time or two this week, but I WILL write 7430 words in the next 3 days.
I've found that there's no part of my life that I get right on a daily basis. Some days, I sit down with my kids when they get home from school, go through their backpacks, get them started on their homework, read with them, and get my daughter to practice piano. Some days, I only get through some of it. Other days, I forget to do it at all.
It's that way with housecleaning, with my moods, with my scripture reading, etc.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's that way with my writing as well. Some days I far exceed my daily goals and other days I fall way short or don't get to it at all. As the month has progressed, I've had to raise my daily goal twice because I've fallen short more often than I've come out ahead - first I went from 2000 words a day to 2500 words a day, and for the last week, I've set a new goal of 2680 words per day.
The good news is, I'm on the homestretch and the finish line is in sight. I only have 3 days left, but I also have only 7430 words left to write to make it to my goal.
On the one hand, it would be easy to say it doesn't really matter if I hit that goal. Writing 48000 or 45000 or 49000 words in a month would be a great accomplishment anyway. But on the other hand, I set a goal and I can't quit striving to reach it when it's within striking distance.
So all the housework is going to have to suffer and I might slip on homework a time or two this week, but I WILL write 7430 words in the next 3 days.
#17 - Thanksgiving Update
I want to give a Thanksgiving Update on my NaNoWriMo progress.
As of yesterday, I've written 32,304 words. I'm really excited with how well my story is coming along, but I'm a little nervous about the fact that I only have 8 more writing days, including today if I make it to writing today, and I still have to write 17,696 words. That's an average of 2212 words a day.
Right now, my story is really flowing and things are happening that I didn't even know were going to happen. The book is practically writing itself. I threw in something that I didn't even know where it was going to go, and then later on, it fit in perfectly with the way the story turned out.
I'm going to have to leave you in suspence for the details, so you'll have to buy my book and read it when it's published. :D
Wish me luck writing those 2212 words over the next 8 days!
As of yesterday, I've written 32,304 words. I'm really excited with how well my story is coming along, but I'm a little nervous about the fact that I only have 8 more writing days, including today if I make it to writing today, and I still have to write 17,696 words. That's an average of 2212 words a day.
Right now, my story is really flowing and things are happening that I didn't even know were going to happen. The book is practically writing itself. I threw in something that I didn't even know where it was going to go, and then later on, it fit in perfectly with the way the story turned out.
I'm going to have to leave you in suspence for the details, so you'll have to buy my book and read it when it's published. :D
Wish me luck writing those 2212 words over the next 8 days!
Amendment to #16 - Ahead of My Goal
I just have to make a slight amendment to my last post. I said that I was 2576 words in the negative as of today.
The good news is, I have changed that number. I'm now 26 words in the positive! Yay me! :)
I like the idea that I can start out on Monday with no need to catch up from this week.
I'm really excited about the twists and turns my story is taking. It's starting to take on a life of its own and I can't wait to see what happens next.
The good news is, I have changed that number. I'm now 26 words in the positive! Yay me! :)
I like the idea that I can start out on Monday with no need to catch up from this week.
I'm really excited about the twists and turns my story is taking. It's starting to take on a life of its own and I can't wait to see what happens next.
#16 - The Week 2 Blues
I've got the Week 2 Blues.
I'm really stuck right now. I have written some good stuff the past couple of days, but the words aren't flowing off the ends of my fingertips like they did the first week. I've had to skip around to scenes way down the road that need a lot of setting up in order to get any kind of a word count.
I'm keeping a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet to track my progress throughout the month. There's a column that tells me how many words I've written that day, a column that tells me how many words I've written overall, a column that tells me how many words I should have written by that point in the month, and a column that tells me how far ahead or behind I am. I'm going to copy that last column below to show my progress so far.
13
268
1741
1868
457
-1543
-1419
-2576
See how much progress I was making the first four days. Then on day 5, I didn't hit my goal, but I was still ahead of my overall goal. It was day 6 that killed me. Missing just one day of writing cost me 2000 words. I've been struggling to get back out of that hole ever since. The -2576 is only because I'm still struggling to get my word count for today.
I'm going to need to write 1200 more words today just to get my daily word count, and then I have to try to squeeze out more if I want to whittle away at the deficit I created by missing a day.
I seriously need to think about exceeding my goals every day leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday in case I totally slack off. It's so close to the end of the month, I don't know if I could recover from it by the 30th.
I'm really stuck right now. I have written some good stuff the past couple of days, but the words aren't flowing off the ends of my fingertips like they did the first week. I've had to skip around to scenes way down the road that need a lot of setting up in order to get any kind of a word count.
I'm keeping a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet to track my progress throughout the month. There's a column that tells me how many words I've written that day, a column that tells me how many words I've written overall, a column that tells me how many words I should have written by that point in the month, and a column that tells me how far ahead or behind I am. I'm going to copy that last column below to show my progress so far.
13
268
1741
1868
457
-1543
-1419
-2576
See how much progress I was making the first four days. Then on day 5, I didn't hit my goal, but I was still ahead of my overall goal. It was day 6 that killed me. Missing just one day of writing cost me 2000 words. I've been struggling to get back out of that hole ever since. The -2576 is only because I'm still struggling to get my word count for today.
I'm going to need to write 1200 more words today just to get my daily word count, and then I have to try to squeeze out more if I want to whittle away at the deficit I created by missing a day.
I seriously need to think about exceeding my goals every day leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday in case I totally slack off. It's so close to the end of the month, I don't know if I could recover from it by the 30th.
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