#NaNoWriMo and me

When I first saw this hashtag I got really excited (doesn’t take much).  Twitter was in a frenzy of excitement about it and I knew it was something to do with writing but no idea what.  With the help of my bloggy friends I discovered that it’s National Novel Writing Month.  A month where writers new and established alike pledge to complete a target of 50k words during the month of November.  I instantly wanted to join in but was hesitant due to the enormity of the word count.  I am not a full-time writer and although I am on leave from work currently, 50k words is a huge ask for someone who has barely written before.

Then I realised…….

The word count is not the point – for me.  I have my idea and a brief overview of my children’s book already planned out. I just don’t always have the motivation or dedicate the time to writing for longer periods.  To be honest, I’ve no idea how many words my book is even likely to be – I’m at about 500 currently.  I’m also don’t manage well if I place expectations on myself as failing to meet them makes me disappointed and I run the risk of becoming obsessive about word counts and time.

So I assertively decided…….

I am going to participate in #NaNoWriMo.  But I’m changing the rules to suit me because writing should be a pleasurable experience for me personally and not become stressful and another thing to beat myself up about.  I’m not working to a deadline to complete a book, I am writing because I always wanted to and I’ve finally got the courage to do so.

My pledge for #NaNoWriMo is:

I will try my best to write every weekday (weekends are for taming the kids and putting my best Mary Poppins face on) but I will not be annoyed and disappointed with myself if I can’t or simply don’t want to.

My book will move forward in progress this month.

I will use this as opportunity to develop a first draft and I will not be self destructive if it isn’t perfect or how I envisioned because it is a first draft.

Happy ~NaNoWriMo everyone x