I first heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2010 and liked the idea of committing to writing 50,000 words from November 1st right through to the 30th.  So long as I had the research, characterisation etc. done by the first (which might actually have been cheating) it would've been easy enough to plod along through it.

 

Everything was ready, inspiration was sky high.  Started out with a few thousand words on Day 1 just to kick off.  A few hundred words on Day 2.  On November 3rd I stalled.  It wasn't for lack of inspiration, drive, ideas, ability to write.  It was time.  Not just procrastination, but finding time and setting it aside to focus on writing and nothing else.

 

I gave up.

 

This November I told myself it wasn't going to be the same.  I knew what I was going to write (and in my mind already was) and I was going to make up for last year's poor showing by blasting a few a few thousand a day in the first week.

 

I stalled again: this time because a different story came along that was much better, much more interesting to me.  So I switched ideas (again probably cheating) on Day 3.  By Day 5 I'd stalled again - once again because of lack of commitment to writing.

 

I had had it all planned out: I'd tweet about it, I'd write notes about it on Facebook, I'd blog here.  And then I realised that if I was doing all that I might as well use that time for actual writing.

 

I stalled again: a better idea came along.  A script this time.  TV not film.  A lot nicer I thought.  I mean to stick to this because I can't keep chopping and changing projects.  So I've given up on NaNoWriMo for the second year running.  I'll do it in my own time, whenever I can make some.  The problem lies in committing myself to it, not with shortage of ideas...

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Comment by carmen medway-stephens on November 17, 2011 at 8:12

i'm writing a play in a month too - keep going, chip away and then it'll all fall into place

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