NaNoWriMo - Acceptance

Hey you,

Today's Listening: peace

So I've...given up. In a good way.

50,000 words is a very tall order. And I thought I was being realistic by saying 25,000.

And I'm new at this, I can barely get out a 300 words newsletter every other day. Why I thought trying to write an extra ~1000 words every day would work...I don't know.

But I think on some level, I did know. I knew this wouldn't work, but I tried it anyway.

Because I still came out 5,000 words richer...and with a story to tell.

I have a story, its in my brain somewhere, bouncing off the words, grammar and syntax required to craft it properly, but it is there.

My mind is telling me that I'm a failure, that I couldn't manage to confront this simple challenge. But as anyone that has done this before has probably discovered, this is no simple challenge.

Writing is an exhausting activity, writing with purpose is a mental battlefield. Knowing when to use prose, when to say less, when to say more. Knowing what to say at all.

And it all circles back to what kind of writer you are. If you are like Brandon Sanderson and have an incurable case of chasing word count high scores, then maybe prose doesn't slow you down. But if you are like me, and want to cram as much wit and charm possible into every section, you might find yourself staring at the same word for minutes on end.

The great decider perhaps, is time. In our world, where techniques are being developed to skip traditional work entirely. The amount of time you invest can mean wildly different results, dependent on stratagem.

If I invested five minutes into typing away on my story, I could have maybe 200 words of coherent thought. But if I invested three minutes into a ChatGPT prompt, and the remaining two minutes watching my 3,000 word masterpiece come together...

For me, this experience taught me two things.

1. I should stop judging myself on word count. Because of number two.

2. I like to use fewer words.

It is why most of my articles contain a sentence or two per line, I want them to matter. I like to let each sentence stand on its own, be worthy of mention.

I came in, with the lofty expectation of emerging with a novel. Instead, I emerged with a renewed philosophy. I am going to continue my novella, but at a pace that keeps me from going insane.

Would I recommend doing this challenge? Absolutely, you might learn something.