Act I: The Score
I’m currently at just over 30K. The target for today is just above 31K, so I’m a bit behind the line for the 50K average.
So there’s my Stats block (which I had no idea NaNo was compiling, but …), and that shows everything. At the given rate, I can expect to hit my target on … 1 December. Eek!
More importantly, note the “stair-step” graph. I’m not doing a good job of consistent, daily writing. I’m actually making up my wordcount in my biweekly Write-Ins … which is cool, but worrisome.
Act II: The Philosopher Speaks
Okay, 50K words is a cool goal. It’s actually a bit short for a published novel, but it’s a fine round number.
But if you don’t make it, know that you won’t make it, that there’s no way you can make it …
So what?
It’s an artificial number, arbitrary, pulled out of the collective NaNoWriAss.
Write what you can. Get the count that you can. Feel like you stretched, like you did something.
And you know what? When you tell your friends and family over Christmas that you wrote a 35K word novella in November? They will oooh and aaah just as much. They will be madly impressed by your dedication and achievement. They will be all, “I could never do something like that.”
So it wasn’t 50K? Crack open the champagne anyway. Because someone else wrote 75K or 100K. That shouldn’t make the 50Kers feel inadequate. Nor should “only” hitting 25K make you feel like a failure.
I gave the above pep talk to someone in our Write-In today who was constantly denigrating herself over her word count. It also was on my mind as I was contemplating how far behind I was.
I don’t know if I’ll hit 50K this year. It’s been a bitch of a year, and my November is chock-full of time-sinking goodness. If I don’t, I don’t. I’ll still crack open the champagne.
Act III: A Quote! A Palpable Quote!
“You got anything else that might be of use?”
“Only what the girls all sigh over.”
“Then get the hell out of here. But don’t take any trips outta town, Donne. This is two killings you’ve shown up around, which is two too many in my opinion.”
“Mine, too, Inspector.”
I haven’t been doing enough of these. And today’s is kind of lame. But there it is.