~ By Lynne Silver
The morning of November 1, (I believe it was a Saturday), I woke up and signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I’d heard of it and watched lots of my friends participate before, but I had never done anything more than watch.
I’d made excuses; it wasn’t my kind of thing, I already wrote a lot each month, I was under contract (okay, that last one is pretty valid). But I realize now that my excuses for not trying NaNo had simply been excuses built out of fear. Fear that I wouldn’t—couldn’t—succeed. After all, what kind of published, professional author couldn’t write a book in a month?
This year the stars aligned. I had nothing under contract, and I woke up on November 1 and had a bit of a Forrest Gump moment. “I just felt like writing.”
Guess what? I rocked NaNo! Turns out, I’m a pretty competitive person. When I saw the word counts of my buddies going up, I hit the keyboard and got writing. I wrote every day; something I’d previously claimed to do, but didn’t actually follow through on so well. Doing NaNo taught me the importance of writing every day, and how to carve out an hour here or there (even on Thanksgiving) to write. I also learned how to lose my internal editor, and I feel empowered that I can absolutely write a book in a month.
Of course at least five hundred words of my 50K manuscript are pure nonsensical babble, but that’s okay, I can edit and revise! At least I have something to revise.
NaNo reminded me that life is all about trying something new. Even if I had failed writing the full 50K, I would’ve succeeded at getting 30K or even 10K or even the first sentence to a new manuscript.
So what about you? What are your writing goals for 2015? Is there something holding you back in your writing career? Can you identify what that something is? Is it valid, or is it an excuse? Remember the old adage: If it’s important to you, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse.
Good luck, Happy holidays, and Happy writing!
Lynne
Romance author, Lynne Silver, writes the popular Coded for Love series and other hot contemporary romance novels, such as Love, Technically. Before writing romance, she wrote fiction of a different sort, drafting press releases for technology corporations. Washington DC is her home (non) state, where she resides with her husband and two sons. She is represented by literary agent, Jessica Alvarez of Bookends LLC.
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My writing goal is to finish my novel. Know where it’s going, just need to find time to get it done. December is just too busy – January is a great time to be able to set aside time each night for a little one on one with my MC. 🙂
My writing goal for 2015 is to stop making excuses for not writing on a consistent basis. Much like your NaNo excuses, mine are totally valid. But if I keep relying on them, I’m never going to get anything done.
Congrats on rocking NaNo!!!
Fear plays a big part in preventing me from getting my butt in the chair. My goal for 2015 is to kick fear’s butt and get my stories out there. I love that quote. I’m going to print that out. Congrats on losing your virginity.
Great post!