Ride the Rollercoaster

Time to sit back and enjoy the ride - even when it goes off the rails

Remember back on November 1 when I said that the weeks of NaNoWriMo tend to follow the same general track for most people? (If not read it here) Well, congratulations, you made it to week three. We’re at the halfway point now. In an ideal world, you should have 25,000 words by the end of today. Too bad this isn’t an ideal world. It’s scary as hell rollercoaster ride.
We all experience ups and downs in the writing process. You’ve been working yourself hard for two weeks here. You’ve written a lot of words even if you are nowhere near crossing 25K words today I want you to be proud.
Look at those words. Just look at them. You wrote those words in two weeks. That was all you and that is an awesome accomplishment. These are words that you may never have written if you hadn’t attempted to do NaNoWriMo.
If you listened to my advice in the above-referenced blog post, then you have been building a buffer of words for the days when the words don’t come so easily.

If you look to the right you will see my stats for 6 consecutive years. Some years, like 2011, I really needed that buffer. Not sure what happened, but I had some trouble going into week three. Some years I stated behind and picked up the pace. But in every single year you will notice that I have days where the words flowed like waterfall and days where I would have better luck getting blood from stone than words on the page.

We all have these days. Every year is a new kind of rollercoaster and I can never predict how my year is going to go. I've learned to accept that these low points happen. I hate them, but I accept them. I never beat myself up over the days where I just cannot make the words happen.
But those days where I can write? I write. When the words flow, I let them carry me away. Low days or high days makes no difference. In the end, I have written. Some years more than others.

This is me telling you that anything is possible. Ahead, behind, or on par - keep writing on. Not every day will go well, not ever year will go well, but you're squeezing out a few words. Focus on that. You are writing.