the beginning

In the last few years, I can certainly admit that my creative side has been suffering.  I simply did not set aside enough time, energy and patience for the process to really work properly.  And being an expect procrastinator, it was always easy to tell myself that I would do it later.

Now every November for the last three years I have participated in an event called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo.)  The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel in only 30 days.  And every year for the last three years, I have been successful.  Usually by the time November 1st comes around, I have a solid idea on how to start my story and it takes off.

This year.  Not...so....much.

To challenge myself further, my personal goal has been increased to 60,000 words and a swap for my usual third-person limited thriller for a first-person sci-fi story.  Tonight, with two of my friends, we threw an impromptu kick-off party and while they took off running out of the gate, I found myself stalling from starting.

In fact, I usually do a bit of pre-planning before November comes around.  I will come up with character bios, plot settings, story archs and goal targets for my story.  This year I ended up procrastinating so much, I only came up with very limited character bios an hour before Oct 31 was over!

Once I started writing, like actually getting going, I did a decent drop creating my slightly altered, modern world.  Created some history, hinted at changes, set up intrigue, etc.  Then I found myself casually slipping from my first-person style back into my usual, comfortable third person.  And by 1,400 words, I hit a crisis point.  I was finding I was concentrating so hard on the keeping my writing in first person that not only was I second guessing my understanding of what first person actually is, but also found myself not concentrating on the actual story.  In other words, I was making what it meant to be a fun project, far too stressful and probably too challenging for where my creativity actually is.

Back in year one, I was incredibly nervous to complete this challenge.  I had never completed a story more than 10,000 words before.  In fact, I abandoned so many short stories in my time that the idea of writing 50,000 words in a single novel seemed impossible.  But because I had planned everything out quite well, set aside large chunks of free-time and committed myself to following all the tips/tricks/guides of the official handbook to NaNoWriMo, my success was guaranteed from day one.

In year two, I planned less, but still gave myself a solid jumping point.  This year, my story was stronger because I was no longer worrying about if I could do it but instead on how well I could do it.  So when year three entered I decided to add a slightly supernatural element to the story (but again leaving it open-ended at the start) and found decent success.  However, there was a pitfall in year three that I had ignored.

My stagnant creativity.

Being creative is like being physically fit.  If you work out frequently, your muscles grow strong and are more capable of doing physical things.  Being creative is same idea.  The more time you spend being creative, the easier being creative will be.  Going into year three, I knew that my creative time had slowly been cut back for one reason or another but I still was familiar with the process that slipping back into the routine (albeit it took some time) would happen.

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from that process of going from a metaphorical couch potato to marathon runner overnight, that once I was finished that story, I went right back to being a creative couch potato.  Another excuse I will offer up is over the last six months, my professional life got infinitely more challenging and stressful.  Now while that was great for my professional career and experience, it was damaging to my creative side.

Now going into year four, I've raised the bar but lowered my skill.  So it was time to re-think things.  Writing more words will not be challenging.  But constantly second-guessing my style while losing focus on the story is too much of a burden to carry this year.  So now, I'm breaking a golden NaNoWriMo rule and will pull out my inner editor and re-write the 1,400 words already completed so they are in the third person limited style.

It is my writing style.  It's where my voice naturally goes. And once this month is over, I plan to use it to edit year two's story.  No use making everything harder on myself when my creative muscles are overweight and underused.

A small part of me feels disappointed in myself.  I set a goal and when it got tough, I gave up and went an easier route.  But this is a project that I look forward to every year.  It encourages me to be creative and gets me writing again and at the end of the day, that is my basic goal.  At the end of the today, I can say that I have suffered a small level of failure but in the big picture, it can only help me succeed.