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We recently checked in with Brianna Robinson --- one of our Teenreads and Kidsreads interns and brave NaNoWriMo participant --- who told us how she was doing one week into the month long, 50,000 words challenge. Now it's been 20 days (!) and she gives an update, shares some motivational sayings and explains how getting sick can really throw a wrench into your writing timeline.
I was doing so well.
Ten days ago and I was actually ahead of the NaNoWrimo game. I had even gotten up early to write, something that seems ridiculously impossible for my sleep junkie mind. But I was going strong. I was averaging on 2,000 plus words a day and I had a solid, if slightly tenuous, plan about where I wanted to go with it. Therewas no doubt in my mind that I would reach 50,000 words and even before the deadline.
But then I got a sore throat. And the sniffles. I didn't want to write with a fever, though the results might have been hilarious. My winning streak has ended and with it, somehow, that growing confidence that I had to finish this thing.
It seems kind of impossible but writing everyday had helped and halting so suddenly made me feel kind of like I had been spinning around in circles for a while, out of place and wonky.
I'm kind of determined not to feel that way any longer.
So yesterday, when my throat felt more scratchy than like I was swallowing jagged edges of glass, and I could actually breathe with my nose, I wrote. Not a lot and I still felt wonky about it but I accomplished about 1,500 words. Today, hopefully I'll accomplish more.
Have you ever seen Meet The Robinsons? Besides the fact that I share a last name with the characters I am ridiculously enamored with this Disney movie because of the beautiful and true lesson it shares. When you fail like I'm kind of on my way to doing, you just pick yourself up and try again. "Keep moving forward."
Ira Glass, Host and Producer of “This American Life”, has one of the most telling and perfect quotes about moving forward. It begins with "Nobody tells this to the beginners,". And it's something that with every piece of writing I start, I try to remember. The gap between my taste and my own work is to be celebrated, and with every sentence, paragraph and page I write, rewrite and edit, I can bridge that gap. If I keep moving forward.
Which is why NaNoWriMo is really an amazing tool. It's for all of us who don't believe our writing can be worth it. This not believing is what stops us up and our doubt is what makes the writing awful, not the actual writing itself. Because of course the first words and drafts are going to suck. Jackie Woodson, the recent winner of the National Book Award for BROWN GIRL DREAMING, wrote about losing count after 31 drafts of the book 31! Whew. And this NaNoWriMo game I'm playing? Just the first. I don't have to get things right this time. I just have to get things down.
So I'm going to drink some more tea and coffee, post that Ira Glass quote on my wall, listen to that Disney movie jingle and get to work. Because I've got work to do. Approximately 21,000 more words of it.
Hope your pursuits are going better than mine and if not, just keep moving forward! We'll get there in the end.
Brianna is an intern at Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com.
