Camp NaNo: Week One Pep Talk

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It’s the end of week one. The initial burst of enthusiasm has past, the energy from
starting something new has begun to fade. We’re heading into the trenches now, the muddy middles and the end seems so far away. At least that’s how I view the end of week one; for you it might look like something else, everyone is different in the writing process. I can tell what my word count is by how I’m feeling, I don’t even need to hit recount, I know that I’ve reached ‘that part of the book’ without looking.

I love beginnings, I find beginnings easy, it’s the middle I always struggle with. My friend hates beginnings, loathes them and absolutely loves middles when everyone has met and the story is past the awkward set-up stage and things are happening. We talk about week two blues, or the post-50k slump but there are far more highs and lows than just the standard ones.

Whatever your word count and however you feel, just think about one thing for a moment. You have a lot more words at the end of this week, than you did when you started. Progress has been made. You might have had an absolute killer week and be on cloud nine. Your story is awesome, you are ahead with your goals and you are rocking it. Maybe your week wasn’t so great, maybe you’re behind or maybe you’ve decided you loathe your story and want to kill it with fire.

Personally I go from one extreme to the other on a day to day basis, sometimes on an
hourly basis. From the depths of despair to sheer elation when something goes right. We are writing people and that is hard. Non-writers don’t get it and that is our eternal compliment. That is why the NaNo months (whether the challenge is in April, July November), have such magic about them. All around the world there are people going through exactly the same thing.

In this cabin we have a wide spectrum of goals but we are all making the same sort
of journey. It’s all about our personal bests, what we can do, climbing our own personal mountains. It’s the end of week one and whether it went good or bad, it is just the end of week one. There are three more weeks left. It is not the end, it is just the end of the beginning. There’s a long road ahead and we are all going to walk it – together.

Now I’m going to end this pep talk by altering a couple of cool quotes to make them more NaNo orientated. Bonus points if you recognize their origin 🙂

“People are going to tell you can’t write that much, that fast, your whole life. You just got to punch back and say no I can do it. You want people to believe you – make them. You want to write a freaking story, you are going to have to go out there and write it yourself because there are no word fairies in this world.”

“Something wrong?”
“No. I’ve just never written this much before.”
“Well, they say the first 10k is always the hardest.”

“Do you ever give up?”
“Not till I’m all out of words. And sometimes, not even then.”