Three Weeks Through and Feeling Blue

Feeling like a failure today.  Did everyone else know that this was going to happen?  That I would make it halfway through Nanowrimo (for the record I still hate that abbreviation) and then I would stall?  I got 25,000 words through and have struggled since that point.

It was the same old thing where you miss a day and the thought of doing twice the amount of work the next day to make up for the day you missed, well it becomes overwhelming, so you miss that day also, and then, well fuck.  Before you know it you have three days of work to complete in one day, and it's daunting enough to get 1600 in one day that are worth anything, let alone 4,000 plus.  

"Don't worry about the quality" the bloggers say.  "Just get it out there".  And to them I say "go fuck yourself.  I'm not going to waste 50 - 60 hours of my life writing garbage.  Even with an outline, after 25,000 words it is easy to lose track of what you have, the seeds you're trying to plant, the characters you've created.  So I went back.  And I started to revise.  And I stalled.  

At first, it seemed justifiable, because I was going through and expanding the old copy at the same time I adjusted and removed sections, so I still got my words done.  But then, it wasn't happening like that, and I spent an hour and half on revising and didn't have my words, and neither did I have the heart to go and write them, especially knowing they would be in the baby phase compared to some of the more sculpted passages I had revised and honed.  So it turned out the bloggers were right.    SCREW YOU BLOGGERS AND YOUR ACCURATE INFORMATION!!!

I am now trying to pick up the pieces. As of today I am 14,666 words behind where I should be.  I could let it go at that and promise myself I will work away at this book, knowing that without the deadline it will be that much harder to finish it.  Add in the amount of failure I am feeling at the moment and you've got a decided lack of motivation to complete the story that will not always feel worthy of the effort it will take to finish it.  

So here's what I can commit to as of today.  I can recommit to getting 1667 words for the next six days.  At which point I should have 35,342 words of the piece.  Hardly a failure, even if it isn't considered "winning" in the eyes of the almighty NANOWRIMO peeps.

Feeling a touch better about the situation.  Not perfect, but am realizing this isn't the end of my journey with this process yet.