2008/11/01

Nanowrimo Blues

Every year, some subset of my friends decide to embark on the Nanowrimo challenge - the yearly attempt for each author to write at least 50,000 words of creative writing in the month of November.
Every year, I'm tempted to join in - one reason Nanowrimo was founded was to give people an impetus to stick at and just write something of short novel length, overcoming their various hangups about composing something that long; this is a particular problem of mine.
And then, every year, it gets to the 1st of November, and I haven't signed up to the website yet (although I've spent too long reading the various forums, and advice posted by others, and the posts of my friends angsting about preparing to start)... and I crumble.

I spent this morning (and quite a lot of last night) frustrated, angry with myself and despairing that I'll ever be able to actually write anything of any worth of novel length (the other issue I have being that, not only does outlining a story totally kill it for me as a work, but that, except in rare situations, so does writing any scene or vignette in my mind).
There may have been some tears.

Nanowrimo isn't worth this kind of emotional investment from me, especially since it just emphasises all the hangups I already have about my total inability to produce any creative content of any worth (the SFX short story competition has a lesser effect on me, since at least I think I can write 1000-odd words before it all turns to ashes). Expect me to be avoiding any of your relevant Nanowrimo posts for the rest of November - it's not your collective faults, but it's just not good for me.

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