NaNoWriMo, Revisited and Wrapped

Another November has slid by like warm butter in a pan and here I am, no rough draft and no 50,000 words.  (At least, no 50,000 words in the novel.  I'm willing to bet the cash in my pockets that I cleared 50,000 words between my daily free-writing and my novel.)  Still, I'm grateful for the experience.  NaNoWriMo, ironically, has taught me a counter-lesson to what it's supposed to:  find YOUR goal and stick to it.  One writing goal doesn't work for everyone.

I started out at 2,000 words a day, and learned to resent the hell out of my novel pretty quickly.  The best thing to do with it seemed to be spending an hour of longhand with it a day (that's not counting typing yesterday's pages or any free-writing that I would do when I was stuck).  It was like getting to spend an hour a day with a spouse or child; you really should spend more, but the real world deems it necessary to financially support your spouse and child, so the job-hunting had to take precedence.

Like the way most people feel when they get to spend time with family, my hour a day zipped by like it was five minutes.  And, like variances from one family member to another, my family didn't understand when I wanted to work on the book instead of rotting in front of the television (shouldn't you get to keep one light on and write if your family doesn't want to talk to you and wants to watch "American Chopper" instead?  And when did the Discovery Channel turn into all drama all the time instead of, well, discovery?  But I digress...), so there were three hour blocks most nights sitting on my hands, staring out at the Carlsbad Lagoon, and trying to memorize dialogue between two infielders, as though I were writing from prison.  I knew this would happen, and I know that writers in my family are rare.  At one point I whipped out a book light and read Hem, looking for clues.  (Just to clarify, my family watches tv in the dark.  I'd have to go to another room to turn on a light.  I've had boyfriends who were like this, too--more interested in the television than in me, and then angry if I want to read.)

Would I have succeeded at NaNoWriMo if I hadn't visited my family?  Nope.  NaNoWriMo was a nice thought, but I probably would have been distracted by something else, if not cooking and watching tv as group activity.  And I don't get to see my family every day, every week, or even every month.  The important thing was that I learned passion for my fiction again, passion for my ideas.

And now, if you don't mind, dear reader, I have an hour coming to me today.

Onward.  :)

P.S. - To be fair, I came home last night and watched "Restaurant Impossible" on the Food Network.  Another network trying to drum up ratings with drama.  (Sigh.)  A ten-day habit that I am now trying to break.