Making Time for NaNoWriMo

Time.

Time is always the problem, isn't it?

Finding enough time for the things we really want to do. For me, this November, that would be NaNoWriMo. Like last year, I am trying to meet the NaNo challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. And, like last year, it seems I am unlikely to succeed.

I certainly don't do my best writing under the limitations required for participation; namely, quantity over quality. It seems I am a hopelessly determined editor. Spelling errors haunt me, awkward prose nags at me, and dreary dialogue pounds away at my temples, screaming for rewrite. I find it nearly impossible to forge ahead, letting my last poorly-rendered sentence fade away, forgotten as I move on to the next. The words beg for deletion, plead for reworking, and it's all I can do to put them out of my mind and forge ahead, telling myself I'll revisit them again, sometime in December.

Choosing historical romance as my genre requires a huge amount of research, and I realize that I should have spent the month of October locating all of the information I needed, outlining my novel, and organizing myself for the frantic month ahead. Alas, I didn't. Historical inaccuracies abound, I'm certain, and all I can do is hope that my basic premise doesn't balance on some fatal flaw that will ultimately bring the entire thing crashing down.
If only there were more time.

Time that is free of concerns, worries, and every other thing unrelated to the story currently whispering to life in my head?

That kind of time, I know, will never be mine. Nor anyone else's, I'm quite sure. Women, especially, seem to have the ability to juggle so many things at once, and it's hard to realize sometimes that we can't always "do it all," that often we can only do, well, enough. And sometimes we need to make time for ourselves, for the things we want most to do, even if other things need to be set aside for awhile.

And maybe that's the whole point with NaNoWriMo. Trying to meet the challenge is a training exercise of sorts. I am learning that despite whatever is happening in my life, I can make time for writing, even if it's not the recommended 1667 words per day. Some days I can't write a word, for one reason or another, and that's okay. That's life. But other days, I can surprise myself by writing 2k words in one sitting, and that can be pretty okay, too.

I may not make it to 50,000 by the end of this month. And I definitely won't have a decent novel by then, either. But maybe I'll have the bare bones of an idea, a few scenes to work with in the future. And regardless, I will know that I have the fortitude to keep writing through all the personal challenges, to work toward a goal that may not be met on a certain timeline, but has the potential to be met someday. I'll know that I have it in me to keep going. And maybe, for a writer, that's enough.