Bonus Post: What I've Learned From NaNoWriMo

Hello, Sarah here.

Katie told you all about Camp NaNoWriMo last week, so for our bonus post I will be giving you some advice on making the most of your NaNo experience. 

Last July was my first experience with Camp NaNo. Despite my good intentions, it did not turn out well. On the first day, my ego was enormous and my energy levels were high. Over the course of the month, all of that leaked out of me gradually like helium out of a balloon. I began to hate my writing, and had I not been typing on a computer, I might have flown into a passion and ripped apart the pages with my teeth, or burned them and danced around them like a maniac. (Luckily, that's a little bit harder to accomplish with Microsoft Word documents.) :)  
The lesson I learned that month was that if you're going to write, you cannot rely on circumstances. Things will not go as planned. Emotions will fluctuate. You might hate what you are writing. That doesn't matter. In the end, how you felt at the time won't be as important as how you dealt with it. Sometimes your best work may come from fatigue, frustration, even depression, as proved by countless artists of all kinds through the ages who turned their hardships into beauty. In retrospect, I realized that.  

With fresh resolve, I decided to try again in November. That was when things got real. This time, my goal wasn't just a measly 10,000 words or so. I wrote 50,000 words that month. Probably more than I usually write in a year. I did fall off track several times, but I was able to write an enormous amount over Thanksgiving break, which I can tell you was a pretty bad time to decide to pick up my slack and write like a fiend. Nonetheless, I finished shortly before midnight on the 30th, barely in time for the deadline. Truth be told, there's never going to be a good time to buckle down and write. You'll always have excuses. Great things can happen when you decide to set aside those excuses and do a thing that most people only daydream about.

This year, with even the tiny bit of experience I have gained, I feel stronger and wiser. I know I still have a lot to learn, which is why I am trying to expand my horizons. My projects this month include short stories, poetry, and possibly a work of nonfiction. In November I plan to attempt a novel again. I have a long way to go to get where I want to be, but the journey, though full of frustrations, may yet prove to be the best part of the experience.