Yeah, I've been doing NaNo a while. This was my ninth attempt and seventh
consecutive win (I started in 2003 and wrote a laughable 2k, skipped 2004,
managed 8K in 2005, won in 2006, skipped 2007, won in 2008, and have won
every year since then.) It would indeed be really hard to give it up; at
this point I use it as my "more or less guaranteed 50K of publishable
fiction" carrot-stick combination. But I've been doing a lot of talking
with cypher and others this year, and I don't think the way I
treat myself during November is healthy; also, because of the way my brain
really likes to move goalposts, I no longer count it as success if I "just"
win. cypher pointed out that I have solidly proven I can
spit out words to meet a deadline, and that it might be time to prove I can
walk away, which is probably more accurate than I am willing to admit.
The first NaNoWriMo was apparently in July! But they decided it wasn't
hard enough, so moved it to November (which is....really side-eye worthy
for a whole host of reasons relating to privilege of various types,
but.)
I missed my GYWO goal...two? years ago? And I will have to push a bit to
hit it this year, but I think I can do it (there's still Yuletide, etc.)
I'm actually thinking of signing up next year for my standard 200K, and
trying to use it to form good writing habits relating to consistency
instead of my usual "sprint for 10K in a weekend, take a month off" method,
and NOT allowing myself to use the "if I do 50K in November" counting
method. I'll give myself the first six months of the year to see if I can
adequately write origfic without NaNo beating me over the head. It should
be an interesting experiment.
no subject
Yeah, I've been doing NaNo a while. This was my ninth attempt and seventh consecutive win (I started in 2003 and wrote a laughable 2k, skipped 2004, managed 8K in 2005, won in 2006, skipped 2007, won in 2008, and have won every year since then.) It would indeed be really hard to give it up; at this point I use it as my "more or less guaranteed 50K of publishable fiction" carrot-stick combination. But I've been doing a lot of talking with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cypher and others this year, and I don't think the way I
treat myself during November is healthy; also, because of the way my brain
really likes to move goalposts, I no longer count it as success if I "just"
win. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cypher pointed out that I have solidly proven I can
spit out words to meet a deadline, and that it might be time to prove I can
walk away, which is probably more accurate than I am willing to admit.
The first NaNoWriMo was apparently in July! But they decided it wasn't hard enough, so moved it to November (which is....really side-eye worthy for a whole host of reasons relating to privilege of various types, but.)
I missed my GYWO goal...two? years ago? And I will have to push a bit to hit it this year, but I think I can do it (there's still Yuletide, etc.) I'm actually thinking of signing up next year for my standard 200K, and trying to use it to form good writing habits relating to consistency instead of my usual "sprint for 10K in a weekend, take a month off" method, and NOT allowing myself to use the "if I do 50K in November" counting method. I'll give myself the first six months of the year to see if I can adequately write origfic without NaNo beating me over the head. It should be an interesting experiment.