Tiny Victories and Unfinished Thoughts

Once again the wheel of the year has come around to the month of November bringing the changing of the leaves and chill breezes. Hell, the other day it actually snowed here in Pennsylvania! It's also National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, that insane time of the year where writers all over the world set out on the epic quest to write a 50,000 word long novel in a single month.

This will be my third year in a row participating and although I've never "won" by reaching the target of 50,000 words I still view each year as a personal victory. For me, the hardest part of writing is actually sitting down and making that series of beautiful or terrible or exciting images in my mind into words that would allow others to see the world I've imagined. That drive to find the exact word to describe the way the sun slants through the trees at sunset or how the hairs stand up on the back of your neck as a spirit steps through you in a haunted house or even just the smell of a pie cooling on the counter is so exhilarating and maddening at the same time. I second guess myself at every turn and eventually decide that I'll never find the perfect turn of phrase and just stop writing altogether. Having clinical depression certainly doesn't help either, it just reinforces the negative thoughts that what I've written isn't good enough and that no one could ever enjoy it. Each word I write is a tiny victory.

I've gotten so bad about not finishing what I start that my Mother actually made me promise not to show her any more works in progress until they have a beginning, middle, and end. She told me that I've gotten her hooked too many times with bits of story that are never finished and it was frustrating her that she could never find out how it ended. So my computer is full of bits and pieces of stories that no one has ever seen, and in many cases probably never will see, because of my struggle with being good enough for myself. I think that at this point I have very little fear over what others think of my writing, the harshest critic I have to satisfy is me.

This year I'm going into NaNoWriMo with new eyes. This year I'm going into it as a published author. I submitted a short story to a contest for possible publication by Cupboard Maker Books and was greatly surprised to find out that it was chosen. I was even more surprised to find out that some of the other stories were written by local authors who have multiple books published. For the first time since I was in school and had to complete something because it was for an assignment I actually finished a piece of fiction and presented it to other people. And it feels so good! But I also feel a bit like an impostor.

Last weekend we had a big book launch at the bookstore where most of the authors who contributed to the book were present at this one massive table set up across the front of the store. Some of the other authors are people that I've made friends with through the various book clubs I'm in and others were complete strangers to me. There was so much energy in the air and though I've been to book signings before it was completely different being on that other side of the table. The whole thing still feels surreal almost a week later.

So when I sit down to work on my NaNoWriMo novel this year and I start to get overwhelmed and feel like I've set myself an impossible task I can remind myself that I've done this before. I've written a beginning, middle, and end. This is nothing new. I'm an author, and each word I put down is one more than I had written before. So what if I don't write 50,000 words in 30 days. Even if I only write 5 words or 50 words or 5,000 words those are all words that I hadn't written and each one brings me closer to that goal not just of finishing but of letting myself relax and stop being so harsh on myself. It's one more piece of an unfinished thought.