hello from a nanowrimo failure

Oh hello there. Yes, it’s me.

I was so excited to finally do NaNoWriMo again this year and win for the first time since having kids. For those of you who aren’t familiar, NaNoWriMo happens every November. It’s 30 days of writing with the goal of finishing 50,000 words by November 30th. By doing so, you’re deemed a “winner” — even though you may or may not be done with what you’re working on.

I need the push to get through that many words on one project so it’s been super helpful for me in the past. I’ve finished two books that way — one women’s fiction and one memoir — but have yet to publish anything.

But it wasn’t in the cards. I got sick and spent a couple of weeks having no energy, not able to focus enough to really get going and ultimately admitting to myself it just wasn’t going to happen.

But it’s not all bad. Not even close. I was thinking about my lack of a NaNo 23 win and thought of these things I learned from this particular round of failure.

1. Starting itself can be a win. If you beat yourself up over everything you fall short of, you’ll never try anything. One thing I’m certain of is that’s not how I want to live so I’m going to keep trying.
2. Learning how you could better prepare is also important. I was … not prepared at all. It was a few days before and even though my plan was to pick back up and finish something I’d started, I didn’t read what I’d written until a day or so prior. Yeah… not the best of plans. Next time, I’d read months in advance and, taking it a step further, would prepare a detailed outline. I’m trying to do suspense and it makes this even more important.
3. Knowing to not push through can sometimes be the biggest success. This was huge. Around halfway into the month, I could have dug in and stubbornly pushed through my words. But since I wasn’t still 100% I gave myself some grace and conceded that staying up around the clock through the end of the month probably was a bad idea.
   

It wasn’t all a wash though! I wrote almost 8,000 words when I haven’t written long-form content in ages so I’ll count that as a win!

What are some of the things you’ve learned from your failures?