Nano: Day 22 – Nano to the rescue

To those that say nano is a waste of time, you know who you are; I thought I’d tell you a bit about how it has helped me this year.

It’s day 22 and I’m on schedule for the suggested word count – 1,667 words a day. Breaking down that figure it’s not a huge amount. With a good three hours to spare on writing every day, which is the least I should be able to fit in without it ruining my life, that’s only 555 words an hour. Plenty of time to get down on paper whatever’s running through my head. And plenty of time, I think, to get the words down even if I’m making it up as I go along.

The problem isn’t the quantity of work. I’ve done 10k in a day so why would 1,667 be a problem? No, the problem is writing every day.

To do this, I need to think at some point every day “I must write now”. That’s not as bloody easy as it sounds! The human mind is excellent at making excuses helping you to procrastinate.

“I can have a day off can’t I? I did double a normal word count yesterday!”

“I can make up for it tomorrow, can’t I?”

”No point writing today, is there? I can’t think of anything/need to do research/not in the mood.”

Well, that’s fine. Don’t write then. It’s not your job so you can’t get sacked. People assume it’s a silly hobby anyway so they’ll be happy you’ve moved onto something sensible like flower pressing, or metal detecting…much more sane.

The trouble is you want to write, don’t you?

Well hang on. If you want to write why are you making excuses?

“It’s too hard to write every day, real writers don’t do it.”

Well, I don’t know about you but I’m not a real writer yet. I don’t have the luxury of been able to write perfect novels in only a few drafts. It’s going to take me a long time to polish my ‘works of art’.

This is where nano comes in (got there eventually). The amount of times I have wanted to give up this year is scary. I’ve sulked and moaned and closed my word processor and said there’s no point I might as well wash up. Now, that’s scary! Me wanting to wash up!

But…

I’ve persevered. I’ve pushed through the awkward problems, the ‘I have no idea what happens next’ bits, the ‘oops my characters names rhyme’ issues and the times when I’ve just wanted to burn what I’ve written so far.

And you know what?

It’s working.

I have 35,000 words that I think are pretty good.

For a first draft.

So nano isn’t a waste of time. It’s helping me understand what I’ll need to do every day if I want to be a real writer.

Write!

Write every day.

I hope it’s working for you too!