NaNoWriMo ’19 — What the Hell Happened? (Originally Posted 2.17.21)

The truth is…I have no idea.

Initially, the excitement was there. As early as September I geared up to write Thriving: Eternal, the fourth installment of the M31 arc (I explain the arc system in my previous blog post). I announced my project on the NaNo site, gathered my tag list on Tumblr for when I would post updates every day, and even went strong into the first day of November, overshooting my daily word count goal as I am wont to do. I had a plan. My initial drafts always come from my head, as I can’t traditionally outline worth a damn and I achieved resounding 50k+ word count successes that way all the way back to 2016, so this time would be no different.

Then it fell apart. I couldn’t tell you when it happened as it wasn’t an immediate thing.

*Shuffles through notes* …Actually, I can tell you exactly. Day 2.

Tip: Feeling the need to start an update with the words “Uh-oh sisters” is a sign of good things you should definitely not be worried about.

The reason these, as I’d dubbed it, “snaggy times” didn’t tip me off is because the next few days went fine. Daily word count was back to being effortless, the plot was chugging along and I felt good about the draft. Then I got sick around day 4, and I do believe that was when things started to go south.

Before I go into further detail, I just want to iterate that I absolutely hate this book. I mean, that’s kind of harsh, but it’s accurate. I don’t hate the plot. In fact, I probably love the actual plot of Eternal more than the plots of any of the other M31 installments. The gang goes to Andromeda, and huge, exciting truths about my boy Thrive are revealed after having built them up for three whole books. We see the eliyi again, the Emmuli make their biggest, most harrowing appearance yet, the relationship between Warren and Thrive is tested, and it’s just a great plot in my opinion. It’s the first draft with which I’m desperately not friends.

Can I even call it a draft if it’s not finished yet? It’s got seven chapters and a pitiful few disjointed paragraphs of an eighth. Yeah, that’s right—I haven’t even finished the damn first draft yet. And I’m not sure I ever will.

So, I suppose I do know what went wrong. I think I can sum it up like this: doing NaNoWriMo while depressed (and sick) is a mistake. Doing NaNoWriMo while depressed, sick, and severely low on self-esteem due to outside stressors and lack of validation is an even bigger mistake.

I thought I had a plan when it came to the first draft. I always did. Even if I changed most of it in later drafts (because I don’t know if you’re aware, but that’s what they’re for), I had enough to put to paper on the first run, to lay a foundation for future construction. I thought I could get that done, arrogantly, because it’d always worked before.

Good freaking god was I wrong.

Have you ever tried to run through waist-deep water? No matter how hard you try to sprint, the resistance is too much and you’re jogging at best. That’s what writing the first draft felt like.

And after leaving this post to marinate for a few weeks, I’ve come back with the Top Three reasons why it felt like that.

1. I was sick,

2. I was depressed,

3. and I had finished up an abysmally received writing event on Tumblr literally the week before November started.

October 2019 in the writing community of Tumblr went so abysmally for me that I couldn’t recover for weeks. Dealing with a severe lack of validation for something you’ve spent the majority of your life hiding from people when you’ve got Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is like rain on your wedding day, it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid, it’s the good advice that you just didn’t take.

Or something.

So what did I do with all of this? How did NaNo ’20 go down as beautifully as it did? Why was wrapping up an entire five-novel first arc so easy compared to the penultimate novel?

Well, I’m not gonna keep this sitting in my Drafts tab for another month just so I can figure it out. That’s for another post, y’all.