I learned something interesting a few minutes ago. If I were on track for NaNoWriMo I would have written 36,674 words by the end of today. My first thought was, well I’m doomed. Second thought was this: I could still do it. Right? I just need to apparate to my productive writing forest wonderland and write something like 25,000 words by midnight tonight. Because that’s totally reasonable. (There is a reason why you are supposed to write a smallish number of words every day for NaNoWriMo, and not half of the whole challenge in one day.)

On the NaNoWriMo website there is a fun statistics page that shows you where you are and where you should be (in addition to lots of other fun things). That specific graph reminded me last year of a heart-rate monitor (up, down, up down; good one day, not so good the next, better two days later) all month long. Well this year the heartbeats lasted for a while, small as they were, then they kind of flatlined. Actually, they totally flatlined.

When I realized this I thought, Oh dear. My writing life died? Well, that happened fast.
But I had a reassuring thought somewhere along the way of my somber memorial service. I was playing taps on the violin, thinking about what used to be, and sniffled. A tear came to my eye and I cried, it seems like just yesterday that I was writing. Then I thought, Wait! I was writing yesterday! But that’s not what the graph said. It showed that my writing had passed on to the other side about a week ago.

So I put down my violin and started thinking. (Actually, I probably put the violin back to my chin because my best thinking is done with my instrument on my shoulder. But the song was no longer taps, it was probably that angry Russian-sounding I-can’t-remember-the-name-of-it-because-I-can’t-find-the-sheet-music-but-it-helps-me-think song.)

I had been writing yesterday. I spent hours it seems at my computer writing something. But if it wasn’t my novel, what was it? Then I started replaying the many hours in the past week when I was writing. But none of those counted because they weren’t the novel I had chosen to write this November. That didn’t seem very fair to me. I’ve done all this writing, but none of it counts.

So I decided to make it count. I went through and added up all the different things I’ve written this November that were not counted towards NaNoWriMo because they’ve gotta count for something. (There should be a website like NaNoWriMo.org just for this cause. The organization could be called something like The Justify Your Excuses for a Month Support Center, and then for short we we could say Just Your Excuse because every great organization name needs a better shorter version of the name.)

I have written multiple papers a week for school, blogposts, a whole bunch of lengthy emails to my brother serving a mission, emails to other friends and cousins serving missions, and I have also been typing out a very entertaining story that my little brother is writing (he tells me the story and I write it up for him).  I also wrote two or three extra scenes for a different story, rewrote a query letter draft, and most excitingly: I sent a query letter to a slew of different literary agents for the novel I wrote last year for NaNoWriMo!

With all of these different things combined I calculated that I have written 28,674 words, plus what I have tried to do for NaNoWriMo. And not included in that number is all the edits I have been making to last year’s novel — only the completely new scenes are counted in my 28,674. It also doesn’t count anything handwritten — which I’ve been trying to write a thank you card every day.

So as far as my justified excuses go, I haven’t been too shabby!

Now, I am not a fan of excuses under normal circumstances. But I do think it is important to step back from a goal that you are struggling with and notice all the extra things you are doing that weren’t part of the original plan. Just because your goal to write 50,000 words in one specific document isn’t working out well, it doesn’t mean that you have been wasting that time. Sometimes we get so hung up on a goal that we don’t think about everything else worthwhile going on.

Writing a novel in a month is definitely a great thing that every writer should try out once or twice, or maybe a few times, in their lifetime. But don’t beat yourself up if this isn’t your month.

And if you still want to be able to say you wrote a novel in a month (I know I don’t want to wait until next year to accomplish that) than you can join me in a December version of NaNoWriMo. I have decided that December first will be my fresh start. I will (hopefully) stop making excuses, have less going on in my usual writing timeslot, and 50,000 words will once again be my goal.

If you take anything away from this blogpost I hope it is something like this: You are probably doing really good things with your life, so give yourself some credit, and don’t be too narrowminded about your goals.

Happy Writing!

Or Happy Reading!

Or Happy Time-Spent-Chasing-After-Runaway-Children-and-Pets during your supposed “writing time”!

Basically, Happy Worthwhile Endeavors!

(That’s not as fun to say as happy reading, so just know what I really mean when I say Happy Reading!)

P.S. The Shattered Castle was so good! You should probably go read it. You’ll forget all about your writing project, but it will be so worth it!

P.P.S. Look at that! Now I have about 950 more words to add to my justified excuses tally! Go me!