NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

So I’m not doing nano this year.  Shocker, I know.  And I wish I could be using sarcasm here.  But the reality remains that I am a busy busy boy, with little to no time to do the things I love to do.  Not saying that I don’t love what I do, but what I am saying that I don’t have that down time for myself like I used to.

Great job, Zack, for starting a blog before going back to school.  Real smart of yourself there.

And it hurts.  It really does hurt that I don’t get to do nano this year.  It hurts that I am letting a part of myself die in a sense.  Nano has been a writing project that I have been working and working on for years.  I’ve been doing this since high school, junior year to be precise.

Funny story actually.  My “first” year was the year before that.  I had heard of NaNoWriMo before, but I had missed the deadline in my freshman year in high school, and subsequently in my sophomore year as well.  Goes to show what it means to have your head up in the clouds all the time.  So I attempted in my sophomore year in December.  Needless to say that I had failed.  Miserably failed.  I had failed so hard that I hadn’t even written a single word for it outside of my own writing goals and projects.

My first official year as I said was back when I was a junior in high school.  And I won that year.  And I won the year after that.  And I kept on winning since then.  Not that there is a definitive win scenario other than the completion of 50K words in one month, and that as a writer and creator I am constantly unsatisfied with my work so I will never be done.

It’s kinda impressive how many words I had achieved over the years.  At the same time, I hate the fact that I did it.  There’s a part of me that wants to one-up myself.  “Oh, I did it last year, I can do it this year too!”

That’s the kind of thinking that gets me into trouble.

The sad thing is that each year I “won” I got another story, and the words written are better and better than the years and months prior.  I can best relate it to Flower City.  It’s not my spiritual high of the year like a lot of the teens use it for, but this is my writing high of the year.  This is the time of the year I focus and buckle down and get words written and I really improve myself as an aspiring author.

The hard work pays off, which I know.  And the pain of not doing it again this year really does cut deep.  Once again, I wish I could use sarcasm here.  The stark reality is that while in the short term I am pained and bitter over the loss of self and the loss of love for my craft, I know that in the long term I will benefit.

It’s not like I’m spending my time doing nothing, either.  My mind still runs free with the words I want to write and the stories I want to tell.  I just have to put them on hold for now, I guess.  I don’t know when I get a chance to write for myself again, but my fingers are itching for their chance to do their things again.