david ding

Less than a week after my decision to partake and two-and-a-half days in and I’m quitting NaNoWriMo.

Although I have had notions of participating for a few years, my enthusiastic signing-up in the early hours of last Tuesday morning was very much a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment, partially-alcohol-fuelled act. I didn’t fully consider the implications of the commitment, which was a bit silly of me, given my experience of doing the RPM Challenge four times (results: here, here, here and here).

I already have a bunch of stuff planned for November: at least two gigs (attending, not playing), birthday parties, sporting events, etc. And time is essential for an undertaking like this, especially when I’m starting from a standstill – which isn’t how it’s done, apparently. Unlike RPM (or Movember!), where the idea is to start from complete scratch at the beginning of the month, most NaNoWriMo-ers kick off on 1 Nov fully primed. Participants are encouraged to spend the weeks leading up to it making plans, sketching out characters, nailing down plot outlines and so forth. I’ve done absolutely none of that. And in the last 60 hours, since the challenge has begun, I still am struggling to get off the ground.

All of that is making excuses. And if I really wanted to do this, I could power on and overcome the various obstacles. The crux of it is, I don’t really want to. In the harsh light of day, there are just other things I’d rather be doing at the moment. I’m definitely not ruling it out for future years. But for November 2013, the dream is sadly over!

I was a little taken aback by the response to my announcement a few days ago. People were highly encouraging.  I hope I’m not disappointing anyone too much! I’m sure you can agree that some one lacking serious motivation, forcing themselves to churn out 50,000 words in 30 days, probably isn’t going to produce the most enthralling piece of work. I mean, there’s always a chance they will – but I’m not too willing to be the guinea pig this time. Sorry!

(The above post is 345 words – the most I’ve written in a long time! If I can keep this up, NaNoWriMo 2014 could be a goer! Baby steps…)