Beware burnout and disillusion

The first days of Nanowrimo are always hectic. Either you whirl away at a mad rate and write a huge number of words, or you plod along at a painfully slow rate and no matter how many words you write, the target for the day just seems impossibly far away ...

On top of that, I got nanoflu on Saturday, which made writing a fairly miserable affair. This is usual - looking abck over my notes from last year, I got the flu at the start of Nano 07 and 08 as well. Mostl likely you'll get it this week, also. It is one of the Nanobeast's ploys. Don't let it work.

Some other things to watch out.

First, burn out. If you make a great start, that's great. But it is early days. Burnout is a killer - people decide they can't be bothered anf give up. They might have great plots and characters and all that, but they get tired of staring at the screen and pounding out words, night after night.

There are more interesting things out there, to be sure. Compared to sex, drugs and rock and roll, or even a good book that someone else has written, Nano is a pretty dull way to spend your free time. Or maybe giving up that free time makes people realise how much they love their partner/child/cat and they'd rather spend their time with them.

Just remember why you're doing this. You want to be a writer, right?

Second, disillusion. It is okay to get sick of your plot and characters. I realised I was going to have a very long Novemeber after only a couple of hundred words. My nicely planned out plot seemed silly and it really hurt writing even just 200 words to cover thos plot points ... Again, this is typical. Looking back at what I've said before, I thought that I was writing the worst guff I'd ever written and was hating the whole sorry experience.And now in 2009, I'm pretty sure that this is the weakest nano I've ever written.

Novemeber is not the time to make judgement calls. Just carry on with it. When you revist thiwhat you write this month, you'll be amazed at how not-rubbish it is.

There's a long way to go yet. And though the first 3 weeks of nano can be unmitigated Hell, the last fortnight is a rush like nothing you've ever experienced. So keep going, no matter how much you don't want to.