Fail.
I didn't quite break the 10,000 mark for NaNoWriMo, even though I was on a really good roll the first week of November. I could spend the next three days writing over 40,000 words... but I'll be going to work and probably trying not to think about it again.
At least I've written more this year than I have in the past, which is the same thing that happened last year. And this year I think I have a pretty solid story. SO what's the problem? Why do I set myself up for this every year if I continue to disappoint myself and those who are cheering me on?
Maybe November is a bad month for me. I seem to go out of town in the beginning of the month (from the 8-12 this year), and then there's the hulabaloo of Thanksgiving and the introduction to the holiday season. This year I had a two-week cold that kicked my ass, and then before it was over I started a medication that is making me tired and very thirsty. It's so much easier to sit in front of the TV and let my brain be consumed by HD entertainment. Maybe if I had gone to the local write-ins that other NaNoWriMoers arranged I would have been more motivated.
The more difficult realization that I don't want to write here--because writing it here makes it more real--is that I have a serious problem with following through on promises to myself. Most of the time I can follow through with promises to others because they are holding me accountable. I just don't hold myself accountable as much as I should. How the hell do you change that kind of lifelong habit?
Step by step, I'm sure. And maybe writing just a little more each year for NaNoWriMo is the small step that I'm taking as far as that goes... so next year, I damn well better break that 10,000 word mark. At that rate, I might actually "win" it (by reaching 50,000 words) by 2020.
