I really need to figure out how to motivate myself to write outside of November. This morning, I’m home alone because the wife has to meet with her boss and get some stuff done at the office. Since it’s Sunday, and there’s no football on yet, I’ve been struggling to amuse myself. I’ve been using PBWiki to see if it’s a good way to plan out the novel, and so far it seems to be working. I just had a mini-epiphany this morning on the plot of this year’s novel, which is always fun.
It makes me wonder why I can’t get myself to do much writing outside of the confines of Novel Writing Month. I like writing. I like that feeling when the solution to your sticky plot point just comes to you. And, according to some (biased, I know) people, I’m not a bad writer.
It’s just frustrating that, since November 2002, my first Novel Writing Month, I’ve written over 150,000 words of fiction in four Novembers (And one, 2004, I only wrote 400, so really in three Novembers), and probably 30,000 words in the other thirty-two months. That’s not very good.
I think part of me is convinced that one day something will just click and I’ll just “be a writer”. But the more sensible part of me knows that it’s not that easy.
But, Nano 2006 seems to be coming together nicely, so I’m going to keep working on it and enjoy the month of November. And then on December 1st, I can see where I am. Either I can go back to working on 2003’s Love in Black and White, or I can continue with this year’s still untitled novel. I expect all of you to yell at me if I don’t.