Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Today I have made great progress on NaNoWriMo. I might have got twice as much done today as on any previous day - and the day's not over, so if not quite twice as much yet, I'll definitely get there before the end of the day. I had a slow start, but today I figured out a process that seems to work fine for me. This is great.

This worries me.

Obviously, it's only a tiny worry around the edge of otherwise good news. Doing well is good, and if I don't make the goal, it's still fun, still more productive than some ways I spend my free time, and still a good challenge for myself. But the thing is, if today and maybe tomorrow had proved as unproductive as previous days, I'd really be too far in the hole. Considering my other commitments this month, and the fact that even if I do find a good process I can't expect to maintain it all the time, catching up after falling that far behind would have been practically impossible. I would have needed all-nighters or prescription drugs or something, and I still have a day job and a life, I couldn't do that. It would basically be over.

... so if it was over, I could stop. I had tried something new, but I knew it would be hard from the start because of both the goal itself and all kinds of stuff going on in my life these days, so if it didn't work out, hey, no hard feelings, maybe try again next year. If today hadn't gone well, I might as well quit. But now it's not over. There's a difference between trying and failing, and giving up. And I don't want to give up, do I?

So I guess I'd better get back to it.