Posts tagged overachiever

The last TGIO party for NaNo was tonight. I got a couple of posters, some stickers, On Writing by Stephen King, and a book cover to be designed by one of the MLs. It was a great night. I’m just sad that it means that this is all over.

I had a great month. I met or exceeded all of my goals for myself:

• I wanted to finish a novel. I finished “Tilt Your Head and Smile” and even managed to finish draft two of “Learning to Lie” - finally!
• I wanted to write every day. When I set that goal, I thought I would be lucky to at least write 500 a day. Then I wanted to at least hit goal every day. I ended up writing at least 2k a day. Several days were over 15k, bringing my average word count to 7.4k a day.
• I wanted to hit 75k total. I ended up writing 222,545 words last month, in four different stories. It was amazing. I never thought I could write that much so fast.
• I wanted to be more active in the NaNo community. I went out for drinks with one of the MLs. I hung out in a hotel with WriMos from all over the continent. I was invited to a fellow wrimo’s party. I ended up not going because I had a minor freak out that night instead, but I was still invited.

It’s exciting. People know me. I’m still one of the more quiet ones, but I’m starting to get out there a bit more. I have people cheering for me to do well. I have people who are happy to see my enter the chat. I was included in a race among several Overachievers. It has been my most exciting month in a long time. I’m sad to see it end.

In other news, I was Facebook stalking people today and learned that one of the guys I went to high school with (he was co-editor of the paper with me and was a year behind me) is now teaching Spanish at our high school. That’s so weird. That more than anything else has made me feel like a complete failure. He’s managed to become a teacher already. And what have I accomplished? I’m a school photographer and a columnist for a magazine that can’t pay for articles.

I’m actually really excited about the columnist thing. I’m going to be writing a column called “Unpopular Culture” for the magazine Wildflower. I will have two columns a month and will write an article for the paper issue that comes out four times a year. I’m excited. I’ve already started coming up with a list of topics to write about.

My goal for the upcoming year is to build up a portfolio so I can try to get a paying gig as a writer. I also want to edit at least one of my novels so that I can try to sell it. I can handle rejection letters. I just want to start trying to get something out there. If I can become a published writer, I can handle all the other crap in my life.

I haven’t updated since NaNo started. I’ve been too busy working on my stories. This is my first year as an overachiever. Well, last year I was an accidental overachiever, but I didn’t overachieve by that much (67k total).

This year is different. I knew that I couldn’t finish a novel at 50k, and I knew that if I focused and wrote, I could write more than 50k in a month. So I set my goal to 75k or a finished novel, whichever I would be able to do in a month.

Then on the first day of NaNo I participated in a challenge set forth by another overachiever, and I set a Day One Ridiculous Goal (DORG) for myself of 15k. I thought I was crazy, but I also figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try. I thought I would get as close as I could and then just be proud of that. Instead, I wrote 19k. I could have written more if I hadn’t been at a write-in and needed to drive home before midnight. Next year I am defniitely aiming for 20k on the first day.

I hit 50k a little bit after noon on day 6. I hit 100k on day 14. I finished my first novel (Tilt Your Head and Smile) at 103k exactly. I am currently working on a fanfiction piece I just started and my NaNo from last year, which still needs to be finished. I am also participating in 50k weekend, during which time I will be starting a new story, whose plot I have only started to sketch out. I might be pantsing that more than I usually like, but that’s okay. It’ll be part of the challenge.

I’m sitting at 143k right now. I’m hoping to hit 150k tonight, but I will definitely do it by tomorrow at the latest. If I succeed in the 50k weekend challenge (the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday after Thanksgiving), I will have a total word count of over 200k for this month. That is more than I ever thought I could possibly do. I am so proud of myself, and that is a feeling I have not felt in a really long time.

Thank you, National Novel Writing Month, for giving me a little bit of confidence back, even if it’s for something that most people don’t really understand.