first snow and nano update 2018

NaNo Current Word Count: 18,037

last night was a hard writing night. Every day since the first I've managed to get in 2k or over, no matter what. last night, I just couldn't. It was 12:30 am, I scratched down 526 words and closed my laptop. I'm still on track, it's okay. but not making 2k last night made me feel dissatisfied with myself, immediately I knew I shouldn't feel that way but the fact is, I did. 

at first I think I surprised myself with how "easy" it was to do nanowrimo. I didn't really think that, I just felt it if that makes any sense idk. Outlining helped me a lot. Then self doubts hit in about how I thought my writing was just getting worse as I progressed and agh, my characters weren't very personable and the story world felt forced

I showed my first chapter to a few friends and some people loved it and others thought it could use some work and hey, that's cool. My story isn't for everyone, it's for me. And I hope your story is for you too. it's nice when other people enjoy your words, but that's not the whole thing. not for me, anyways.

Don't stress out about your wordcount and how many words you dont have and wow how is that person doing 5k EVERY DAY? bc that's not you and it's not your story and thats perfectly ok. Look at how far you've come.

Part of the problem is, I've been looking at what I haven't accomplished, or what isn't good in my story and forgot to look at the fact that I've written 18k in NINE DAYS when I haven't been seriously writing in over a year and that's a big accomplishment for me. I forgot to look at the fact that there are actually some good things in this story and that I have a message to tell, instead of thinking about everything that isn't working out like I pictured. I forgot to focus on the fact that there are people out there that actually love my story and I've had two people say "IT FEELS LIKE AN ACTUAL PUBLISHED BOOK" and that they can't wait to read it all

why do we beat ourselves up so much for what we've gotten wrong, instead celebrating what we have right? too often we think others view us as less, when we are really the ones beating ourselves up for our flaws. So calm down. You've got this. I've got this.

I was talking with a friend about it last night, after he had read my first chapter and I was saying how I was having a hard time with writing. he said this: "just think how good it will feel when you finish."

so lets remember that this month. No matter what, we're winners. Tell your story and tell it for you and that's all you'll need. we've got this xxxxxxx