Some NaNoWriMo lessons

Marcie wrote to me this morning, moaning that her NaNoWriMo novel is so BAD.  And this is my response: 

My advice:  give the author a break. This is the first draft of her first full-length short novel. Everybody is writing crap right now. 300,000 people are writing badly. Did you know that?  It is Nov 21st and this will be over by December.

What I have learned is that it takes great control to stay on top of the word count. I have to pretty much write every day. I cannot sew, knit, cook or socialize too much. I cannot read either, for fear that I will be negatively influenced. My weekend at Yosemite was a writing disaster. I have also learned that my evil twin is always trying to discourage me. Perhaps we share that twin. "This is crap" "why do you bother" "You're too old to ever have any success at this" yadda yadda yadda.

It is amazing: my family has accepted that when I am standing at my dresser with the Oxford dictionary under my laptop, I AM WORKING. They peek in the door and then tiptoe off. Last night, when I got home from the event, AT MIDNIGHT, I was putting things away, and I set up my laptop in its place on the dresser. Nora wandered in the room and looked horrified, "You aren't going to write NOW, are you??" she asked.