#NaNoWriMo LOG: DAY 15 (A 1st Timer’s Journey)
I'm back in my home and life that surrounds what I'd call "the typical day-to-day". Today was another mark in new experiences through writing. \o/
Yesterday I spoke of secret doors and I contemplated whether I should feel grateful that something like that happened during this writing challenge (which I totally do!), or if I should be sad that more haven’t opened since the one big one. I wrote those words from a hurried state of mind, from the chair of a hotel room workstation, thinking more about all the other things I needed to do before catching my flight home. Today I realized that the secret doors might always be there for the opening if your mind is focused enough to see them. Maybe the doors aren’t even secret, maybe they’re more like those Magic Eye posters where you have to look at them in just the right way to see the image. The more you practice looking at those things the easier it becomes to focus in the right way, and to see what has been there the whole time.
I was present today. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe writing and the secret door I spoke of had more to do with my presence of mind than anything else. Forcing yourself to hit a 50,000-word goal within 30 days is a really respectable reach. As a first-timer, I imagined all the struggle and obstacles that might arise. While I definitely considered the incredible learning experience I would gain from participating, I really had no idea what to expect. To be perfectly honest, I imagined my growth in this first NaNoWriMo experience would come mostly from a lot of failure throughout the challenge. Thus, I thought that by doing a little extra work to capture everything through a separate daily journal, I might be better prepared to actually succeed next year. But once I committed and started doing the work to keep up, magical things started happening. I started and suddenly failure was no longer an option. Starting has pushed me to find a way to make it work rather than remind myself I can stop at any time. Writing for a word count has pushed me to think about things from a fresh perspective. To not only understand those remarkable words from Ray Bradbury, to “Work. Relax. Don’t Think.”, but to live them.
This challenge, and very specifically today, has reminded me that while I will continue experimenting and doing many, many other things from day to day: writing is the right path for me to be on at this point in my life. I feel electric!
Today's Stats:
Started: 4:43a PT
Stopped: 6:53a PT
I wrote 3966 words today!
Current total: 34,358