Britt said to me the other day that I should give myself some grace. That’s not something I’m very good at. Her remark was in relation to something else but it did highlight the fact that I’m often hard on myself. And the thing I’m being hardest on myself for the moment is my NaNoWriMo project.

At the time of this writing, and assuming my calculations are correct, I’m approximately two days behind schedule and I have yet to hit the daily word target even once. I knew going in it was going to be tough but I’m not sure I fully understood what it meant. I’ve come close and I’m fairly sure that I can do so, if I can discipline myself better.

What’s a bit more galling, is that I’m not sure of the quality of what I’ve been writing and I’m not sure it’s gelling yet. It feels more like separate pieces than parts of a whole. I’ve said before I’ve never been much of a plotter but this time I’m really feeling the lack of it.  So I’m trying to plot things as I’m writing which maybe isn’t the best, but it’s either that or give up. And I don’t want to give up.

Reading that back, I think it illustrates what I said earlier. I don’t think I’m a perfectionist but I do think I’m rarely satisfied with what I do accomplish. After all, even though I’m not hitting the daily target (yet) I am writing more than I have in a long time. And while everything may be a rough draft, there is some stuff of merit in there. I’m hoping that going to be a good foundation that I can build on in the coming weeks.

Above image by Gustav Dore