Trusting the process

“Thanks anyway, but I’ve got this figured out on my own.” (Nasjonalbiblioteket, Norway)

Guess what? I decided to try NaNoWriMo for the first time.

During NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, participants aim to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.

I've never written a novel before, but I'm now over 4,000 words into one. And I'm already questioning whether word count is actually a good metric for me to focus on.

Obviously, I don't have a hard time with getting words down on paper. My problem has to do with plotting and structure, not fluency.

And yet, as I said, I've never written a novel before. So what do I know? This could end up being just the thing to help me accomplish that feat. I might as well join thousands of other people and do it the way they are doing it.

I may as well trust the process.

I have no idea, undertaking this journey, what's ahead. I don't have expert status here. Second-guessing myself will really just be a convenient way to avoid doing the work. On the other hand, if I do the work, I will learn something new. For me, that's the whole point—much more important than gaining 50,000 words of a novel.

It's a lot easier to learn something new if I do something I've never done and do it a different way than the way I've always done it. Otherwise, I'm going to get what I've always gotten, right? So I'm deliberately trying to change a pattern here.

Some NaNoWriMo participants are trying to break out of a cycle of procrastination and perfectionism that prevents them from sitting down and getting words onto the page. I, on the other hand, am trying to break out of a cycle of thinking I can find a better way to do something before I've even tried it.

How many times have I received good advice that I chose not to take? How many times have I read a book that showed exactly the steps to take to accomplish something, said, "That's interesting," and proceeded not to take any of those steps? Many. What did I do with all of the time and energy I saved? Generally, nothing.

However, there are also many times when I've stuck with something (blogging, running, music, higher education) even when it was uncomfortable or the path was unclear, and it has paid off. In an act of trust and faith, I followed those who had gone before and reaped the rewards.

Regarding NaNoWriMo, I can say that after only two days of writing, I have about ten scenes of a novel drafted. That's more than I have done since...ever. There might be something to this.

Are the scenes good? No. And I'm not just saying that to sound charmingly self-deprecating. They really are not good. The novel will not be good. But it is not my intent to write a good novel. I'm just trying to write 50,000 words of a novel, period. My hypothesis is that this will help me to write a good one someday. We'll see.

Not a lot is at stake. I anticipate that reaching the stated goal of NaNoWriMo will take me about twenty to thirty hours. Once I've done it, who will I be? What will be different? I don't know the answer to that question, and that's exciting to me.

Already, working through my hesitation about this writing commitment has me thinking about my other commitments (or lack thereof). Where am I hesitant to dive into a challenge because I don't want to get my hair wet, metaphorically speaking? Where am I so busy tinkering with the engine that I forget to try flying the plane?

Planning is important, but when I am reluctant to take action, it's not that I get lost in planning. Instead, I daydream or simply forget. If I want to make something happen now instead of someday, I have to create the minimum viable plan and just go.

For me, with NaNoWriMo, that minimum viable plan is to write 2,000 words a day. In order to be able to write those words, I then have to create a basic plan for each day. I'm interested to see how refined each day's plan will get, what additional resources I will need to create and execute that plan, and what I will learn from doing it.

I have no idea what I'm doing, which is fun and dangerous. It would be easy to give up and try something else. It will certainly be tempting to try to find a "better" way forward. But I am going to see what happens when I trust the process and just keep writing, day by day. I'll let you know how it goes.