Not exactly sure what it is I miss about NaNoWriMo once it is past, but I have a hard time getting motivated to do much of anything.
Perhaps I miss the camaraderie. It is great fun gathering with other crappy writers, both virtually and face-to-face to talk about our creations and how much fun we’re having creating them. There are other NaNoWriMo participants that try to make the event last all year. Some have declared January to be NaNoEdMo, the month they go back and edit their November masterpieces, while others have created NaNoWriYe, and have built an annual schedule for cranking out some number of crappy novels. I like both those things, but the latter especially strikes me as greedy. Part of NaNoWriMo is that it is a unique event when you can suspend the normal rules of your life and do what you really want to do.
Perhaps it is the writing itself, but I don’t think so. I don’t stop writing just because November is over. I may not write every day, but I still spend a lot of time at the keyboard.
Maybe I miss the deadline. I try to give myself deadlines, but when thousands of people share the same one, it makes the deadline more serious. When the entire world can see how you are tracking to the schedule, there is a motivation there that can’t be reproduced.
I think the main reason I feel melancholy, though, is that I realize how far from finished my story really is. I easily beat the word count goal for November, but I had set another goal for myself, and that goal I fell far short of. So I am continuing to pound away, but my desire to have something that is good to read from cover to cover is still far in the future, and no November is going to get me any closer.
