NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul. And My Pride. http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458 DM Remember me? Yeah, it's been a while hasn't it. See the word count? Pretty pitiful, I know. For Chris Baty's last year I wanted to go all out, writing the best novel I could and once again beat his count, my goal every year. This was also my first year writing for the Pandas of NaNolanta, and I wanted to make them proud. Now they are probably looking at my count and laughing. :( But what happens to me? Depression knocks me on my rear and puts a chokehold on me, leaving me unable to write. Writing a sappy love story about a girl who meets a guy in Greece and falls in love at first sight feels wonderful when you're in a long distance relationship and almost can't take the distance anymore, and want to be in your MC's position so badly; total sarcasm. I stopped updating my count, although I ended up somewhere at 7k. When I failed to keep pacing I hid away. I didn't post on the forums anymore and I stopped going to IRC. I was so embarassed by my lack of winning I didn't want anyone to see. Well, here I am. Marvel at my spectular failure. 8c I'm gonna try for Script Frenzy!, can't make promises. Either way, I'm here again and I love you guys. Am I the only one who's had this kind of feeling? Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:37:48 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1083851 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1083851 Bookworm140 No need to hide, you're not the only one in your position. Sometimes life interferes and doesn't go the way we plan. Just because we're writers doesn't mean we're not affected by the world. I had a few easy years to start out and then the last two I got KO'ed by life and ended out just crawling over the finish line only by severe determination. And a wife who is determined to make sure I make it. (She's wanting to spend those royalty checks.) Hey, you got 7K words you didn't have before. No one should be laughing. I'm not. I applaud anyone who even tries to write a novel in a month. It takes guts. (Insanity helps, but I digress...) Even just saying you're going to try takes guts. You seem to be someone who keeps on going. No one is asking for more than you can do. I'll be doing ScriptFrenzy myself, most likely. See you there. Onward! Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:16:38 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1084022 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1084022 WrittenWord Hey. You. You're amazing. Yes, you are, DM. So 2011 wasn't a good year for you, so what? 2011, as a whole, sucked major balls. Everyone struggled with their novels. (Technically I only actually wrote 30k, but I wrote it all in haiku, so everyone told me it ought to count double...so I did.) And you know what? That's okay. It's been--what, five years since we met? Something like that? You started NaNo the year before I did and I didn't get active on the forums the first year, so we probably met in '07, so, okay, four years and a bit. I've known you on the NaNo forums and on Gaia Online (back when I was still active there--haven't touched it in probably about three years, oops). And now let me let you in on a little secret: I've always privately had a word war with you. Much like your goal being to top Chris Baty's WC, my MAIN goal was to reach 50k, but my second, secret goal was to beat you. I only managed it once--in 2009--by a very slim margin--in the last two hours of my writing time. (This year totally doesn't count.) The reason I wanted to beat you? Because you have been my idol. I'm serious. I've admired your wit, your sense of humor, and your prose since I first saw your posts on the forums. I remember looking at your NaNoisms in 2007 and thinking, "Gosh, her mistakes are better written than the stuff I wrote intentionally. I want to be able to do that, too!" So I set myself a goal. Every couple of days, when I'd see you on the NaNoisms thread, I would click your name and check your stats against mine. Seeing your count steadily rising against my jerky ascent would spur me to take things easier. And thanks to watching you, and trying to beat you, I've finally got to the point where my graph rises smoothly as opposed to in leaps and bounds. I got into a rhythm, and it's thanks to you. Everyone takes knocks. Everyone hits stumbling blocks. No one is laughing at you, and if they are, they have to answer to me. We're all in this boat together, and we all understand. Now...if you're doing ScriptFrenzy...allow me to take this opportunity to OFFICIALLY challenge you to a page war. I checked your record against mine...we've both done it since the beginning, and your success record is better than mine (I failed the first year and in 2010, whereas you only didn't make it in 2011). And we average about the same--just over the goal of 100 pages. What do you say? Shall we spur one another to better creative heights? Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:59:30 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1084731 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1084731 DM My apologies for taking a while to reply. I recently had to put my dog to sleep and for a few days I haven't felt like doing much. I did read your posts, but lacked the power to respond. Thank you very much for you words. ^^ And WrittenWord. It's on, gurlfran. Not gonna lie, I was reeeaaallly flattered by your post. Thank you <3 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:55:56 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1092061 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1092061 DM grrr why isn't there an edit button But. I actually would challenge myself to write more than you sometimes, so I guess we were warring against each other and didn't even realise it. ^^' Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:56:31 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1092062 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/nanowrimo-ate-my-soul/threads/49458?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1092062